Racial Types in the Population of the 

 United States 



Till': ••.MELTlNii I'OT" .MAKES AMERICANS OF US ALE AND PRODUCES 



RAPID CHANGES IN CUSTOMS AND LANGUAGE. HUT IS SLOW 



U\ BREAKIN(; DOWN THE BARRIERS BETWEEN 



DIVERSE BIOLOGICAL RACES 



Bv L. K. S ULLT VA X 



NOW tlmt tlic H-,v;it World W;w is 

 diiiiiL;' Ml iinich Inward breaking" 

 diiwii natiiu)ali>lic fcelin.aj })v- 



twrcn the dill'i'i'dlt clcllicllt s <d' oill' 

 ])()])ulati()ii and iiiakiuL;' Americans out 

 of citizens whn hciTtoroi'c have jiridcd 

 themselves on birth in some foreign 

 hnid. it is interesting to inquire into 

 llic liiological signifieanee of the term 

 '•American." 



It is no new tiling to say that in the 

 United States we liave an unusually 

 large number of nationalities, each 

 represented by thousands of individu- 

 als, living side by side. In fact, so 

 accustomed are we to hear America 

 spoken of as the "Melting Pot" tliat 

 few of us stop to consider the signifi- 

 cance or applicability of the term. To 

 most of us it invariably provokes the 

 conception of a very badly jumbled and 

 thoroughly mi.xed condition of people 

 and affairs, in fact a sort of biological 

 liash. A little investigation into the 

 matter seems to indicate that the mi.x- 

 ture is more truly cultural and lin- 

 guistic than biological. 



Xo nationwide anthropometrical in- 

 vestigation has been made in the United 

 States. How then can we get any light 

 on the racial characters of our popula- 

 tion? Obviously the only resource in 

 lieu of a badly needed survey is to trace 

 our population to its original sources 

 and study the results of anthropological 

 surveys of these countries. While such 

 a method cannot give the desired accu- 

 rate information, it should at least help 

 us to form some conception of the prob- 



able status of the various racial types 

 in oui' conntrv. 



FoiiKKix Stock ok Differext 



Xatioxai. Groups ix the 



UxiTED States 



While it would be ne.xt to impossible 

 to trace accurately the sources of our 

 entire population, it is a comparatively 

 simple matter to obtain the origin of a 

 v(>ry large sample. I refer to the so- 

 called "foreign stock" of our census. 

 "Foreign stock" includes all those in- 

 dividuals born in a foreign country or 

 haviiig one or both parents born else- 

 where than in the United States. Some 

 idea of the size of this sample will be 

 obtained from the fact that this for- 

 eign stock comprised 35 per cent of our 

 total population at the time of our last 

 census. Add to this the fact that about 

 11 per cent of our entire ])opulation of 

 93,000,000 are Xegroes and we have ac- 

 counted for nearly half our population. 

 A sample which includes 46 per cent 

 of a group of 93,000,000 individuals is 

 surely sufficiently large to throw some 

 light on the true status of affairs. 



One disconcerting fact about this 

 sample is that it is not evenly distrib- 

 uted throughout the various states. 

 The proportion of foreign stock varies 

 from less than 1 per cent of the total 

 population in X'orth Carolina to 73 per 

 cent in Minnesota (see map 1). Very 

 few of the states contain less than 10 

 per cent while the greater number con- 

 tain more than 30 per cent. It is 

 noticeable that just those states which 



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