Lab 7 (Week 8)

The black or African-American population totaled 38.9 million and represented 13 percent of the total population. The distribution of the black is more equal in the western part, where mostly contain about 12% of the Africa- American people. On the other hand, the distribution in the eastern part is more disparate. The majority of black people live in the southeastern part, which is around 87% of them. To know the attribution of the black distribution, we need to look back to the American history. In the very beginning of the U.S. history, our ancestors first settled in the eastern area. At that time, black people were brought to America as slaves. When time past on, they have been trying to move to the other regions, but the discrimination to the black people in other places is strong; therefore, black people are forced to stay and live in the southeastern part of America. Another reason is that small companies in this region needed cheap labor to work for them in the past. For example, people were needed to collect cotton. Since black people may wish to work as workers rather than slaves, they stayed in the southeastern to continue their lives.

As this map suggests, the distribution of Asians in the United States is not so even; in other words, Asians are grouped in certain regions. The most western and the most eastern part are the areas which Asians concentrate in. According to statistics, close to 66% of Asian-Americans live in five states: California, New York, Hawaii, Texas, and Illinois. These five states are mainly located in the western and the eastern part of America. The most concentrated part that Asians live in is in California – about 46% of Asians are living in California. The second most concentrated part is New York – about 18% of Asians are staying in that area. One of the reasons why they like to group together is that they love living near Chinatowns in major cities, such as San Francisco and Los Angles, since they do not familiar with places beside Chinese people area. However, this tendency has recently changed. Asians have started to move to some suburban area for their living.

Some other race alone means those people who do not belong to white, black or African American, American Indian and Alaska Native, Asian, or Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander. Mainly, Hispanic and Latino belong to this group. We can see people that consider as some other race congregate in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. It is because there is the United States-Mexico border in those states; Hispanic and Latino are likely to settle down there when they migrate to the US. Moreover, those four states were used to be a part of Mexico in the past, thus, many Hispanic chose to stay in there even those places became America. The other reason that they live in the southwestern is working opportunity. Since Hispanic is more willing to do labor work such as agriculture, and the conditions are very good for planting in southwestern region, they would like to work in there. As a result, there are high percentages of Hispanic and Latino in the southwestern US.

Concluding Discussion about Census Map Series

          In my map series, they show different races concentrate in different regions in the United States. Large percentage of African American is in the southeastern; Asian is in the most western and in the most eastern, and some other race is in the southwestern region of America. There are many reasons leading uneven population of all the races, such as their origins, discrimination, and working opportunity. I believe the pattern of population will not have dramatic changes as many of the people prefer to live in the neighborhoods where contains other people who have same races as them. It is because those people who are in the same races have same culture backgrounds and first languages, it is much easier for them to communicate and new immigrates can adapt to the new living environment easier.

Overall Impressions of GIS

          I think GIS is a very important system to everyone because it can provide organized information for all aspects that is about places. Using GIS to present information is especially common in education. When we read the knowledge that is about origins, distributions, locations, routes, and other that need using maps to explain, we are taking the advantages of GIS. Besides, GIS can help people very much on travelling. People who go travelling places that have never been to, we have to rely on maps for guiding us to reach destinations. However, GIS can show useful and detailed information because of its complicated system. After experienced several times of making maps with GIS program, sometimes, I felt it was quite hard to figure out how to do the steps. Therefore, I am looking forward the development of GIS program, so that users can create maps easier.