Barbadian Americans
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Notable Barbadian Americans:
Eric Holder · Shirley Chisholm · Grandmaster Flash · Mr. Lif · Afrika Bambaataa |
|
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| (62,000) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Florida | |
| Languages | |
| English, Barbadian English | |
| Religion | |
| Christianity | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Afro-Caribbean, Barbadian British, Barbadians in Brazil, Indo-Caribbean, Barbadian people |
Barbadian (or Bajan) Americans are Americans of Barbadian heritage or ancestry. The 2000 Census recorded 53,785 US residents born on the Caribbean island 52,170 of whom were born to non-American parents, and 54,509 people who described their ethnicity as Barbadian. In the 2010 US Census estimation report, over 62,000 Barbadian Americans live in the US, the majority in the New York City area extending from Rhode Island to Delaware. In past years, some also moved to the areas of Chicago, Illinois, and Boston, Massachusetts.
The first major wave of West Indian immigrants, including Barbadians, to the United States took place between 1901 and 1920, with a total of 230,972 entering the country. The majority were unskilled or semi-skilled laborers who came in search of economic opportunities. A substantial number were employed in low-paying service occupations and menial jobs that nonetheless offered higher wages than they could earn at home.
Between 1931 and 1950 West Indian immigration to the United States declined, due partly to an immigration restriction law that imposed a quota system heavily weighted in favor of newcomers arriving from northern and western European countries. The Great Depression was another factor in the drop in West Indian immigration, which reached a significant low in the 1930s.
A second wave began in the 1950s and peaked in the 1960s, when 470,213 immigrants arrived in the United States. More West Indians entered the United States during this decade than the total number that entered between 1891 and 1950. Between 1965 and 1976 a substantial number of immigrants from the Caribbean entered the United States, Barbados alone accounting for 17,400 of them. A large percentage of this wave of immigrants consisted of professional and technical workers forced to leave home because of limited economic opportunities in Barbados.
Most Barbadian immigrants tend to live in Philadelphia esp. in the North Philadelphia and the West Philadelphia sections, while even more settled widely in the New York City metropolitan area. The 1990 Census of Population Report shows that over 82 percent live in the Northeast, with over 62 percent in New York. More than 11 percent live in the South, approximately four percent live in the West, and almost two percent live in the Midwest. The five states with the highest Barbadian populations are New York, with 22,298; Massachusetts, with 3,393; Florida, with 1,770; New Jersey, with 1,678; and California, with 1,160. Unlike Chinese Americans or Italian Americans or Mexicans/Mexican Americans to compare, Barbadians—or West Indians, for that matter—do not occupy small enclaves in the cities of America where they live. They instead tend to settle wherever they can find jobs or affordable housing, and they strive for upward mobility and opportunities to improve their lives. Barbadians along with other various Caribbean Americans follow the agricultural and even more in the landscaping, construction, domestics and hospitality industries of both Florida and urban industrial areas of the Northeast Corridor or Eastern Seaboard. In the 2000s, an estimated 100,000 Barbadian Americans live in the New York and Philadelphia areas.
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