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Poll: How many generations removed are you from immigration?

57 points by jballanc ↗ HN
I've asked this question twice before on HN (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2962242 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=688053). Originally, I was simply curious if there was a correlation between being a startup founder or hacker, and being an immigrant or child of an immigrant. My hypothesis was that the adventurous, risk-taking characteristics required to go through being an immigrant are similar to those required to start on a new business venture.

Today, I think it goes without saying that this question has taken on new importance. So, once again here's how this works: Go back along your family tree until you reach the first immigrant. That is, the first person who eventually settled in a country other than the one they were born in, regardless of country (i.e. this is not intended to be US-immigrant-centric).

Choose only the one answer which corresponds to the most recent immigration. So, for example, if your father is the 3rd generation since immigration but your mother is, herself, an immigrant you would choose "1 generation". Thanks!

48 comments

[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 109 ms ] thread
redirectleft
I'm german but I'm telling you, stop trying to put mental labels on everything. You're only clouding your vision.
cpncrunch
Its too late for that in the USA.
[dead] Fauntleroy
IF you want to make a political post, make it.
jballanc
This post is no more or less political than the last two times I made it 3 and 5 years ago.
adamzerner
Taken in a vacuum, there is nothing inherently political about this poll. But being practical and taking the timing of it into account, I do think it's political. Not that there's anything wrong with it.
stretchwithme
"the first person who eventually settled in a country other than the one they were born in"

You mean the last person, don't you?

jballanc
"First" in the sense of doing a breadth-first search up your family tree starting from you. ;-)
dllthomas
Probably the last chronologically, but not necessarily once you get back a couple generations.
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Broken_Hippo
0 - I am an immigrant.

In the US, I was 3 generations out though - grandmother was first generation. Her parents were from Syria.

stretchwithme
I moved from New York to California and perhaps someone else moved from Ireland to the UK 50 miles away. Who is more of an immigrant?
cup
The Irish individual obviously.
TillE
Ireland and the UK have an unusually close relationship, but if the Irish person can't get a British passport, there are still major political barriers to immigration. Or rather, there will be very soon. It's a vastly different experience than moving a great distance within the same country.
SolaceQuantum
I am curious for people who are immigrants on HN, how many are simply digital nomads or people who have the flexibility to move countries because of a favorable job market and also a "center"(where wages are highest and most infrastructure already established) for the audience of HN(tech folk primarily). In other words, being in tech lends itself to immigration rather than being an immigrant lends itself to tech.
jballanc
It's an interesting question to be sure. I can only speak personally... My mother was an immigrant. My grandfather worked in the embroidery industry, and was as close to a "programmer" as you could get in his day (he turned new embroidery designs into punch tape that was then fed to the machines that mass produced the design). He worked in two different countries before finally moving his family with him to the third and settling down.

That said, "digital nomad" definitely doesn't apply for him. The equipment he used for his work was 9 feet tall and occupied a good sized room. "Favorable job market" might be closer to the truth, though, as his skill set was a rather specialized one.

wyldfire
President Trump would answer "1 generation" for this poll because his mother is Scottish.
artofcode
But it's the best generation, it truly is.
hackbinary
Immigrants that I know about:

0 - I'm an immigrant.

1, 1 - Both my parents are immigrants.

4 - One of my great-great grand parents was an immigrant.

10-12+? - One of grand parents descended from immigrants in 17th century from England.

dvt
Immigrant here. My family moved to the US when I was 11, I'm 30 now.
Nemant
My grandparents emigrated from India to Pakistan (~1947, formation of Pakistan)

My parents emigrated from Pakistan to Spain illegally (~1990, I was born in Spain). They almost took one of those boats you see sinking in the Mediterranean these days, eventually they found another route.

My parents (+ my siblings and I) moved from Spain to the UK (2005)

I emigrated from there UK to the States (2014).

I've also moved cities within these countries.

I consider myself from planet earth, period.

Today I work at Google working on a product that affects 1B+ users.

kodfodrasz
Wow! Congratulations, it's an amazing story!
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red-indian
Not descended from immigrants at all.
dmd
Your ancestors probably immigrated to this continent about 14000 years ago (~700 generations).
ebcode
Loving the white-man-myth of "there are no original peoples" responses to your post[1]. I interpret these attacks on your comment as vain attempts to assuage white guilt. Because as long as the red-man isn't a "native species", then that means the red-man came here just like the white-man did, and the red-man just may have genocided the "original peoples" as well. What a bunch of crap. And thank you for your comment.

1. http://www.beacon.org/An-Indigenous-Peoples-History-of-the-U...

robin_reala
I answered 2 (my grandmother emigrated from Germany to the UK in the late 40s), but in a couple of months time I’ll be able to answer 0. So much planning.
INTPenis
My parents came from Croatia in the 60s, started a business in Sweden and prospered. Raised 4 children who all prospered as functional members of society.

When the civil war broke out they both took jobs as interpreters for refugees from yugoslavia. Dad took extra jobs at immigrations to help refugees settle.

So they've seen it all before, the working immigrants in the 60s, 70s and the refugees in the 90s. The albanian refugees again in the late 90s and early 2000.

Migration is as natural as breathing to humans. We have likely done it since before we were humans.

And when we became the humans we know today, with our own tribal cultures and local dialects of course there must have been culture clashes. Yet migration has always been and always will be.

Why people can't understand that is beyond me.

[dead] cndndkdjc
I'm skeptical at the disproportionate fraction of respondents claiming to be immigrants. Demographic surveys are not the place to show solidarity.

There are undoubtedly a significant share of immigrants here on HN who came to the US seeking opportunity, but these numbers seem suspect.

smcl
Ooopos I voted 5+ for my original country, then realised I've reset that counter to 0 by moving abroad :D :D
mindcrime
I'm not entirely sure. On my dad's side of the family, the research I've done suggests that our family has been in the US since at least sometime around the Revolutionary War era. But records get really spotty and inconsistent that far back, so it's hard to be sure about much before 1800 or so.

On my mom's side of the family, one of my cousins has researched things back at least as far as when our ancestors came over from England and came through Ellis Island and all that. I don't recall the exact year or how many generations back it was though. I think maybe it was at the great-great-grandparent generation, but don't quote me on that.

DanBC
My maternal grandfather came from Spain.

My maternal grandmother is English for many generations.

My Father was born in Burma, but his mother went there from London and his father went there from Ireland. (They met in Paris and got married.)

> That is, the first person who eventually settled in a country other than the one they were born in

That's clear and simple, but it's an unusual description of immigrant.

hprotagonist
mom's side: 1619. dad's side: 1916 wife: 1996. i "win" the argument with nativists coming _and_ going.
mrharrison
I'm 12th Gen on my dad's side (ancestry going back to a conquistador), and 4th Gen on my mom's side (European immigrants at ellis island).
huxley
I am both the child of an immigrant (my mom is from Honduras) and (on my dad's side) have family going back to the late-1600s in Canada.