The Social Ties Of Immigrant Communities In The United States

Moving to a new country can be difficult, but relationships made there can ease the integration into the new environment. The social ties can be formed with different groups: compatriots from their home country, people originally from their new country ( locals), and also immigrants from other countries. Yet very little research on immigration has addressed this important aspect, primarily because large-scale studies of social networks are impractical using traditional methods such as surveys. In this study we provide the first comprehensive view into the composition of immigrants' social networks in the United States using data from the social networking site Facebook. We measure the integration of immigrant populations through the structure of friendship ties, and contrast it with the spatial density of immigrant communities. Beyond friendships with compatriots and locals, we look at friendships between immigrant groups, deriving a map of cultural friendship affinities.