Rural immigration: then and now

  The image conjured up from the mention of rurality likely resembles Grant Wood's 1930 painting "American Gothic." The piece shows a man and a woman, two thin, tall looking, presumably Anglo-Americans standing in front of a farmhouse and a piece of another red structure. The man holds a pitchfork, and both the man and woman bear stern expressions imparted to them by the Great Depression. In the imagination of most people, the rural Americans Wood depicted are white farmers, without much thought as to the particular ethnic origin or religious denomination of such white farmers.  

Credit: Oleg Galeev

We often forget that the ancestors of people like those depicted in "American Gothic" were once immigrants too. Similar to the decrepit farmhouse in the picture, the material conditions shaping early immigration to the American countryside have faded, leaving behind echoes of the past. Large-scale commercial agriculture has since replaced small-scale, family-run agriculture. Rural residency is increasingly no longer defined by yeoman land ownership. 

I. How the timing of migrations result in the present-day makeup of most rural communities. 

The Homestead Act of 1862 radically changed the demographic landscape of American territory from the still-sparse Midwest to the Pacific Ocean, especially those sparsely settled territories in the Great Plains region. The act was accommodating toward immigrants at the time. 

The "37th Congress intended the Homestead Act as a way to bolster a stagnant population and build an agricultural nation through immigration and the settlement of the public lands of the United States."  Of course, the Homestead Act's preceding efforts found opposition, as "Northern  owners feared a mass departure of their cheap labor force and Southern states worried that rapid settlement of western territories would give rise to new states populated by small farmers opposed to slavery." The temporary exit of the southern states from the United States made the long-awaited Homestead Act a reality.

Newly arrived German immigrants took a significant portion of the land grants available, along with already settled Anglo-Americans and newly arrived Irish immigrants. As can still be observed from the 2020 census, German immigrants fleeing from turmoil within the not-yet united Germany now make up the lion's share of communities west of the original thirteen states. It's worth noting that even up to World War One, German-Americans themselves were still considered a type of ethnic minority. The frontiers, then as now, were a way for the marginalized to find more opportunities forbidden to them on settled shores. 

The echoes of migration patterns from Europe to the United States can be directly observed with the help of the US Census Bureau's My Congressional District interactive site. For example, a search of Idaho District 2 shows a variety of metrics for the population of the district, including ancestry. English (186,185) and German (138,240) outstrip all other ethnicities, with Irish (81,549) coming in a distant third. 

Next-door in Oregon's rural District 2, we see similar numbers with German, English, and Irish Americans far outstripping every other ethnicity. In Kansas's rural District 1, the contrast is more stark with German-Americans (195,377) outnumbering English-Americans (67,604) and Irish-Americans (79,082) combined. In Iowa, the scene of "American Gothic," German-Americans outnumber Irish-Americans, the second most populous ethnicity of the state, by a ratio of two to one in all four Congressional districts. The sheer demographic weight of German immigration was felt as far as in formerly Spanish California, where the city of Anaheim, the tenth largest city in California and home of Disneyland, was founded in 1857 as a colony of German farmers and vinters, although the vineyards were soon replaced by citrus groves. 

German-Americans, whose ancestors immigrated alongside Irish-Americans right on time for the frontiers to open for settlement, number among the top three ethnicities for most rural districts, alongside Irish-Americans and English-Americans. Italians, East European Christians, Jews, and Greeks arriving around the 1890s missed their opportunity to take advantage of the Homestead Act, so they mostly settled in the larger cities. 

The German-American predominance in rural communities appears to halt once hitting Appalachia. In Kentucky's 1st District, English-Americans (95,889) outnumber German-Americans (69,030). Further east in Kentucky's 2nd District, the ratio rises to above two English-Americans (107,759) for every German-American (48,809). Farther east in West Virginia's 1st District, within the bounds of America's original 13 states, we see German-Americans (84,681) again outnumbered by both English-Americans (142,824) and Irish-Americans (91,090). West Virginia's 2nd District, which is adjacent to Southwest Pennsylvania, has a plurality of German-Americans (154,652) outnumbering English-Americans (118,480) and Irish-Americans (123,287). Contrary to popular perception, the Scotch-Irish number only 15,067 and 12,822 in Districts 1 and 2 of West Virginia, respectively. In the far Southwest corner of Pennsylvania, Congressional District 14's German-Americans (179,027) massively outnumber English-Americans (73,661) and Irish-Americans (109,698). Even east of the Appalachian Mountains in PA's District 9, German-Americans hold an even more convincing plurality (209,396) over English-Americans (65,231) and Irish-Americans (92,200). However, just one district over in the significantly more urban District 8, German-Americans (113,212) are outnumbered by both Irish-Americans (136,548) and Italian-Americans (114,220).]

Looking at rural and inland Vermont’s only congressional district on the other side of the United States as a control, we see different numbers. Irish (119,423) and English (117,946) predominate Vermont with German (72,670) coming in third if French (53,628) and French-Canadian (39,718). The next most populous group in Vermont are Italians (51,200). New Hampshire tells a similar story, with Irish and Italian populations outpacing German populations. German-Americans find themselves without a plurality in most of Virginia's districts, North Carolina, and South Carolina, but still close to Irish and English population levels.

Based on the sample states mentioned, rural America is mostly dominated by English, German, and Irish Americans. German predominance in American communities would make Benjamin Franklin spin in his grave, although he would be relieved of his concerns that the Germans would not learn the English language. Although German-Americans and Irish-Americans are now considered white, I would argue that each group of immigrants carries with them historical distinctions within the context of American history. To clarify, English-Americans are the same stock as the Founding Fathers. While many Englishmen did immigrate to the United States in the 1800s, they did not need to assimilate to the same degree that German and Irish immigrants were expected to assimilate, so they don't necessarily share the same experience most immigrants had.  

II. The evolving situation

The conditions which led to the initial population of the American countryside have largely been undone. Roughly 40 percent of nonmetro counties reached peak-population in the 1950s before experiencing ongoing population decline. Small-scale agriculture continues to decline in profitability. Manufacturing, arguably more important to the rural economy than the urban economy, saw employment fall by nearly 30 percent between 2001 and 2015. Rural communities find themselves disinvested of schools for their dwindling youth demographic. Where rural communities are losing native-born population, minorities and immigrants have risen to the occasion, filling the gaps. In Juleberg, population of 1,181 in the Northwest corner of Colorado, one immigrant math teacher stepped in when no American math teacher would take the vacancy. In other communities, schools have looked overseas to fill teaching vacancies. Where Americans are unwilling to move to work positions in rural locations, it turns out that immigrants will. In Depopulation, Deaths, Diversity, and Deprivation: The 4Ds of Rural Population Change, Daniel Lichter and Kenneth Johnson shed light on surprising population trends surrounding the simultaneous depopulation of rural communities and the immigration toward rural communities. According to the 2020 Census, 76 percent of the non-metropolitan population is white, "nearly two-thirds of all rural population growth was due to Hispanic population growth," That growth, however, did not fully compensate for the total loss in population of nonmetro counties. 

Interpreting the data another way, immigration to rural communities may be cause for hope. If most of the population loss is from old age deaths, and presumably most immigrants to rural areas are young, working-age adults, it stands to reason that there's a possibility that recent arrivals may form families in these areas.

 Particularly with oil and natural gas harvesting, economic diversification comes opportunities for labor and ethnic diversity. While the workers in the PBS video are not immigrants to America, they are urban immigrants to rural spaces. As noted in the PBS video on natural gas fracking attracting a diverse array of workers, people are less likely to move when they have children. Like foreign immigrants, these workers too can become the basis of new local communities for later generations. An inference from this brief aside is that even as the need for labor in agriculture declines, there still exist new and alternative labor pulls to rural parts of the country. In a way, it's the same story as the rest of America's history on the frontier with spatial gaps waiting to be filled. 

                                                        Credit: Daniel Lichter, Kenneth Johnson

Though they receive far fewer grants and benefits than their German and Irish predecessors enjoyed, Hispano-American and Filipino immigrants are helping to revitalize America's old and new frontier in rural communities. 

III. Conclusion

The more things change, the more they don't. In the same way that the United States government relied in part upon German and Irish immigrants to settle the not-yet cultivated lands of the Midwest and beyond, the current government may learn lessons from the past. While a modern-day Homestead Act, in its exact prior iteration using federally held lands, is unlikely to succeed due to the ongoing difficulties presented to non-commercial small-scale agriculture, the expansion of internet and commercial infrastructure, not limited to cell towers and roads, to rural communities may see a different type of artisanal, non-land dependent, economic growth.