Heritage Enclaves

Last post we looked at the heritage (i.e., race/ethnicity/origin) of US Census respondents, at the state and county level. This time we’ll look at things at a much more granular level: Census Tracts. A tract is a small, relatively permanent subdivision of a city or county, averaging around 4,000 people. Sort of an extended neighborhood. The 2020 census reported the detailed heritage data at the tract level¹With the proviso that, for privacy and data-reliability reasons, the census reports zero for any tract’s heritage population below 22., so let’s take a look.

I’m going to start with White heritages, the most populous in the US (future posts will cover other races/ethnicities). For each heritage, I’ll list the census tract that had the highest concentration of that heritage. The list is sorted by this concentration. Heading the list is German

Heritage	Tract	County	State	Pct	National
German	9006.01	Clinton	Illinois	72.6%	13.6%

Here’s how to read this: in tract 9006.01 in Clinton County, Illinois, 72.6% of the population identifies their heritage as White, with German origin. This compares with a national average of 13.6% for German. This tract, which not surprisingly includes a village called Germantown, is in the southern part of the state, about 30 miles east of St. Louis.

The next highest percentage:

Heritage	Tract	County	State	Pct	National
Irish	7205	Cook	Illinois	65%	11.64%

I would have guessed Boston or New York would have the most concentrated Irish neighborhood, but it’s Chicago. Specifically, the Beverly community.

Heritage	Tract	County	State	Pct	National
Armenian	3015.02	Los Angeles	California	61%	0.16%

This particular tract is part of a large swath of the Glendale/Burbank part of L.A. which is highly Armenian. There’s a long history of Armenian settlement in Los Angeles. Of the top 100 census tracts most populated by Armenians, all are in Los Angeles County, and here is the epicenter (click on the tracts to see the details):

Heritage	Tract	County	State	Pct	National
English	102.16	Utah	Utah	56.4%	14.04%
Dutch	219.04	Ottawa	Michigan	55.1%	1.1%
Italian	39.02	Philadelphia	Pennsylvania	52.4%	5.07%

Italian heritage brings another surprise. While New York city has many more people of Italian ancestry, this South Philly neighborhood has a slightly higher concentration than any other tract. (New York’s Italian population is mostly in Staten Island. Ironically, one of the most concentrated tracts is in a neighborhood called Huguenot, named after the French Protestants who settled there to escape persecution from the Catholic Church 300 years ago.)

Heritage	Tract	County	State	Pct	National
Lebanese	5730	Wayne	Michigan	51.6%	0.21%
Portuguese	6532.03	Bristol	Massachusetts	47.2%	0.44%
Yemeni	5735.01	Wayne	Michigan	46.1%	0.03%

Arab migrants have been coming to the Dearborn area of Michigan for the past 140 years. Different waves (e.g., Christians from Lebanon, Muslims from Yemen) came at different times, and this explains two nearby tracts with different demographics. If we include all Middle Eastern heritages in the search, this area of Detroit dominates the list, with the top 20 tracts in the nation:

Heritage	Tract	County	State	Pct	National
Finnish	7	Houghton	Michigan	44.7%	0.21%
Polish	572	Bergen	New Jersey	43.1%	2.59%
Norwegian	9606	Fillmore	Minnesota	40.9%	1.16%
Russian	350	Kings	New York	37.8%	0.73%

Since the late 1800s, lots of Russians have settled in the southern part of Brooklyn, as evidenced by this map:

Heritage	Tract	County	State	Pct	National
Belgian	9604.02	Kewaunee	Wisconsin	32.9%	0.12%
Iranian	3001	Nassau	New York	32.7%	0.17%
French	9503	Aroostook	Maine	31.7%	2.41%
Arab	5735.01	Wayne	Michigan	30.4%	0.07%
Chaldean	1574	Oakland	Michigan	29.8%	0.02%
Iraqi	154.07	San Diego	California	28.7%	0.06%

El Cajon, about 15 miles inland from San Diego, has a large Iraqi Chaldean population. Starting in the 1980s this community has grown to have the largest concentration of Iraqis in the US. Nine of the top ten census tracts, based on Iraqi heritage, are found here.

Heritage	Tract	County	State	Pct	National
Czech	9678	Butler	Nebraska	27.1%	0.42%
Pennsylvania German	3124	Geauga	Ohio	22.7%	0.05%
Swedish	370	Chautauqua	New York	22%	1.16%
Danish	701	Audubon	Iowa	21.6%	0.4%

There are a lot more Swedes in Minnesota than New York. But Jamestown, New York got a lot of Swedish immigrants in the mid-19th century, and still leads the list.

As for Danes in Audubon County, Iowa, it turns out that’s just a matter of geography and timing. When Danes started settling in the area, that’s the region where farmland was available. As is the case with lots of immigration, once a heritage group settled in an area, future immigrants came to the same location.

At this point, the list drops below 20%. It’s hard to call a census tract an ‘enclave’ when less than one in five of its members identify with that heritage, so I’ll stop there. Next time I’ll look at the heritages of other race/ethnicities.