One of the more contentious U.S. political issues of the last generation has been immigration. How much is too much? Even as the U.S. population becomes more diverse overall, a look at the trends from two Censuses taken 50 years apart shows that diversity isn’t always a one-way street that increases everywhere.

In 1960, for example, 39 percent of New York’s population was born outside the U.S. By 2010, that figure had fallen to 22 percent. The foreign-born population of neighboring Vermont plunged even more over the same period, falling from 22 percent in 1960 to 4 percent in 2010. By comparison, California, long held up as one of the most rapidly diversifying states in the U.S., saw its foreign-born population rise only slightly, from 25.4 percent of the population in 1960 to 27.2 percent in 2010. Use Social Explorer’s award-winning, customizable maps to look at state (and county) nativity trends over decades.

U.S. Foreign Born Population, 1960-2010. Click here to explore further.

Author: Frank Bass