History
The migration of Romanians to the US started in the second half of the 19th century. They came mostly from the territories that were under Austro-Hungarian rule: Transylvania, Banat, Bucovina, Crişana and Maramureş. Some of them came with the intention to work for some years and to return after raising money, while others decided to remain. Those Romanians migrated mostly in the industrial centers in Pennsylvania and Delaware, and around the Great Lakes (Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit etc.) as well. There were also some immigrants from Romanian Old Kingdom. For example, in 1905, 7,818 Romanians migrated to the US, including 7,261 from Austria-Hungary, 423 from the Romanian Old Kingdom, and the rest came from other European countries. The migrants from the Romanian Old Kingdom were mostly Jews and they settled mostly in New York. One of their prominent organizations was the United Rumanian Jews of America. 75,000 Romanian Jews emigrated in the period 1881-1914, mostly to the United States.
During the interwar period, the number of ethnic Romanians who migrated to the US decreased as a consequence of the economic development in Romania, but the number of Jews who migrated to the US increased, mostly after the rise of the fascist Iron Guard.
After the Second World War, the number of Romanians who migrated to the United States increased again. This time, they settled mostly in California, Florida and New York and they came from throughout Romania.
Over 53% of all foreign-born Romanian Americans came to the US after 1980. Some sources supply estimates of particular Romanian American community populations which are considerably higher than the most recently-available U.S. census count. The estimated numbers depend on the reliability of the estimation method used and how membership of the Romanian American community is defined.
In the 2000 United States census, 340,000 Americans of age 5 years and older (or 0.11% of the total US population) were identified as speakers of Romanian, ranking it 21st among languages spoken in the US.
Read more about this topic: Romanian American
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“What has history to do with me? Mine is the first and only world! I want to report how I find the world. What others have told me about the world is a very small and incidental part of my experience. I have to judge the world, to measure things.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“The principle office of history I take to be this: to prevent virtuous actions from being forgotten, and that evil words and deeds should fear an infamous reputation with posterity.”
—Tacitus (c. 55–117)