Fear not gentle readers, with July’s “patriotic” poll results in, we can see that more LinkedIn users have recent immigrants in their family tree than not.
This author is making no comment or prediction on immigration policy except to point out some interesting data points and of course the results of last month’s poll
So let’s get on with this…
The big question
I was interested in finding out how far back in reader’s families one had to go to reach an immigrant. The actual question was:
How many parents back do you have to go to find one that immigrated into the US?
And because my chart below didn’t allow for the full answer text to be displayed, I ought to show you what poll responders could choose from:
- At least one of my parents immigrated into the US
- At least one of my grandparents immigrated into the US
- At least one of my great-grandparents immigrated into the US
- At least one of my great-great-grandparents immigrated into the US
- Everyone in my family tree has been a US citizen for a really long time…
It seemed to me that that was as far back as I needed to list.
Three issues with the poll
In hind sight, I see that I posed this question with two skews and an oversight when I really meant for it just to have the two skews…
First – people living outside the US had no good reason to participate, and if they chose to participate, could skew the results.
Second – by asking about the most recent ancestor that immigrated into the US, the results will tend to indicate families are “newer” than it would if I asked for the ancestor that was born in the US from the longest time ago.
And third – I left no option for those that might have NO ancestor that immigrated to the US because they were the very first to do so.
Non-US responses
As I have revealed that I have some data on poll responders in last month’s shocking revelation about web browser use, it should not be much of a revelation to say this month that I can also tell where people respond from…
AND ONE OF THE RESPONDENTS WAS IN EUROPE!
So – rather than suggest that a non-US individual was trying to skew these numbers, I will declare that it must have been a US citizen on vacation (or visiting family) that absolutely wanted to participate in the poll, and knew they were not going to return state-side in time.
So they responded to the poll in some internet cafe or something like that…
Recent immigrants
Well – if you’re trying to make a point that people should be more lenient about something like immigration, it makes sense to get readers of your poll to identify with the “common man” in the results. This theme will come up later in the article.
No ancestor
I didn’t see this ahead of time, and no poll taker attempted to contact me, but if an individual was reading this poll and was in fact the first person in their family to immigrate into the US, they had no good answer to give…
I do apologize to anyone in this category – that was not my intent.
Charts and such
Yes, yes, on with the charts – I know – people write in every month and tell me I blather on about the polls and show the results much too far down in the writing for their tastes…
How many parents back do you have to go to find one that immigrated into the US?
Notice – the choice of categories seems to be about right. All those that were in the “oldest” families could be split among sever different generations beyond “great-great-grandparents”…
What it means
And here I’ll support the striking headline for this article.
If you take the 14% of responders that had a parent immigrate into the US and add that to the 38% that had a grandparent immigrate to the US, you have 52% – a clear majority of people that had a recent immigrant!
But beyond that, if you consider just one more generation – great-great-grandparents, we find that 81% are within those three generations!
I’d call that support for a “young” America.
What it really means
Once I’m in let’s not let anyone else…
That’s a common theme I see nowadays – me and my family went through the proper hazing rituals and are members of the fraternity – and we’re closing the doors.
The rules say we don’t have to let you in…
This is another common theme – but of course, who made up those rules? We did – the people that are already in!-) I believe the theme is along the lines of “We shall henceforth allow no girls membership into the GROSS club” from Calvin and Hobbes, and it was just as logical for them.
We want to live where you are…
And of course this is the highest form of flattery. But wouldn’t it be better if you changed the environment of where you lived and made it nicer to live in – then you wouldn’t have to move?
I do find it quite ironic when any non-native American insists that anyone who ever came to the US without following the rules of the people that were living there at the time allowed should leave…
Next up – How many direct connections with individuals living outside your country do you have?
So now that we’ve gone international – let’s check – how internationally connected are you?
Again – The LinkedIn Personal Trainer polls are just a good excuse for sharing information – you like that don’t you?
Check it out – just over to the right and up.
To your continued success,
steve
—
Steven Tylock
http://www.linkedinpersonaltrainer.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevetylock
| At least one of my parents immigrated into the US |
| At least one of my grandparents immigrated into the US |
| At least one of my great-grandparents immigrated into the US |
| At least one of my great-great-grandparents immigrated into the US |
| Everyone in my family tree has been a US citizen for a really long time… |