322 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1946 
1940 would appear as 8.66 percent instead of 3.35 percent. Also, of 
course, if a State has a small native population, a relatively few for- 
eign-born will show up as a high percentage, whereas in a populous 
State only a very large number of foreign-born will produce this 
same high percentage. 
Glimpsing the record of each of these immigrating nationals in this 
way (figs. 5 and 6), which is comparable to looking at random frames 
from different moving picture reels, we get impressions of a repeated 
story varying in minor details. Essentially—and this is true also for 
English, Germans, Swedes, Poles, etc.—the same nationals have tended 
to go to the same parts of the country decade after decade, although 
the distribution differs for each. The northern and western European 
peoples, among them the Irish, came early, as already pointed out, and 
the southern and eastern European peoples, among them the Italians, 
came late. However, in both cases in 1940, nearly 20 years after 
immigration was drastically curtailed, few remain in the category of 
foreign-born. Henceforth the foreign-born will be a very minor 
element in census records. 
Now, again, it is one thing to know where the foreign-born have 
settled and in what proportions, and it is quite a different thing to 
know what has become of their descendants—now native-born. In 
most cases, and certainly it is true of the descendants of northern and 
western Europeans, the second generation born in America is already 
indistinguishable culturally and physically from the descendants of 
Old Americans. Lacking stigmatizing foreign traits, there are few 
limitations on travel within the United States. Although we have no 
detailed records, we know that there has been an increasing internal 
migration in recent years. Using the State-of-birth data in the census 
reports, it is possible to learn not only the birth sources of the people 
living in each State, but also the destinations of the natives who had 
moved away from the State. The difference between those born out 
of a particular State who are living in it, and those born in the State 
who are living out of it, while not a complete measure of the net 
interstate migration, is a useful migration index. Obviously, depend- 
ing upon the direction of this migration, the index may be positive or 
negative. The positive changes in population calculated in this way 
for the periods 1900-1910 and 1920-1930 are shown in figure 7. 
During the last depression and again during World War II internal 
migration, especially to California, reached tremendous proportions. 
This is vividly illustrated by the following quotation from a popular 
news weekly: 7 
The westward wartime migration which had increased California’s population 
from 6,907,000 to 9,000,000 by VJ-day was growing heavier. Despite the fact 
7 Time Magazine, April 15, 1946, p. 23. 
