"Rootless Americans"

I ran across that term in this post on The Edge of the American West: "Our natural condition, as Americans, is rootlessness — immigration, internal migration, the “melting pot”.

It may be true, but it's easy for academics to overemphasize. Academics are probably the most mobile workers in the country (except for the military) so it would be easy for them judge the world by themselves. In researching genealogy I've seen a lot of stability (except for my grandfather, the Presbyterian minister). And most movements seem to have been either in company with friends, relatives, co-religionists or to areas where the same were already located.

There's an interesting map I forgot to link to showing the counties where Sen. Clinton has done well--it also corresponds to a map of where the Scots-Irish settled 200 years ago.