Bangladeshi American
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 500,000 0.046% of U.S. population (2014) (includes Multiracial Bangladeshis) |
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| Regions with significant populations | |
| Languages | |
| Religion | |
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Bangladeshi Americans are Americans of Bangladeshi descent. The majority of Bangladeshi Americans are Bengalis. Bangladeshi immigrants have arrived in the United States in large numbers since the early 1970s to become among the fastest growing ethnic communities since that decade. New York City, Paterson, New Jersey, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Boston, Atlanta, San Francisco, Detroit, Chicago, Florida, Dallas, Houston, North Carolina, and Hamtramck, Michigan are home to notable Bangladeshi communities.
Bangladeshi Americans are expected to grow rapidly in the coming years, as emigration from Bangladesh to the United States continues to increase.
Immigrants from present-day Bangladesh have been in the United States since at least the 1880s.
Bangladeshis have been migrating to the port cities of the United States since 1974 when 154 Bangladeshi arrived in United States leaving behind the hard economic and political times of the still developing Bangladesh who got independence from Pakistan in 1971. Most were workers on the various ships docking from Calcutta, India and hailed especially from the Sylhet, Chittagong and Noakhali regions.
Immigration to the United States from Bangladesh grew slowly but steadily from the 1970s-80s. Over ten thousand Bangladeshis have immigrated to the United States annually. Many of the migrants settled in urban areas such as New York City and Paterson, New Jersey; as well as Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, and Detroit. In New York, it was estimated that 15,000 Bangladeshis resided in the city in the early 1980s. During the late 1970s, some Bangladeshis moved from New York City to Detroit, home to prominent communities of other Muslim Americans, in search of better work opportunities and an affordable cost of living, but most have since returned from Detroit to New York and to Paterson, New Jersey. The community formed newspaper organizations. The Los Angeles Bangladesh Association was created in 1971, and there were 500 members of the Texas Bangladesh Association in 1997. The Bangladeshi population in Dallas was 5,000 people in 1997, which was large enough to hold the Baishakhi Mela event. Baishakhi Mela events have been held in major American cities such as New York City, Paterson in New Jersey, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, as the Bangladeshi population continues to increase in these cities. Many of these Bangladeshis were taxicab drivers, while others had white-collar occupations.
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