Albanian-Americans
| Total population | |
|---|---|
|
Albanian 201,118 Americans (2010 US census) 0.065% of the US population 2000 – 113,661 1990 – 47,710 |
|
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Languages | |
| Religion | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
|
Albanians Albanian diaspora Albanian Canadians |
Albanian Americans (Albanian: singular: Shqiptaro-Amerikan / plural: Shqiptaro-Amerikanët) are Americans of full or partial Albanian ancestry. According to data from a 2008 survey by the United States government, there are 201,118 Americans of full or partial Albanian descent.
The first Albanian documented to have emigrated to the United States was Kolë Kristofori (English: Nicholas Christopher), who landed in Boston in the early 1880s and is remembered as the pioneer of the Albanian ethnic group in the U.S. It was not until the 1900s that a large number of Albanians reached the U.S. east coast: most of them were young bachelors from southern Albania.
The majority of this first wave of emigrants, approximatively 10,000, did not intend to permanently settle in the U.S., and went back to Albania after World War I. Right at this time, another group of emigrants from Albania reached the U.S. This new group settled and intermarried in their new country. The number of Albanians that reported the Albanian language as their mother tongue in 1920 was around 6,000.
After World War II the Albanians who emigrated to the U.S. were mostly political emigrants and by 1970 the figure rose to around 17,000.
Following the Expulsion of Cham Albanians from Greece in the aftermath of World War II, a large number of them migrated to the United States, asserting that the Communist government in Albania discriminated and persecuted them. They managed to retain their traditions and language, and created in 1973 the Chameria Human Rights Association which later merged and became Albanian American Organization Chameria which aimed to protect their rights. (see Cham Albanians).
Allowing for the families that had abandoned their mother tongue, it is estimated that around 70,000 US citizens with an Albanian background lived in the USA in 1980.
In the 1990s, many Albanians from Albania, Montenegro, Serbia, and the Republic of Macedonia emigrated to the United States as refugees of war. Another Albanian American (Kosovar Albanian) community in the Riverside/San Bernardino area of California includes Kosovars who entered the United States at the March Joint Air Reserve Base in Riverside.
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