Armenian American Literature

Armenian American Literature

Armenian Americans (Armenian: Ամերիկահայերa) are Americans of Armenian origin. They form the second largest community in the Armenian diaspora after Armenians in Russia. The first major wave of Armenian immigration to the US took place in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as Armenians fled the Hamidian massacres (1894–1896) and Armenian Genocide (1915–1923) that were taking place in the Ottoman Empire. Since the 1950s, Armenians from USSR, Turkey, Iran and Lebanon have migrated to America as a result of instability in those countries, and since the late 1980s, immigrants from Soviet Armenia could be found as well. Since the independence of Armenia from the Soviet Union in 1991 and the following war with neighboring Azerbaijan, additional Armenians fled to the US.

The Armenian American community is the most politically influential community of the Armenian diaspora. Organizations such as Armenian National Committee of America and Armenian Assembly of America advocate for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the US government and support stronger Armenia–United States relations. AGBU is known for its financial support and promotion of Armenian cultural and Armenian language schools. The Armenian language (both the Eastern and mainly the Western dialects) is spoken in the US, especially in California, where most recent Armenian immigrants and established Armenian communities have settled. The majority of Armenians are followers of the Armenian Apostolic Church, the oldest national church in the world, and Armenian Americans are no exception.

The 2011 American Community Survey estimated that 483,366 Americans held full or partial Armenian ancestry. Various organizations and media criticize these numbers as an underestimate, proposing 800,000 to 1,500,000 Armenian Americans instead. The highest concentration of Americans of Armenian descent is in the Greater Los Angeles area, where 166,498 people have identified themselves as Armenian to the 2000 Census, comprising over 40% of the 385,488 people who identified Armenian origins in the US at the time. Glendale, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, is widely thought to be the center of Armenian American life.

Read more about Armenian American Literature:  Geographic Distribution, Notable Armenian Americans

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