Here are three interesting visualization options – an animated map and two infographics – to see immigration to the United States. Three quick thoughts:

1. The map really does help illustrate the various stages of immigration. It starts from Western Europe, moves significantly to Eastern Europe in the late 1800s, and then opens to Mexico, east Asia, and other parts of the globe in the 1960s.
2. It is unfortunate that the arrivals from Asia have to go over the “break” in the map since it has the Atlantic in the center. At first, I couldn’t figure out where the dots coming into the United States from the left were coming from.
3. The second infographic provides some proportional context: even with the jump in migrants from Mexico, they represent a smaller proportion of the total U.S. population than the immigration spikes in the 1800s.