Moroccan Americans
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 113,544 (2015 American Community Survey) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| New York City, Washington D.C., Boston, Florida (Jacksonville), Texas, Los Angeles | |
| Languages | |
| Religion | |
| Islam (Sunni), Christianity (Catholic, Protestant), Judaism |
Moroccan Americans are Americans of Moroccan ancestry, as well as persons who have dual Moroccan and United States citizenship.
Moroccan presence in the United States was rare until the mid-twentieth century. The first North African who came to the current United States was probably Estebanico Al Azemmouri (also called Estevanico), a Muslim Moroccan of Gnawa descent, who participated in Pánfilo de Narváez's ill-fated expedition to colonize Florida and the Gulf Coast in 1527. Only Azemmouri and three of his comrades survived during the eleven-year- long of journey, of 5,000 mile, from Florida to the West Coast, ending the tour in Texas. So, in 1534, them crossed the southern from United States until Arizona, being also, more later, one of four men who accompanied Marcos de Niza as a guide in search of the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola, preceding Coronado. He was the first explorer who entered an Indian village.
It is also possible that some South American descendants of Sephardic Jews from Morocco emigrated to United States in the early twentieth century, after the decline of the rubber industry in South America in 1910 to which their families had been dedicated for generations. After of World War II, some groups of Sephardic Jews from Morocco emigrated to United States, fleeing poverty in North Africa. Most of them got established in zones where already had established Sephardic Jews communities from Spain, Turkey, or the Balkans. After French independence of Morocco in 1956, a number of their best young researchers, though limited, left Paris to study at American universities, entering in scientific faculties. Arabized Moroccans, however, not arrived to United States in significant numbers until the late 1970s.
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