Total population | |
---|---|
3.5 million people [1](2020) 1.06% of the population | |
Regions with significant populations | |
Mostly in the major metropolitan areas | |
Languages | |
English |
Middle Eastern Americans are Americans of Middle Eastern background. This includes people whose background is from the various Middle Eastern and West Asian ethnic groups, such as the Kurds and Assyrians, as well as immigrants from modern-day countries of the Arab world, Iran, Israel, Turkey, and Armenia.[2][3][4][5]
Although once considered Asian Americans, the modern definition of "Asian American" now excludes people with West Asian backgrounds.[6]
One of the first large groups of immigration from the Middle East to the United States came by boat from the Ottoman Empire in the late 1800s. Although U.S. officials referred to them as Turkish, most referred to themselves as Syrian, and it is estimated that 85 percent of these Ottoman immigrants came from modern Lebanon. Later, new categories were created for Syrians and Lebanese.[7]: 4
The number of Armenians who migrated to the U.S. from 1820 to 1898 is estimated to be around 4,000[8] and according to the Bureau of Immigration, 54,057 Armenians entered the U.S. between 1899 and 1917, with the vast majority coming from the Ottoman Empire.[9] The largest Armenian American communities at that time were located in New York City; Fresno; Worcester, Massachusetts; Boston; Philadelphia; Chicago; Jersey City; Detroit; Los Angeles; Troy, New York; and Cleveland.[10]
Another wave of immigration from the Middle East began in 1946, peaking after the 1960s. Since 1968, these immigrants have arrived from such countries as Iran, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Syria, Egypt, and Lebanon.[7]: 11
Ancestry | American Census Bureau[11] | Estimates |
---|---|---|
Arab Americans | 2,005,223 | 3,700,000[12][13] |
Armenian Americans | 485,970 | 500,000–1,500,000[14][15] |
Iranian Americans | 476,967 | 1,000,000–2,000,000[16][17][18][19] |
Turkish Americans | 222,593 | 1,000,000–3,000,000+[20][21][22] |
Israeli Americans | 139,127 | N/A
|
Coptic Americans | N/A
|
200,000–1,000,000[23][24][25][26] |
Assyrian, Chaldean, or Syriac Americans | 101,135 | 110,807–600,000[27][28][29][30][31] |
Kurdish Americans | N/A
|
15,000–20,000[32] |
Berber Americans | N/A
|
3,000 |
The population of Middle Eastern Americans includes both Arabs and non-Arabs. In their definitions of Middle Eastern Americans, United States Census Bureau and the National Health Interview Survey include peoples (diasporic or otherwise) from present-day Iran, Israel, Turkey, and Armenia.[33][34]
As of 2013, an estimated 1.02 million immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) lived in the United States, making up 2.5 percent of the country's 41.3 million immigrants.[35] Middle Eastern and North African immigrants have primarily settled in California (20%), Michigan (11%), and New York (10%). Data from the United States Census Bureau shows that from 2009 to 2013, the four counties with the most MENA immigrants were Los Angeles County, California; Wayne County, Michigan (Detroit), Cook County, Illinois (Chicago), and Kings County, New York (Brooklyn); these four counties collectively "accounted for about 19 percent of the total MENA immigrant population in the United States."[36]
Although the United States census has recorded race and ethnicity since the first census in 1790, this information has been voluntary since the end of the Civil War (non-whites were counted differently from 1787 to 1868 for the purpose of determining congressional representation).[37] As such, these statistics do not include those who did not volunteer this optional information, and so the census underestimates the total populations of each ethnicity actually present.[38]
Although tabulated, "religious responses" were reported as a single total and not differentiated, despite totaling 1,089,597 in 2000.[39]
Independent organizations provide improved estimates of the total populations of races and ethnicities in the U.S. using the raw data from the U.S. census and other surveys.
According to a 2002 Zogby International survey, the majority of Arab Americans were Christian; the survey showed that 24% of Arab Americans were Muslim, 63% were Christian and 13% belonged to another religion or no religion.[40] Christian Arab Americans include Maronites, Melkites, Chaldeans, Orthodox Christians, and Copts; Muslim Arab Americans primarily adhere to one of the two main Islamic denominations, Sunni and Shia.[40]