Palestinian Americans
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 85,186 (2009-13 American Community Survey) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Northern New Jersey and New York City Metropolitan Area; also Michigan, California, Texas, Pennsylvania, Arizona | |
| Languages | |
|
American English Palestinian Arabic |
|
| Religion | |
|
Islam (Sunni) and Christianity (Eastern Orthodox, Catholic) |
|
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Jordanian Americans, Syrian Americans, Lebanese Americans, and other Arab Americans |
Palestinian Americans (Arabic: فلسطينيو أمريكا), are Americans of Palestinian ancestry. It is difficult to say when the first Palestinian immigrants arrived in the United States; however, most of the first immigrants to arrive were Christians escaping persecution in Ottoman Palestine in the late 19th century. Later immigrants came to the country fleeing the Arab–Israeli or Palestinian conflicts.
The first Palestinians who emigrated to the United States arrived after 1908. Palestinian emigration began to decline after 1924, with the law limiting the number of immigrants, as well as the Great Depression. The population began to increase after World War II: the Arab-Israeli War, the Nakba, and the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948 caused many Palestinians to immigrate, most as refugees. However, the greatest wave of Palestinian immigration began in 1967 after the Six-Day War, or as Arabs call it the June War. This wave of immigrants reached its peak in the 1980s. Most Palestinians that immigrated to the United States in this period were more educated than the Palestinians that arrived until 1967, thanks to the schools sponsored by the ONU and the increased number of universities in the Middle East.
Many Palestinians settled in the metropolitan areas of New York City and Paterson in northern New Jersey, as well as in California, Phoenix, Miami, Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland, alongside other Mediterranean communities, including the Lebanese, Syrians, Greeks, Italians, Egyptians and Turks.
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