The first map I made displays the population densities of Asian Americans in the continental United States based off of census data from the year 2000. As one can see, the highest densities of Asian Americans are on the West Coast, particularly in California. This might be because the West Coast is closer to Asia and therefore migration streams would have immigrants arriving to ports on the West Coast where they would be most likely to settle before attempting to move further into the United States. Moreover, California is home to one of the largest economies in the world that brings many international businesses, especially Asian companies-- encouraging Asian immigration.
The second map details the population densities of the black/African American population of the United States. There is a clear concentration of African Americans in the Southern United States. My only inference is that this might be a result of the slave trade wherein Africans were brought to plantations in the Southern United States to help with the farming of cotton and tobacco. Since this occurred two hundred years ago these families have become established in that region and are less likely to move.
The third map describes the population of 'some other race' leaving me to infer what this race might be. Most of the concentration of this 'other' race is in the Southwest United States which is near the Mexican border. Could this race perhaps be hispanic/latino? Word on the street (and from my population geography class) is that apparently on the census this group generally marks other because none of the other race categories apply to them.
At first I tried to work through this lab without doing the tutorial before which rendered the entire thing confusing (yes, I realize we were told multiple times to use the tutorial). Moreover, ArcCatalog kept giving me error signals and shutting down at first which became entirely frustrating. All of my friends informed me that this lab was really simple, but because of these difficulties, it was one of the more frustrating experiences (especially since my patience is low due to finals week). Once everything was running properly and I had reviewed/performed the tutorial, the lab was relatively easy.
Exploring geospatial analytics with the help of ArcGIS has been interesting. Once mastered the software is really obvious and easy to use. Getting to the point of mastering it, however, can be really frustrating and takes time and patience. As such, I wish some of the tutorials/instructions for using the software had been clearer and included more screen shots so that we could have had better guidance in learning the software without as much frustration. I hope that I can continue to utilize ArcGIS for future research projects.
