Geography 111Human Geography

Geography 111Human Geography

EXERCISE #3: WHO ARE WE?

In this exercise you will be examining the racial, ethnic and nationality composition of your home countyin relation to the make up of your home state and the United States.

PART A: RELATIVE RACIAL COMPOSITION

Step 1: Go to the U.S. Census Bureau’s website at

Step 2: Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page. In the second column, click the American FactFinder link.

Step 3: Under the Community Facts heading, enterUnited Statesinto the box, and hit the GO O button.

Step 4:Click the link titled Race and Hispanic or Latino Originand then scroll down to the subsection entitled RACE.

Step 5:Enter the corresponding data for the total U.S. population as well as the populations and percentages for each race identified in the gridon page 2 of this assignment.

Step 6: Once you have entered all the U.S. data, hit the back buttontwice in the upper-lefthand corner of the page to bring you back to the Community Facts page.Now,type the name of your home state(e.g.Wisconsin) into the box and hit the GO button.

Step 7:Again,click the link titled Race and Hispanic or Latino Originand scroll down to the subsection entitled RACE.Enter the corresponding data for the total state population as well as the populations and percentages for each race identified in the gridon page 2 of this assignment.

Step 8: Once you have entered all the data, return to the Community Facts page. Now type the name of your home county and state (e.g. Florence County, Wisconsin) into the box, hit the GO button,

Step 9:Again, click the link titled Race and Hispanic or Latino Originand scroll down to the subsection entitled RACE.Enter the corresponding data for the total county population as well as the populations and percentages for each race identified in the gridon page 2 of this assignment.

Step 10: Once you have entered all the data, hit the Back button one time to return to the screen that contains the large box highlighting the population of your home county.

A. 1. Your County and State:

(In order to save space, you may use decimals for populations in millions, e.g.: 5,421,972 = 5.4m)

Total Pop. / Total White / % W / Total Black or African American / % B / Total Hispanic or Latino / % H or L / Total Asian / %A / Total Am. Indianand Alaskan / % AmIndianand Alaskan
U.S.
State
County

A.2. County and State Location Quotient (LQ):Individually divide the Percent Black, Hispanic, and Asian at both the county level and state level by the Percent Black, Hispanic, Asian, and American Indian at the United States level. Enter the LQ in the blanks provided below.

Enter an H if your county or state has a higher proportion of that minority group than the national average

Enter an L if your county or state has a lower proportion of that minority group than the national average

Enter an S if your county or state is similar (.9 thru 1.1) to the proportion of that ancestry to the nat’l avg.

Use this scale to determine which letter to use: H > 1.1 S = .9 thru 1.1 L < 0.9

EXAMPLE: LucasCounty, Ohio

U.S. Population %:Black =12.6% Hispanic = 16.3% Asian = 4.8%Am. Indian = 0.9%

State (Ohio) Population %: Black = 12.2% Hispanic = 3.1% Asian = 1.7%Am. Indian = 0.2%

County (Lucas) Population %: Black = 19.0% Hispanic = 6.1% Asian = 1.5%Am. Indian = 0.3%

LQ H, L, or SLQ H, L, or S

BlackState = (12.2/12.6) = .97SCounty = (19/12.6) =1.51H

HispanicState = (3.1/16.3) = .19LCounty = (6.1/16.3) = .37L

AsianState = (1.7/4.8) = .35 LCounty = (1.5/4.8) = .31L

Am. Indian State = (0.2/0.9) =.22LCounty = (0.3/0.9) = .33L

LQ H, L, or S LQ H, L, or S

A.2.1 BlackState = ______County = ______

A.2.2 Hispanic or LatinoState = ______County = ______

A.2.3 AsianState = ______County = ______

A.2.4 Am. Indian / AlaskanState = ______County = ______

B. ANCESTRY

B.1.Think about your home county in terms of its ethnic influences—such as Germans, Hmong, Norwegians, Somalis, and others. Read the cultural landscape of your hometown and identify ethniccultural clues in your hometown: i.e.lutefisk dinners, street names (i.e. Clairemont Ave.), last names of people from the area, churches, business names, the types of food you find, accents, common phrases or sayings, place name etymologies, etc. List FIVE (5) cultural cluesand indicate each clue’s corresponding ethnicitybelow:

CULTURAL CLUE / ETHNICITY
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Step 11.Starting from the screen that contains the large box highlighting the population of your home county, scroll down the list of options on the left side of the web page and select Origins and Language.► Then, under the2015 American Community Surveysection,click theSelected Social Characteristics (Household and Family Type, Disability, Citizenship, Ancestry, Language, …)link.

Step 12: Make sure you have the 2015 data selected in the box on the left side of the page. Then, scroll to the bottom of the table and add up all the ancestries in the lefthand column of data.

Step 13:Enter in descending orderthe 5 (five) largest ancestries in your county by percentage.

Step 14:Once you have entered all the data, return to the Community Facts page, enter United States into the box, andrepeat steps 11, 12,13, and 14 for U.S. ancestries.

Step 15: Enterthe national ranking and percent of the U.S. population for each of your county’s top five ancestries—you can figure out the U.S. ranking by placing all of the ancestries in the table in descending order according to their percentages.

Step 16: Then, like you did in question A.2.,individually divide the county percent of each ancestral grouping by each ancestry’s national percentage to obtain the county LQ for each ancestral group. Enter the LQ and then H, L, or S according to the LQ.

EXAMPLE: LucasCounty, Ohio

NOTE: “Other” is a valid ranking!

Your County's Most Cited Ancestries / % of Total CountyPop / Ancestry ranking
on U.S. list / Ancestry % of Total U.S. Pop. / CountyLQ / H, L, or S

1.German26.81 14.9 1.79H

2.Irish12.22 10.8 1.17H

3. Polish 9.46 3.0 3.10H

4. English 6.83 8.0 .86L

5. American 4.44 7.1 .63L

B.2. Comparing Your County’s Census Data with National Averages

Your County's Most Cited Ancestries / % of Total CountyPop / Ancestry RANKING on U.S. list / Ancestry % of Total U.S. Pop. / CountyLQ / H, L, or S
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

B.3.How do your observations in B.1. match up with the data found in the above chart in B.2.? In what ways? Compare and explaineach ethnicity of your cultural clues found in your home county and how they align or contrastwith eachancestry found in the US Census data.

B.4.Now take a look at the Ancestries listed on the U.S. Census page and think about all the people in the United States and / or in your home county. Generally speaking, what group of ancestries are provided on this list? Aside from people who self-identify with more than one ancestry, what large groups of people can you think of that are not on the list—and why is this? Explain.

**Add another page if you need additional space for your responses.**