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Not much to say to Mexico really - million reasons /neighbour, huge population, history, economically closer and so on.
If not counting huge European immigration in 2nd half of 19th century until WW1 than look at who is immigrating to the US. Either people with skills or mostly people who want better life/that means are not doing so great in their current country/ obviously % speaking those people who are rather ,,poorer,, are large majority. There were limits for certain countries/quotas after WW1 so things changed and this massive immigration to the US started again in 70s, even 80s, half century before that immigration was limited/exception WW2 times and so on/. From peak European immigration in early 20th century share of foreign born US population went down from close to 15% to 4.5% in 70s and since than slowly is again increasing with huge immigration in last 2 decades and now is probably going to surpass foreign born share records from century ago.
If you look at which countries are the most important in foreign born population shares -
By foreign born population look at countries that are major source of immigrants to USA - by total number of born outside US/not per year. Based on this you can see why South American share is so low
1.Mexico - obviously
2.China- largest population in the world and look at massive Chinese immigration to Canada, Australia and so on/also students, historically since 2nd half of 19th century there were Chinese immigrants
3.India - similar patterns as China with huge population, students, experts, job reasons, reunification, some refugees and so on
4.Phillipines - pretty large population, also just like China and India major source of immigrants also to Australia or Canada/historical US connection and Filipions have beenin the Us also for much longer time than even some European groups
5.Vietnam - there was huge war with them, refugees and later immigration - which is always easier with strong communities and also pretty large population/similar to other top Asian groups with huge emmigration also to Australia and Canada
6.El Salvador - there was horrible civil war so US ,,opened,, the gates for them also it is relatively close - much closer than rest of South America and accessible by foot through Mexico - just like other central American nations
7. Cuba - proximity of Cuba towards Florida and Cuban ties with US before Castro and later emmigration - easily explainable
8. South Korea - good ties with USA, very pro-American country and relatively large population - on size of Colombia which is No.2 in South America
Somehowere there in Top 8 shold be also Puerto Rico which is technically US territorium and not in statistics.
i don´t want to write down every country separately so next countries that follows are Dominican Republic/proximity, Guatemala/civil war/proximity, Canada/logical, Jamaica/proximity, UK/logical, now COLOMBIA, Haiti, Germany, Honduras, PERU, Poland, ECUADOR, Russia, Iran, Italy and so on.
There are many countries with larger populations than many of South American countries with good reasons to immigrate to the US. Many South American countries had i guess restrictions like VISA needed, not large enough communities decades ago, also the distance is really not so close for majority of South Americans i think. Many leftist regimes or military regimes, US influences in the region and so on. I believe USA was not so welcoming towards South American with their visa policy for decades. Brazil has over 200 million people, half of South America lives in Brazil, yet what is their share from South Americans? much lower than that with more Colombians, Peruvians or Ecuadorians in USA.
Paraguay or Uruguay are small countries far away, Argentina was mostly among richer states in the region and far away.
Chile is also rich/at least today, was leftis before so some refugees and so on.
If you look at largest South American communities in USA - we speak about countries in northern half closer to US borders and also population wise larger - Colombia, Peru, Venezuela have logically much more people in the US than countries in southern half of South America with smaller populations. Brazil is the one exception here - i guess Brazil never supported emmigration it´s not like there are huge Brazilian communities in other developed countries with some of them in Australia, Canada, Japan/mostly ethnically Japanese, UK, Spain, Switzerland, Italy and Portugal.
Some countries are more open to emmigration than others - some cultures prefer to stay back home, some prefer to try luck in other countries.
We can even discuss how ridicoulously low is share of Africans in America/ i mean current immigrants/ or people from Arab world/not all are Arabs - their share among immigrants in western Europe is very high again for proximity and historical reasons.
The largest number of South Americans come from Colombia with a population of around 360,000 which includes dual citizens, and then the numbers sharply drop, there are for example only 26,000 Paraguayans in the US, less than 100,000 Argentines.
Where do these numbers come from? According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were 677.000 Colombians in the country in 2013; 440.000 Peruvians; 428.000 Ecuadorians; 337,040 Brazilians; 260.000 Guyanese (one third of the population living in Guyana); 198.000 Venezuelans (the number must have increased a lot from 2013 to 2016); 171.000 Argentinians and 98.000 Chileans.
In addition for example my uncles upper-middle class relative in Brazil are used to being catered to excellent service in restaurants, people that do their cooking, cleaning etc. a door man for security a driver. Breakfast meals served with many tropical fruits, fresh baked bread nice coffee people refer to them as senhor and senhora. Why the hell would people like this want to bust their hump in America to live an American middle class lifestyle out in the suburbs.
Yes, this is quite true. Why leave your culture and a comfy life to start from scratch in the US?
Where do these numbers come from? According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were 677.000 Colombians in the country in 2013; 440.000 Peruvians; 428.000 Ecuadorians; 337,040 Brazilians; 260.000 Guyanese (one third of the population living in Guyana); 198.000 Venezuelans (the number must have increased a lot from 2013 to 2016); 171.000 Argentinians and 98.000 Chileans.
From the US department of immigration, didn't you see the link?
The numbers count migrants, not American citizens or people with such heritages.
South America as a region lags behind Central America/Mexico, The Caribbean, Asia, South Asia, Europe in number of immigrants.
To give you a perspective, there are about the same number of Indians as there are South Americans in the US, take into account India is one country on the other side of the planet, while South America it's 12 countries right next to North America, and prior to 1980's there were less than one million South Americans in all of the US. The numbers increased in the 80's and 90's and the total bulk of immigrants from the region have been declining ever since.
Our resident member who complains about this all the time is probably the OP.
Yeah I know, but it sounded good.
They also need to know that we also use "Mexican" and "Mexican-American" interchangeably. Living in California, I understand that the term means both a nation as well as your culture regardless which side of the border you were born on.
In addition for example my uncles upper-middle class relative in Brazil are used to being catered to excellent service in restaurants, people that do their cooking, cleaning etc. a door man for security a driver. Breakfast meals served with many tropical fruits, fresh baked bread nice coffee people refer to them as senhor and senhora. Why the hell would people like this want to bust their hump in America to live an American middle class lifestyle out in the suburbs.
I lived and worked in Peru for 16 months and observed similar among the upper class of Peru (mostly white). they have maids, people to tend their gardens, good fruits and vegetables....if they moved to the USA, they would not have the same status. For the poor of Peru, they don't have the means to easily move and going through Central America and Mexico would be extremely dangerous and costly.
I lived and worked in Peru for 16 months and observed similar among the upper class of Peru (mostly white). they have maids, people to tend their gardens, good fruits and vegetables....if they moved to the USA, they would not have the same status. For the poor of Peru, they don't have the means to easily move and going through Central America and Mexico would be extremely dangerous and costly.
I met many Peruvians from the Peruvian community in Southern Florida, they were some that were from Spanish and Italian ancestry, but most I met Northern European - German - and diverse European countries. Even though they lived lavishly on condos and expensive properties, they all concluded that live was better in Peru..but they were afraid of inestability during those times. The first arrived during Velasco Alvarado, then came Sendero, etc. Their assimilation with the English speaking community was zero.
They, and Brazilians, were the ones that imported the concept of luxurious condos.
Last edited by karstic; 09-03-2016 at 11:00 AM..
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