When waves of immigrants came to the US, mostly they went to where their own kind were. Irish went to the Irish neighborhoods, Italians went to Italian neighborhoods and so on. Even the Swedish, Norwegian and German farmers went to farm areas populated by similar groups. It was often to seek the help of a family member or someone from their village that had come before and might even be sponsoring them.
When they were congregated in their “ghettos” they were often at odds with and sometimes battled, outsiders. Over time, the kids at school or people at workplaces started to get to know each other and become more tolerant but it took a couple generations.
When people started moving out of the old ‘hoods to Levittown (suburbs) things really started to coalesce, probably because they had something in common…….crabgrass.
