Mexicans and Jews, There and Here

Mexicans | Jews

Demography is defined as "the study of statistics that illustrate the changing structure of human populations" (New Oxford American Dictionary). Government funded collection of demographic data began on August 2^nd, 1790, as a decennial estimate of the United States' population. It was not until the creation of the U.S. Census Bureau on July 1^st, 1903, that the collection began to include information about more specific sectors of the population. (U.S. Census Bureau 2008: History 1790-1900). Our focus is on demographic patterns during two great migrations in American history: that of Eastern European Jews during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and of the Mexicans from the 1960s to the present. We have also included information about these immigrants' nations of origin.