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For Armenians in the whole of the Americas, see Armenian diaspora in the Americas.
An Armenian American is an American who is of Armenian descent. There is an estimate of up to 1,500,000 Armenian-Americans in the United States. Other estimates, also in the United States, are different. [2][3] During the United States 2000 Census, 385,488 Americans indicated either full or partial Armenian ancestry.[4] The 2007 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates indicated 446,032 Americans with full or partial Armenian ancestry.[5][6]
[edit] History[edit] Armenian PioneersThe first Armenian known to have immigrated to America was Martin the Armenian.[7] He arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1618, when the colony was only eleven years old. A few other Armenians are recorded as having come to the United States in the 17th and 18th centuries, but they mostly came as individuals and did not form a community. [edit] First Wave of ImmigrationThe first Armenians to come to the US in the 19th century were students from Western Armenia (Turkish Armenia) coming in search of a higher education. The pioneer of this movement is noted to be one Khachadour Vosganian, who stayed in the U.S. and later became president of the New York Press Club. Armenians began to arrive in the United States in higher numbers in the late 19th century. This first wave of immigration lasted until the mid-1920s, when the new immigration quotas decreased the number of Armenians who were allowed to immigrate into the U.S. This wave of immigrants established Armenian communities and organizations in the United States, most notably the Armenian Apostolic Church. [edit] Split in the Armenian CommunityAs the first wave of immigrants was arriving in America, the dust was settling from World War I. By the 1920s, Turkish Armenia, the homeland of most Armenian-Americans, was depleted almost entirely of its Armenian population, and Russian Armenia, which had enjoyed a short-lived period of independence as the First Republic of Armenia, was incorporated into the Soviet Union as Soviet Armenia. Armenians in the United States had many different viewpoints on their future. Some wished to stay in America, some wished to return to Soviet Armenia, some wished to liberate their lost homeland from the new Turkish Republic, and some wished to liberate Soviet Armenia from the Soviet Union. The strongest Armenian political organization in the Diaspora, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, was active in the United States and was pushing for the liberation of Soviet Armenia as an independent state. Most other Armenian political or social organizations opposed this viewpoint and generally supported the status quo of the Armenian political situation. The people themselves were split down the middle. Unfortunately, this political divide spilled over into the Armenian Apostolic Church as Armenians who viewed the church as the mouthpiece of the Armenian people tried to force church leaders to promote their political agendas. Events in 1933 lead to the separation of the Armenian Church of America into two rival factions, the "Diocese of the Armenian Church of America" and the "Prelacy of the Armenian Church of America." The Diocese pledged loyalty to the Armenian Catholicos of Echmiadzin while the Prelacy renounced Echmiadzin's leadership as being controlled by the Soviets. This split meant that since 1933 the Armenian community in the U.S. has on many levels developed as two parallel communities, since bitter rivalries meant that many Armenians refused to associate with those from the "other side." [edit] Second Wave of ImmigrationThere was some Armenian immigration to the United States in the 1940s and 1950s, notably the Soviet Armenian prisoners of war who immigrated to the west after being freed from Nazi Germany camps (known as D.P.'s or Displaced Persons). However, the true second wave of immigration did not begin until the immigration reforms of the 1960s allowed for it. Armenians once again began immigrating to the United States from various parts of the Old World diaspora or from now-Soviet Armenia. Especially due to the Lebanese Civil War of 1975, the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and various other political upheavals in countries of the Middle East where Armenians were then living, Armenian immigration to America boomed into a Second Wave in the 1970s and 1980s. Starting around the same time and continuing after the breakup of the Soviet Union, waves of Armenians from the former Soviet Union arrived for ideological freedom and economic opportunities and settled in older established Armenian communities across the country. Most of the early Armenian immigrants who came from Soviet Armenia actually lived pretty comfortably in their former country but sought freedom from Communist repression. However, later, in the early 1990s, many Armenians arrived in the U.S. as refugees of the Armenian-Azeri War[dubious ] and pogroms against Armenians in Baku and Sumgait. Armenia became an independent republic in 1991. Armenian Americans are often heavily involved in politics involving promotion of ties with Armenia. During the Nagorno-Karabakh War, the Armenian Diaspora in the US was a crucial provider of resources to the country of Armenia, and many Armenian Americans, in fact, volunteered to fight on the side of their homeland. With regards to recognition of the Armenian Genocide, many Armenian American groups have organized to promote legal recognition, and partly as a result, 43 states now recognize (although the federal government does not). The Armenian-American community consists largely of descendants of the survivors of the Armenian massacres in the 1890s and the subsequent genocide.[8] [edit] Distribution[edit] California and Western United StatesCalifornia hosts the largest Armenian-American population. The first Armenian to arrive in California was Ruben Minasian, also known as Normart, which means new man in Armenian. He settled in Fresno in 1874. The first Armenians, who came as residents were members of the family Serobian. They arrived to Fresno in 1881, although after 16 years (in 1897) the number of Armenians in the city of Fresno has reached 329.[9] In the 1920s, Armenians began to move from rural regions to cities, such as Los Angeles. By 1930, the Armenian population of Los Angeles was the largest in California. The largest concentration of Armenian-Americans is located in Glendale, where 26.2% of residents identified themselves as Armenian on the 2000 US Census[10]. See also: Fresno, California#Armenian population The first Armenian arrived in Fresno in 1876. He expected a “paradise,” as it had been represented to him, but he thought the hot, bleak desert was more like Hell. He went back to Philadelphia two years later. Nevertheless, he was the first Armenian to set foot in California. His real name was Mardiros Yanikian, but supposedly he told the inspector at Ellis Island in Armenian, “Nor mart em!” That is, “I am a new man!” So he became Frank Normart.[11] By the count of Hagop Nishigian, there were 329 Armenians in Fresno in 1897.[12]
Other cities located in the state of California with sizable Armenian communities are:
In recent years, Armenian communities developed in: [edit] Eastern and Central United StatesMetropolitan areas in Eastern and Central Stateswith the largest Armenian communities are (according to the 2000 U.S. Census):
Other important Armenian-American communities include:
[edit] US communities with high percentages of people of Armenian ancestryThe top 10 US communities with the highest percentage of people claiming Armenian ancestry are:[14]
[edit] Number of Armenian American population 'America, America' was the clarion call of nineteenth and twentieth century immigrants. The United States endeavored to fuse nations and races into a homogeneous citizenry. For a century Armenians have sought security and a better life in the new world. The Armenian American community is the largest in the world outside Armenia and easily the wealthiest and best educated. Rightly or wrongly, it is perceived as the major participant in the reconstruction of Armenia. Though "Martin the Armenian" established himself in the tobacco business of Virginia in 1618 and "George the Armenian," a native of Iran, worked cultivating silk in the same colony in the 1650's, the first body of Armenians arrived in the mid-nineteenth century inspired by Protestant missionaries to seek higher education in New England universities. Their numbers increased dramatically in the 1890's as a result of the anti-Armenian pogroms of Sultan Abdul Hamid. 15,000 Armenians had arrived by 1900. Those who followed were ever more desperate, looking for a land where people enjoyed security as individuals. With the onset of the planned Turkish genocide of 1915, immigration became a matter of survival. By 1924, when the United States established the quota system, at least 100,000 Armenians had arrived, more than 95% from Turkey. After World War II a second, larger migration took place: post-war refugees, others fleeing nationalism in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Turkey, Armenians from Romania, Lebanon and Iran, and as political refugees from Soviet Armenia itself. Today there are 800,000 to 1,000,000 in America. The great historical centers were Worcester, New York, Boston, Watertown, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, Fresno, and later San Francisco and particularly Los Angeles, which alone has nearly a quarter of a million Armenians in places like Hollywood, Glendale, and Pasadena.
[edit] Notes
[edit] Armenian Genocide and the United States  See also: Recognition of the Armenian Genocide, United States resolution on Armenian genocide, Armenian Genocide Museum of America, and List of Armenian Genocide memorials Armenian-Americans gather in multiple towns and cities every year on April 24 to take part in a protest for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide. The largest of such protests occurs in the Los Angeles area. According to Armenian National Institute were are 28 Armenian Genocide memorials in the United States.[15] [edit] See also
[edit] References
[edit] External links
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