- This picture depicts a family living in a Shtetl. This was taken in Belzyce, Poland circa 1882.
Demography and Residence Patterns
In this section of the website, we will be discussing demography and residence patterns of Eastern European Jews (1880-1924) and Mexicans (1970’s-Present) to the US and in particular, New York City.
In our examination of patterns, trends, and shifts, we hope to paint as visual and accessible a picture as possible about the great transformations that occurred within these populations in the relatively short time span of several decades. The greatest transformation, of course, is immigration itself. To take a population that belonged to a a larger community that had shared experiences and become accustomed to one way of life for generations and to uproot it is to greatly change established demography and residence patterns. We first must define demography and residence patterns in order to establish the concepts:
Demography is, generally, the study of human populations using statistics gathered by researchers. Commonly collected data include education, nationality, religion, and ethnicity criteria and examined for patterns. Residence patterns explains the studies of demography by describing the living conditions and circumstances of a particular population.
Essentially, we are looking at how and where these two populations were/are both living.
