LAB 7

ArcGIS & A SECONDARY SOURCE

The 2000 US Census

        The maps created below depict the percentage of Asians, Blacks or some other race in every county in the continental United States. They are the results of the 2000 Census which asked respondents to choose one or multiple races to describe themselves. This Census tried to place better focus on understanding  the diversity across the country. The majority of the people, 98%, chose only one race to describe themselves (Cassidy & Grieco 2011). The maps are visual interpretations of the results and shows the physical/spatial distribution of some of these races. I chose this specific yellow to brown color gradation because it shows great contrast between high and low concentrations of people. 

         About 10.2 million people, or 3.6 of the total population, chose their race as Asian (Cassidy & Grieco 2011). A large percentage of Asians live on the West Coast of the United States especially in central and southern California and the north-west of Washington. Throughout the rest of the continental United States, there are scattered counties with high percentages of the Asian race. The high concentrations in the west may be explained by immigration history. In the early decades of the 19th century, many Asian immigrants were processed through Angel Island in San Francisco, California and stayed within the state. Because the counties in the west are so large, if taking the number of counties in consideration, one could say that Asians do not have large percentages in too many counties. It is also important to note that the highest percentage a county has of Asian race is 46%, which is a great contrast to the highest percentage of Blacks. 

            The map above shows the there are many counties in the United States that have at least 25% of Blacks. Approximately 34.7 million people, or about 12%, reported only their race as only Black (Cassidy & Grieco 2011). Of all the three maps, this one shows the most grouped concentrations of one race. There are very few blacks in the western plains of the country.  It is clear that the majority of African Americans reside in the south or south east coast of the United States. There is a gradual decrease outward from the counties with the highest percentage of Blacks. A very plausible explanation of this distribution of people can be traced back to slavery in American history. In its early history, the slaves in the country worked in the deep south, working for huge plantations. Through marginalization and other setbacks even after the end of slavery, many Blacks did not have a good chance to leave the south. 

          This last map shows the percentages of people that reported being of some other race. Of the total population that reported, about 5% (15.4 million) chose this category (Cassidy & Grieco 2011). The highest percentage is about 39 and it is in the counties that are in southern mid-west and the western coast. As you move to the northward and eastward, the percentages drop significantly. This category of race consists predominantly (97%) of people of Hispanic origin (Cassidy & Grieco 2011). This may explain the distribution because the counties with high percentages of some other race border in close proximity to Mexico. 
        These choropleth maps can give us a greater understanding of the distribution of diversity in the United States. And even though these were the results from a Census taken eleven years ago, they give us clues about the people of the time. Those percentages and densities not only tell us about the physical distribution of people, but it can also be associated back to the cultural and social history of the nation. 




Reference:
Adapted from U.S. Census Bureau, Overview of Race and Hispanic Origin, by Elizabeth M. Grieco and Rachel C. Cassidy, Census 2000 Brief Series. Wednesday, 26-Jan-2011 
http://www.nationalatlas.gov/articles/people/a_race.html