Location of Recent Immigrants: Lessons from New Jersey

Katherine Hempstead, Rutgers University

New Jersey is a major immigration destination state, currently ranking fifth in the nation in terms of annual flows of new legal immigrants. New Jersey was also a major destination during the “second wave” of immigration that occurred in the late 19th/early 20th century. The foreign born population of New Jersey is diverse with respect to country of origin and year of entry, and is geographically decentralized when compared with other gateway states. This examination of New Jersey municipalities uses census data to analyze the settlement patterns of recent immigrants. Popular immigration destinations are characterized by below average population growth between 1970-1990, providing some support for the “replacement” theory of immigrant settlement. There are significant variations in destination by country of origin, and quite a bit of consistency with popular immigrant destinations from the early twentieth century.