They brought the country's customs,
Their language and their ways.
They filled the factories, tilled the soil,
Helped build the U.S.A.
Go on and ask your grandma,
Hear what she has to tell
How great to be an American
And something else as well.
        -The Great American Melting Pot, Schoolhouse Rock

There's a lot of talk about immigration in the news these days. I read one rather shocking poll that had 36% of Americans declaring immigration to be a fundamentally "bad thing."

I think immigration is great, however. It's made North America such a diverse and interesting place to live. Today Canada and the United States are like little miniature versions of the entire planet, home to every creed and race imaginable. It's great to be a proud American or Canadian, and there's no denying that your country of residence should be the most important in your life. Yet it's also cool that people can always have another side to their identity, and have pride in their family heritage as well.

I was curious to research the immigrant backgrounds of some of the past and present leaders of North America. I've thus made the following charts which identify the closest immigrant relative of various individuals.

A note about my methods:

I use the term "very distant" in cases in which the person in question only have immigrant relatives in the "fifth generation" (great-great grandfather) or earlier. The reason for this cut-off is that I am trying to clearly separate those families with immigrant history is in living memory from those whose immigrant relatives are long-forgotten figures from the 18th Century.

"Generalized heritage" refers to a basic generalization as to what sort of ethnic background the person in question historically descended from.

Post-war Presidents of the United States

Post-war Prime Ministers of Canada

* John Turner is sort of an odd case. His father was born in England but his mother was born in Canada. The mother had moved to England after marrying, but then moved back when her husband died, which was shortly after John was born. At the time, however, there was no legal distinction between Canadian and British citizenship, all were lumped together as being "British Subjects." So, legally speaking, Turner was not an immigrant at all, since his citizenship never changed and he never had to be naturalized.

Current Governors of the 10 biggest US states

Last 10 Mayors of New York City

Current Justices of the United States Supreme Court

* I have not been able to 100% confirm that these justices do not have immigrant great-grandparents, but at the very least they do not have immigrant parents or grandparents.

10 other notable past US political figures

and just for fun, let's also look at

The Prime Ministers of Israel