Monday, November 4, 2024

Racial/Ethnic groups in Wisconsin

I think it's safe to say that we can expect a wide variety of ethnic groups in Wisconsin. I’m adding a map of the total population density for Wisconsin to give a general overview of what we’re working with. The Southeast and Western parts of the state are significantly more densely populated than the Southwest and Northern parts of the state. This is partially because of the college student population in those areas and their proximity to major cities like Madison, Milwaukee, and Chicago in the neighboring state of Illinois.
















Just based on stereotypes alone and my own bias regarding states in the Northern part of the US, I went into this mapping exercise expecting there to be a majority population of white people in Wisconsin. I was right. Remember that these populations are not very dense, nevertheless, they are there. Most of the darker orange counties range from 90-95% white, except for Pepin County, which has 96%.


When we switch the map data to the total population of Black communities in Wisconsin,
the map flips dramatically from dark orange to light yellow. Even the counties with the
darker orange shading still have a low percentage in this state. For example, the two
counties with the highest total Black population are Milwaulkee County with 26%,
and Racine County with 10.8%.  

















In the total white population map, I was curious about Sawyer County being yellow all by itself in the Northwest part of the state, come to find out, this county houses a Federal Indian Reservation. Similarly, Menominee County, which houses one of the largest Federal Indian Reservations in WI, has a white population of only 11%. The dark orange shading in the total Native American population matches the map of where First Nations tribes are located to a tee.  



https://dpi.wi.gov/amind/tribalnationswi


















A quick Google search about the different ethnic groups in WI will also let us know that this state has one of the largest “Hmong” populations (an indigenous ethnic group in East and Southeast Asia) because of many Hmong refugees who settled in the state after the Vietnam War. As it turns out, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and California were the three most accepting states of these refugees during political unrest. There was not an option on Social Explorer to select Hmong specifically, so I chose the Asian option and narrowed it down to which counties the Wisconsin Department of Health Services said the Hmong settled in the most heavily– La Crosse, Sheboygan, Green Bay, Wausau, and Milwaukee. Some of these counties are shaded the darkest in the Social Explorer map. (https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/minority-health/population/asian-pophistory.htm)







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