Top Ancestry or Hispanic or Racial Subgroups for U.S. County Subs and Places

[jimrtex]

As a test, here's what the NYC Metro map looks like if you define African American to be Non-Hispanic AAs - all Subsaharan African Ancestries - All West Indian Ancestries, as defined on the total ancesty table. Someone can be, say, Nigerian and Dominican, so I may be slightly undercounting by using that metric:



As expected, I think this is a bit over-inclusive. I think of places like Elizabeth, NJ as more Hispanic than African-American, but because the Hispanic groups are fractured, it comes out as plurailty African-American.

jimrtex - do you think this metric is better?

I would subtract (Subsaharan African minus African).

If you look at rural counties in the South, the entire Subsaharan African population is African, but this can also be true of some urban areas.

Brooklyn has 806K non-Hispanic Black alone, and 65K Black Hispanic. It has 166K Puerto Rican and 98K Dominican, so many may not report as black.

There are 308K West Indian (non-Hispanic). Jamaican, Haitian, Barbadian can be presumed to be black. Trinidadian and Guyanese (but they are separately reported) perhaps not so. Black Colombian's, etc. probably also identify as Hispanic.

I looked at the 5 NYC boroughs, Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester, and the four big upstate counties: Erie, Monroe. Onondaga, and Albany.

If you add the non-Hispanic Black, non-Hispanic Asian, and Hispanic (all races) you get most of the groups that the Census Bureau does not report ancestry. Then subtract *Guyanese, (Subsaharan African minus African) and West Indian (non-Hispanic), it is comparable to the "Other" ancestry. That is "Other" ancestry is for the most part not miscellaneous, but rather ancestry that is consistent with race and ethnicity (e.g. Chinese Asians, report Chinese ancestry; Blacks report African-American ancestry, except when they had some specific knowledge. Barack Obama could have reported Kenyan ancestry. Colin Powell might report Jamaican ancestry)

An exception is the Bronx which has fewer "Other" ancestries than one might expect. My guess is that some Puerto Ricans are reporting ancestries that are tabulated (either Irish, etc. or possibly something else).

So persons who report "African" ancestry probably didn't read the instructions that suggested "African American", or were somehow trying to connect to their African ancestry but didn't know a particular country. Those who report Nigerian or Ghanaian, probably actually do have a connection either themselves, or parents.

Someone who reported Cape Verdean, probably is Other race than Black, So that might also be subtracted from the Subsaharan African population.

Some South Africans probably are not black, particularly someone who said they were of Afrikaner ancestry, but also a significant number of other South Africans may be white (e.g. Elon Musk)

Most West Indian (non-Hispanic) are probably black. Someone who reports their race as "Jamaican" or "Haitian" is counted by the Census Bureau as "Black".

I'm not sure about Guyanese, which the Census Bureau does report as a separate ancestry.

[cinyc]

I've finally gotten around to putting an interactive version of this map on Carto. The Carto version is by Census Tract, which adds granularity in cities but not necessarily rural areas, where some County Subs/Places may be smaller than a census tract.

That interactive map is here:
https://cinyc.carto.com/viz/bbe0ba2d-3709-4933-9817-c545c4ca78ca/public_map

Clicking on a Census Tract will pop up a window that gives you the name and percentage of the Top Ancestry or Hispanic or Racial Subgroup for that tract.

There are also a series of interactive percentage maps for various ancestries/subgroups in my Carto account.

[jimrtex]

I've finally gotten around to putting an interactive version of this map on Carto. The Carto version is by Census Tract, which adds granularity in cities but not necessarily rural areas, where some County Subs/Places may be smaller than a census tract.

That interactive map is here:
https://cinyc.carto.com/viz/bbe0ba2d-3709-4933-9817-c545c4ca78ca/public_map

Clicking on a Census Tract will pop up a window that gives you the name and percentage of the Top Ancestry or Hispanic or Racial Subgroup for that tract.

There are also a series of interactive percentage maps for various ancestries/subgroups in my Carto account.

Interesting. I assume you will be producing single ethnic group maps for other groups (Korean, Vietnamese, Filipino, Asian Indian, etc.)?

Are Japanese in LA more business oriented. and wealthier, so they can live closer to the coast?

On the main map, I would group related groups together by color, with the largest groups less saturated in color.

e.g. Asian and maybe Middle Eastern groups in green. For example, currently Vietnamese is barely distinguishable from Mexican. Since it is easier to distinguish among various green tones, this would work in areas where there are small communities of various Asian ethnic groups (Houston, Southern California, New York).

AIAN in saturated pinks, there might need to be much need for color separation, since there is physical separation. This would permit the Sioux, Cherokee, Choctaw, Navajo, Hopi areas to be visually tied together.

Hispanic in brown, dropping the saturation of Mexican down, so other groups such as Guatemalan, etc. stand out.

Black, in Dark Brown with African American dropped in saturation, so any other groups such as Haitian might stand out.

European in blue, with the Germans in a pale blue, with English. American, Irish somewhat darker, and then Norwegian, Italian, Dutch, etc. in brighter blues.

What percentage of Guatemalans in Harris County reside in C.T. 4327.01?

[cinyc]

I've finally gotten around to putting an interactive version of this map on Carto. The Carto version is by Census Tract, which adds granularity in cities but not necessarily rural areas, where some County Subs/Places may be smaller than a census tract.

That interactive map is here:
https://cinyc.carto.com/viz/bbe0ba2d-3709-4933-9817-c545c4ca78ca/public_map

Clicking on a Census Tract will pop up a window that gives you the name and percentage of the Top Ancestry or Hispanic or Racial Subgroup for that tract.

There are also a series of interactive percentage maps for various ancestries/subgroups in my Carto account.

Interesting. I assume you will be producing single ethnic group maps for other groups (Korean, Vietnamese, Filipino, Asian Indian, etc.)?

Are Japanese in LA more business oriented. and wealthier, so they can live closer to the coast?

On the main map, I would group related groups together by color, with the largest groups less saturated in color.

e.g. Asian and maybe Middle Eastern groups in green. For example, currently Vietnamese is barely distinguishable from Mexican. Since it is easier to distinguish among various green tones, this would work in areas where there are small communities of various Asian ethnic groups (Houston, Southern California, New York).

AIAN in saturated pinks, there might need to be much need for color separation, since there is physical separation. This would permit the Sioux, Cherokee, Choctaw, Navajo, Hopi areas to be visually tied together.

Hispanic in brown, dropping the saturation of Mexican down, so other groups such as Guatemalan, etc. stand out.

Black, in Dark Brown with African American dropped in saturation, so any other groups such as Haitian might stand out.

European in blue, with the Germans in a pale blue, with English. American, Irish somewhat darker, and then Norwegian, Italian, Dutch, etc. in brighter blues.

What percentage of Guatemalans in Harris County reside in C.T. 4327.01?

I will be making maps for some additional groups - those who are tops in ancestry in 100 or more tracts. You named many of the Asian groups, but there are also a few Hispanic subgroups (Puerto Rican, Dominican, Salvadoran, etc), plus French (excluding Basque), Polish, Portuguese and a few others.

The problem with changing the color scheme so that similar groups are the same color is that I think it actually makes the map harder to read. Colors for the top 20 or so groups were chosen so that they were heavily saturated and didn’t come close with with each other. The next 200 or so were assigned less saturated colors based on their then-rank. Because of a lot of ties among smaller groups, a lot of the smaller AI, Asian and PI groups end up with the similar colors, anyway. But if, for example, Navajo and Hopi were both red, it would be harder to distinguish Navajo and Hopi areas in AZ.

I’ll get back to you on the Harris County C.T. 4327.01 numbers when I get to my computer later today.

[cinyc]

Harris County C.T. 4327.01 is 47.54% Guatemalan and 35.54% Mexican. The top (non-Hispanic) ancestry is German at 2.9%.

In theory, the Guatemalan percentage should pop up on the Top A/H/R map if you click on that tract, since it is top A/H/R.

[King of Kensington]

Are Japanese in LA more business oriented. and wealthier, so they can live closer to the coast?

My guess is that they're more assimilated (Japanese Americans are the only Asian group that's majority American-born) and have residential patterns closer to whites in L.A.

Asians tend to live in newer suburbs further from the water.

[King of Kensington]

What about Jews?  They're a plurality in certain NYC suburbs, probably in Brooklyn and Manhattan too and various other places like Brookline and Newton outside Boston, in pockets in Broward and Palm Beach etc.   

[cinyc]

What about Jews?  They're a plurality in certain NYC suburbs, probably in Brooklyn and Manhattan too and various other places like Brookline and Newton outside Boston, in pockets in Broward and Palm Beach etc.   

Jewish is not an ancestry reported by Census. Look for the areas dominated by Russians, Eastern Europeans, and, in some cases in NYC, Americans or Germans for areas in which Jews are the plurality.

Here's a cleaned-up map of the NYC Top Ancestry or Hispanic or Racial Subgroup with AA Estimate by Census Tract (Note the projection is Albers Conic CONUS, which distorts the direction a little bit - sorry Jim, but I made the Print Composer before switching projections and didn't want to redo it):

[jimrtex]

What about Jews?  They're a plurality in certain NYC suburbs, probably in Brooklyn and Manhattan too and various other places like Brookline and Newton outside Boston, in pockets in Broward and Palm Beach etc.   

The Census Bureau does not consider them an ancestry group. The instructions say: "Ancestry
refers to the person’s ethnic origin or descent, "roots," or heritage."

But also say "Do not report a religious group as a person’s ancestry."

These get converted into "Other". I have seen a study where an estimate was mad of how many persons responded "Jewish" based on the number of "Other" responses. It is possible that the number has declined with the ACS, because the followup is quicker.

[jimrtex]

What about Jews?  They're a plurality in certain NYC suburbs, probably in Brooklyn and Manhattan too and various other places like Brookline and Newton outside Boston, in pockets in Broward and Palm Beach etc.   

Jewish is not an ancestry reported by Census. Look for the areas dominated by Russians, Eastern Europeans, and, in some cases in NYC, Americans or Germans for areas in which Jews are the plurality.

Here's a cleaned-up map of the NYC Top Ancestry or Hispanic or Racial Subgroup with AA Estimate by Census Tract (Note the projection is Albers Conic CONUS, which distorts the direction a little bit - sorry Jim, but I made the Print Composer before switching projections and didn't want to redo it):

The clarity of the break between Domininicans and Puerto Ricans in the Bronx is dramatic. Is there a street that is considered the boundary?

Is that a lot of German tracts on the West Side of Manhattan, and American on the East?

What are the groups in Central Brooklyn? Is the entire black area considered Bed-Stuy?

Southwestern Brooklyn is Chinese?

How many ancestries are there represented in NYC? And additional ones in New Jersey?

[cinyc]

The clarity of the break between Domininicans and Puerto Ricans in the Bronx is dramatic. Is there a street that is considered the boundary?

It looks like the dividing line is the Grand Concourse (or a block or two to the east, to take in the apartment buildings on the east side of the boulevard).

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Yes - though the top percentages usually aren't that high (in the 10-20% range). The Upper West Side is historically more Jewish than the Upper East Side, and German tends to correlate with Jewish in NYC, I think.

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The groups in Central Brooklyn are African American (dark brown), Jamaican (brownish green), West Indian (olive-like color), African (middle green) and Haitian (yellowish green). I wouldn't doubt that some of the Africans there are actually from Africa, instead of African-Americans descended from slaves. Central Brooklyn has a large West Indian and first and second generation African population.

The whole area isn't considered Bed-Stuy. Bed-Stuy is in the northwest portion of the African-American belt in Central Brooklyn. It's nearer to Williamsburg, which is why it is gentrifying. Some of the other black neighborhoods are Crown Heights (southeast of Bed-Stuy), (further southeast) Brownsville and Canarsie (near Jamaica Bay). I think the West Indian/African area is mainly in East Flatbush.

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Yes - and in some tracts, by a clear majority. It's the new Chinatown, spiraling out from Sunset Park to SW Brooklyn.

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38 in the NY portion of the map, which includes a few towns in Westchester and Nassau. Iranian might only be tops in Nassau, so it might be 37 in NYC. There are 5 more different top ancestries in New Jersey, according to my count (Cuban, Portuguese, Peruvian, Brazilian and Egyptian).

[King of Kensington]

Looking around at some heavily Jewish suburbs of NYC:

Scarsdale

Russian  11.8%
Polish  8.4%
Eastern European  7.3%
Hungarian  1.8%
Romanian  1.6%
Austrian  1.5%

Millburn Township, NJ

Russian  11.3%
Polish  6.1%
Eastern European  4.9%
Austrian  2%

Town of North Hempstead

Polish  5.9%
Russian  5.6%
Iranian  4.3%
Eastern European  1.3%

It seems like unspecified "Eastern European" responses are mostly Jewish.   While most Polish Americans are not Jewish, I suspect most "Polish" responses in Jewish suburbs are Jews and not Polish Catholics.  Iranians in Long Island are mostly Persian Jews.

Since combining Russian and Eastern European wouldn't have any overlap, I wonder how much this would change the map.

[jimrtex]

What about Jews?  They're a plurality in certain NYC suburbs, probably in Brooklyn and Manhattan too and various other places like Brookline and Newton outside Boston, in pockets in Broward and Palm Beach etc.   

What does this map show?



I am particularly interested in the area in western Brooklyn, and the area going east from the Williamsburg Bridge. Also, in that northern area, would there be gentrification along the East River?

[Torie]

Regarding NYC gentrification, here is a toy to play with. One wonders where all the poor folks in NYC are going to go. East NY can only pack in so many people. A friend of ours just bought a one bedroom flat in East Harlem for 900K or something, using a 150K or so check she received to move out of a rent controlled apartment as a part of the down payment.

[King of Kensington]

What does this map show?

I can't make out what it means.

[jimrtex]

The clarity of the break between Domininicans and Puerto Ricans in the Bronx is dramatic. Is there a street that is considered the boundary?

It looks like the dividing line is the Grand Concourse (or a block or two to the east, to take in the apartment buildings on the east side of the boulevard).

It is kind of interesting that there is a sharp demarcation. Were the Dominican areas historically black? The black areas of the Bronx are now on the northern edge spilling into Westchester.

BTW, did you know NHGIS has Census Tract data for New York going back into the early 20th Century (for the earlier years, it would have foreign born, parents foreign born data, rather than ancestry).

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The groups in Central Brooklyn are African American (dark brown), Jamaican (brownish green), West Indian (olive-like color), African (middle green) and Haitian (yellowish green). I wouldn't doubt that some of the Africans there are actually from Africa, instead of African-Americans descended from slaves. Central Brooklyn has a large West Indian and first and second generation African population.

The whole area isn't considered Bed-Stuy. Bed-Stuy is in the northwest portion of the African-American belt in Central Brooklyn. It's nearer to Williamsburg, which is why it is gentrifying. Some of the other black neighborhoods are Crown Heights (southeast of Bed-Stuy), (further southeast) Brownsville and Canarsie (near Jamaica Bay). I think the West Indian/African area is mainly in East Flatbush.
[/quote]
I suspect that it might show up more if you aggregated the specific Subsaharan African groups, thought there are also likely to be distinctly Senegalese, Ghanaian, Nigerian, etc. neighborhoods.

Are the areas further east the result of expansion out of Bed-Stuy? Is that an Asian Indian area that divides the black area further east around JFK?

A curiousity, I was looking at language statistics, which unfortunately are not published on a fine level basis, and discovered that Malayalam speakers were more numerous in Fort Bend County than Harris County.

[支持核绿派 (Greens4Nuclear)]

A curiousity, I was looking at language statistics, which unfortunately are not published on a fine level basis, and discovered that Malayalam speakers were more numerous in Fort Bend County than Harris County.

It makes sense. Indian Americans tend to be highly educated/skilled and are concentrated in affluent suburban and urban areas, such as Sugar Land in Fort Bend County. I'm guessing the western and northern Houston suburbs are more affluent than the city proper.

[jimrtex]

A curiousity, I was looking at language statistics, which unfortunately are not published on a fine level basis, and discovered that Malayalam speakers were more numerous in Fort Bend County than Harris County.

It makes sense. Indian Americans tend to be highly educated/skilled and are concentrated in affluent suburban and urban areas, such as Sugar Land in Fort Bend County. I'm guessing the western and northern Houston suburbs are more affluent than the city proper.

This was specifically to Malayalam.

Harris County typically has more Asian speakers than does Fort Bend, but not necessarily on a percentage basis. Harris County has about 6 times the population as Fort Bend, so there are definitely higher concentrations of most groups in Fort Bend, but for Malayalam it is about 11:1.

Persian 6834 v 1989
Hindi 15148 v 7840
Gujarati 6405 v 5720
Urdu 17503 v 12002
Bengali 3255 v 950
Panjabi 1975 v 640
Marathi 1430 v 710
Nepali 3125 v 120
Sinhalese 955 v 135
Chinese 39,921 v 19,433
Korean 9454 v 999
Vietnamese 77,770 v 13,567
Telugu 3615 v 1435
Kannada 670 v 765
Malayalam 3545 v 6740
Tamil 2830 c 1125
Birmese 1165 v 65
Karen 1005 v 0
Japanese 2894 v 436
Mon-Khmer 3246 v 317
Thai 2013 v 531
Laotian 1533 v 174

[cinyc]

The clarity of the break between Domininicans and Puerto Ricans in the Bronx is dramatic. Is there a street that is considered the boundary?

It looks like the dividing line is the Grand Concourse (or a block or two to the east, to take in the apartment buildings on the east side of the boulevard).

It is kind of interesting that there is a sharp demarcation. Were the Dominican areas historically black? The black areas of the Bronx are now on the northern edge spilling into Westchester.

I think so. The AA neigborhoods in the north Bronx have been there for decades. Mount Vernon in Westchester (the spillover) has also been black for a long time. As you can see from the map, though, Jamaicans are moving into this area.

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No, I didn’t. That would be one heck of a project. It takes me about half a day to put together all the spreadsheets for this project, which kills my computer.

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The groups in Central Brooklyn are African American (dark brown), Jamaican (brownish green), West Indian (olive-like color), African (middle green) and Haitian (yellowish green). I wouldn't doubt that some of the Africans there are actually from Africa, instead of African-Americans descended from slaves. Central Brooklyn has a large West Indian and first and second generation African population.

The whole area isn't considered Bed-Stuy. Bed-Stuy is in the northwest portion of the African-American belt in Central Brooklyn. It's nearer to Williamsburg, which is why it is gentrifying. Some of the other black neighborhoods are Crown Heights (southeast of Bed-Stuy), (further southeast) Brownsville and Canarsie (near Jamaica Bay). I think the West Indian/African area is mainly in East Flatbush.
[/quote]
I suspect that it might show up more if you aggregated the specific Subsaharan African groups, thought there are also likely to be distinctly Senegalese, Ghanaian, Nigerian, etc. neighborhoods.[/quote]Probably.

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SE Queens near JFK has traditionally been a middle-class black suburban type area within the city. There are exceptions (the Italians of Howard Beach and in older days, Ozone Park).

I’ll have to check if the border areas are Asian Indian. They probably are.

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I wouldn’t doubt that. A lot of Asian Indians tend to live in the suburbs.

[Tintrlvr]

Regarding NYC gentrification, here is a toy to play with. One wonders where all the poor folks in NYC are going to go. East NY can only pack in so many people. A friend of ours just bought a one bedroom flat in East Harlem for 900K or something, using a 150K or so check she received to move out of a rent controlled apartment as a part of the down payment.

A full 60% of all rental housing units in New York City (not including owner-occupied units, but most housing units in NYC are rental units) are rent-regulated in some way (NYCHA, Mitchell-Lama, Section 8, NYC rent control, NYC rent stabilization, other programs). Poor people will go to that housing, or they're already there.

[jimrtex]

What does this map show?

I can't make out what it means.

What it is, is the number of persons reporting single ancestries of Other Groups. Because, the Census does not accept "Jewish" as an ancestry, responses of "Jewish" are coded as "Other". It is not clear whether "Other Groups" includes "Other" or literally other groups. The Census Bureau only shows about 100 ancestries, but NYC may really have neighborhoods that are literally "other groups", like Pitcairn Islanders.

But I had misread the results, and Other Groups are ancestries that the Census Bureau does not show in their ancestry tables, such as Chinese, Mexican, Puerto Rican, and African American. The map display in American Fact Finder does not permit display of ratios, so what I was showing was census tracts with lots of persons who responded that they had one ancestry that was not among those that the Census Bureau shows in their tables. So this would include ancestries associated with Asian, AIAN, NHOPI, Hispanic, and African American identities. The Census Bureau codes responses of Chinese ancestry as valid, it simply does not show such persons in its ancestry tables, which are primarily for European, Middle Eastern, and African (as distinct from African American) ancestries.

The second characteristic is that there be a large number of persons. Census tracts are intended to be permanent, so decade-to-decade comparisons may be made. But they also are intended to have a meaningful size (of around 4000 persons). If they become too populous, as in a suburban growth area, they may be divided, so that the two (or more) new tracts might at least be added together for comparison with the past. If they become too small, they may be consolidated, or perhaps redrawn so as to attempt to make them fit settlement patterns.

Brooklyn hit its top population in 1950, and declined by about 20% in 1950, and has since began to increase, and by 2020 will be close to its 1950 peak. In general there will have been little reason to modify census tracts. Some areas may seen a population decline due to smaller household sizes, or perhaps removal of lower-quality housing, or its replacement with less dense housing. Other areas may have seen building of higher density housing.

The area that caught my interest is Sunset Park. It has a large Chinese population, whose ancestry would be shown in the tables as 'Other Group'. Apparently there are either denser, multi-story housing or more families. By contrast Canarsie has relatively small number of Other Groups. Though largely black, population density may be lower because of smaller household sizes in single-family housing.

The area east of East River has few persons who reported a single ancestry in an 'Other Group', compared to the number who reported multiple ancestries that included an 'Other Group'. This may be due to more mixed ancestry persons in a gentrifying area.

[King of Kensington]

Russian + Eastern European is probably a pretty good proxy for Jewish in areas filled with 4th generation Reform Jews, though less so with less "mainstream" Jewish populations - ultra-Orthodox, Sephardic and so on.

In NYC, outside Manhattan I doubt a majority of Jews still have the "Ellis Island" immigration story.

[Tintrlvr]

What does this map show?

I can't make out what it means.

What it is, is the number of persons reporting single ancestries of Other Groups. Because, the Census does not accept "Jewish" as an ancestry, responses of "Jewish" are coded as "Other". It is not clear whether "Other Groups" includes "Other" or literally other groups. The Census Bureau only shows about 100 ancestries, but NYC may really have neighborhoods that are literally "other groups", like Pitcairn Islanders.

But I had misread the results, and Other Groups are ancestries that the Census Bureau does not show in their ancestry tables, such as Chinese, Mexican, Puerto Rican, and African American. The map display in American Fact Finder does not permit display of ratios, so what I was showing was census tracts with lots of persons who responded that they had one ancestry that was not among those that the Census Bureau shows in their tables. So this would include ancestries associated with Asian, AIAN, NHOPI, Hispanic, and African American identities. The Census Bureau codes responses of Chinese ancestry as valid, it simply does not show such persons in its ancestry tables, which are primarily for European, Middle Eastern, and African (as distinct from African American) ancestries.

The second characteristic is that there be a large number of persons. Census tracts are intended to be permanent, so decade-to-decade comparisons may be made. But they also are intended to have a meaningful size (of around 4000 persons). If they become too populous, as in a suburban growth area, they may be divided, so that the two (or more) new tracts might at least be added together for comparison with the past. If they become too small, they may be consolidated, or perhaps redrawn so as to attempt to make them fit settlement patterns.

Brooklyn hit its top population in 1950, and declined by about 20% in 1950, and has since began to increase, and by 2020 will be close to its 1950 peak. In general there will have been little reason to modify census tracts. Some areas may seen a population decline due to smaller household sizes, or perhaps removal of lower-quality housing, or its replacement with less dense housing. Other areas may have seen building of higher density housing.

The area that caught my interest is Sunset Park. It has a large Chinese population, whose ancestry would be shown in the tables as 'Other Group'. Apparently there are either denser, multi-story housing or more families. By contrast Canarsie has relatively small number of Other Groups. Though largely black, population density may be lower because of smaller household sizes in single-family housing.

The area east of East River has few persons who reported a single ancestry in an 'Other Group', compared to the number who reported multiple ancestries that included an 'Other Group'. This may be due to more mixed ancestry persons in a gentrifying area.

Honestly, the map has a very strong correlation with Latino population (everywhere that shows elevated is heavily Latino). Even in Sunset Park, the darker areas lean towards Latino, and it's points on the eastern edge of the darker areas that are more Chinese. If your description is accurate (this is just smaller groups), I think it's mainly smaller Latino groups too small to be the largest group anywhere (and not the largest Latino group in their areas) but still a fairly large group. May also be Latino people who steadfastly refuse to identify with a race/identify their race as Latino.

(The one exception is the far eastern edge of Brooklyn, south of Highland Park, which does have a substantial Latino population but where you may also be seeing spillover of Guyanese, who mostly identify as "Other" in the Census (some tracts in the adjacent areas of Queens are as high as 20% "Other" race) and are a substantial group in the adjacent part of Queens.)

[jimrtex]

What about Jews?  They're a plurality in certain NYC suburbs, probably in Brooklyn and Manhattan too and various other places like Brookline and Newton outside Boston, in pockets in Broward and Palm Beach etc.   

This approach seems to work somewhat better.



The Census Bureau also reports the number of persons who don't report ancestry. The instructions to the ACS, say that one should not report a religion as ancestry. It appears that in Brooklyn, many persons took that to mean not to report ancestry.

The area that stands out is Gravesend, which is home to many Sephardic Jews. They might be less inclined to report that they were "Moroccan" or "Berber", and the form says not to use "Jewish", so what do you. A recent Jewish immigrant from Russia, might have some Russian identity, since they would be less likely to come from a Yiddish-speaking ghetto than their predecessors 100 years ago.

Borough Park to the north also stands out which is a center of Orthodox Jews, which likely have a particularly Jewish identity.

Other areas with a large number of non-reporters, include (western) Crown Heights, and parts of Williamsburg.

This approach seems to work less well in the other boroughs. Queens has more dynamic growth, so use of percentage might be more useful. Manhattan had its peak population in 1910.

Overall, the percentage of non-reporters among the 5 boroughs and surrounding counties is around 10%. Nationwide, the states with the highest percentage of non-reporters are those with reported American ancestry. That is, some persons who don't know what to report, report "American" and others report nothing. If your ancestors were in America 250 years ago, then you could have 10-generations of ancestors (1024 GGGGGGGGrear-grandparents).

The highest share of non-reporters is in West Virginia  with 28%. States over 15%, listed in rank order:

WV 28%
KY 23%
AR 22%
IN 21%
AL 20%
TN 20%
WY 19%
MO 19
OK 19
IA 19
MS 17
OH 17
SC 16
ID 16
KS 16
NC 16

So generally states without a lot of immigrants for a long time, or were settled by persons from other states, as opposed to Europe directly.

Recent migration to the South Atlantic has likely knocked Virginia, Georgia, and Florida off the list, and pushed NC and SC down. States with a particular ethnic identity (IL-Poles and others, WI-German, MN-Scandinavian, LA-French) are notable for their absence from the list covering the middle of the country.

The lowest states are CA, HI, NJ, and RI.

So "not reporting" may indicate "Americans, not specific" and in New York might indicate areas with larger shares of Jews who followed the instructions to not report religion as an ancestry, distinct from persons unaware or not particularly conscious of distinct roots.

[King of Kensington]

Hungarian ancestry is the most commonly reported European ancestry in (Hasidic) Borough Park and Williamsburg.