Americans Replacing Americans: Fleeing Diversity And Threatening Regional Identities
By Alex C.
Prior to the era of post-1965 mass immigration America was not a “diverse” country by modern standards. White Americans and African Americans averaged 87% and 12% of the population respectively from the founding of Jamestown until the 1970s—more than 300 years of uninterrupted demographic stability. There was some internal diversity in the White American population, though this diversity was largely dealt with by rapid integration that often took less than a generation—two generations at most.
By the 1970s, when the foreign-born population was under 5%, America was a very cohesive nation. The “natural diversity” of the United States was found not in its inherent demography but in its geography and history. States in the South such as Georgia looked nothing like New Hampshire in New England. Louisiana is quite a different society than the one found in a Midwestern state like Michigan, and Michigan’s cultural habits differ greatly from those that existed in pre-replacement California.
American diversity was internal, unique, and interconnected enough to serve as an underpinning of the national character and not a detriment to it.
This is no longer the case.
Decades of unchecked mass immigration and the subsequent flight of native-born Americans from increasingly diverse and dysfunctional states has resulted in the disappearance of these unique communities under a tidal wave of third world immigration. The Americans who flee these towns and cities undergoing replacement then move to other regions of the country and are themselves replacing the social, cultural, and political traditions of the Americans who are already there. This dual-force, replacement migration from abroad and internal relocation, is not only altering the demographic fabric of the nation but also accelerating political and cultural shifts that are destroying the state and local identities that America was founded to preserve in 1776.
One example can be found in South Carolina. In 1980, 98.4% of the population had been born in the United States, and 71.5% of the population had been born in South Carolina. 66% of White Americans and 90% of African Americans living in South Carolina at the time were born in the state. Furthermore, 87% of the population of South Carolina had been born in the South as a whole. Virtually the entire population was Protestant. South Carolina was not a diverse society and demographically resembled itself from colonization through independence, the civil war, and the tumults of the 20th century. Charles Pinckney, Edward Rutledge, and Thomas Heyward, who signed the Declaration of Independence for South Carolina, would have recognized the state as fundamentally the same as it had been in their time.
Today South Carolina looks radically different. The foreign-born population has increased by 878%. More than 450,000 foreign-born persons comprise 8.5% of the population while their 2nd generation immigrant children are another 3.2%. On the other hand native-born American population growth has been just 62% since 1980 and very little of it has come from South Carolinians themselves. Today barely 52% of the population were born in South Carolina (a 19-point decline) and just 59% were born in the South (a 28-point decline). More people from New York and California live in South Carolina than do from North Carolina and Georgia combined. More people born in Mexico live in South Carolina than do from Texas and Tennessee combined. In towns like Saluda, and cities such as Greer the centuries-old communities of Black and White South Carolinians have been displaced or are being displaced by large-scale Mexican and Guatemalan immigration.
This replacement goes beyond the foreign-born, though. The aforementioned Americans fleeing California and New York have begun to build entirely new towns, suburbs, and beachfront communities in South Carolina. These actions are displacing centuries-old communities of Americans who have lived in these areas for centuries. One example is the Gullah Geechee people. They are a rather unique group of African Americans who live on a series of isolated islands where the plantations on which they were enslaved once stood. They speak a unique creole language, have a unique food and social culture, and have preserved and modified many West African traditions that other African Americans have long since left behind. They are now also being displaced. Americans are fleeing their diversified (generally blue) states to form new towns and cities which are then destroying the rural character of these communities and pricing current residents out of the region they’ve called home for nearly 300 years.
As a result of these immigration and mass net domestic inflows, South Carolina has surpassed its ability to cope. There is now a severe housing shortage that approaches 100,000 missing units per year. Road congestion issues are at an all-time high. Crime is spiking—human trafficking in particular. And the huge population growth is resulting in above-average unemployment rates (a cost which SC taxpayers bear). Wage growth is weak as there is an abundance of incoming labor competing for the same number of jobs.
A similar transformation has taken place in Virginia, though domestic migration to the state has largely been fueled by expansion in Federal bureaucracy. This is not unrelated to immigration, however.
In 1980, the foreign-born population was just 3.3%. 60% of the population had been born in the state and 72% were born in the South. Virginia looked the same as it had since before independence. A White Southern majority (largely composed of the same British Isles stock that colonized the land) and an African American minority. These populations built, bled, and toiled to create a Virginia worth living in.
As of 2025, some 14% of the state’s population is now foreign-born—a fact the New York Times gloated about when talking about how the state was turned from a strong Republican haven to a deeply blue state. First and Second generation immigrants combined are ~21% of the state’s population. Native-born Virginians are a minority (48%) of the state’s population. White Southerners, the colonial stock and their descendants who settled Virginia and the South, are just 35-38% of the state’s modern population. Most people born out of state come from New York, California, and Ohio. There are now more people born in India living in Virginia than there are people born in West Virginia living in the Old Dominion.
African Americans, meaning the descendants of the slaves brought to and bred in America, are ~15% of the state’s population. The lowest share they have ever held. Today ~16% of the Black population of Virginia are either immigrants or their children.
These declining population figures for White and Black Virginians are the result of not just mass immigration but also a domestic immigration tsunami fueled by the Federal government. The first is a direct cause of lax immigration policy since 1965 while the second is the expansion of the Federal government. Almost all Federal expansion since LBJ’s “Great Society” projects were launched has been related to the expansion of the welfare state, which 51% legal and 69% of illegal aliens utilize compared to just 39% of native-born Americans. This has necessitated huge recruitment and relocation of Americans from other states into Virginia. Northern Virginia and many of the state’s central cities have turned from rural conservative areas or politically competitive small urban areas to highly urbanized, very densely populated blue areas that served as the nexus of transforming the state’s politics into some of the most radical in the country. Indeed, in March of 2026, the state house passed a bill (HB61) that would mandate 42% of contracts go to female or minority-owned businesses and that almost all state contracts under $100,000 go to these businesses.
These transformations, which can also be seen in states like Colorado are not good for the long-term social cohesion nor historic identity of the United States. Americans forced to flee their towns to escape imported diversity are slowly transforming and even erasing the communities, cultures, and politics of other American towns, cities, and even whole states.
How to Support White Papers:
We keep our policy analysis free because we’re dedicated to the independence and prosperity of our people. But we rely on our paid subscribers to grow and thrive!
White Papers is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
White Papers is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Consider giving to our mission using one of the methods below.
Credit Card: whitepaperspolicy.org/donate
Zelle: whitepapersinstitute@protonmail.com
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/wppi
Snail Mail: White Papers Policy, PO Box 192, Hancock, MD 21750
What is White Papers Policy Institute's views on movements that are advocating for independence from the U.S?