Tamil American

Tamil American

Ananda Coomaraswamy Sendhil Ramamurthy Kamala Harris Indra Nooyi M. Night Shyamalan Aziz Ansari
Total population
132,573
Regions with significant populations
Central New Jersey, New York City, Los Angeles
Languages
Predominantly: Tamil, English Minority: Other Indian Languages, Sinhala
Religion
Predominantly: Hinduism Minority: Christianity, Sunni Islam, Jainism
Related ethnic groups
Tamil people, Indian American, Sri Lankan American

Tamil Americans or American Tamils are nationals of the United States who are of Tamil ethnic origins, mostly from India and Sri Lanka and other countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the French West Indies, South Africa and the United Kingdom.

Demographics

The New York City Metropolitan Area, including Central New Jersey, as well as Long Island and Staten Island in New York, is home to the largest Tamil population in the United States.

In the second half of the 20th century, Tamils from India migrated as skilled professionals to the United States, Canada, Europe, and Southeast Asia. The Tamil American population enumerates over 130,000 individuals, and the Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America functions as an umbrella organization for the growing community as such.

Central New Jersey is home to the largest population concentration of Tamils. New Jersey houses its own Tamil Sangam. Sizeable populations of Indian American Tamils have also settled in New York City and the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area, as well as on the West Coast in Silicon Valley, where there are Tamil associations such as the Bay Area Tamil Manram. On the other hand, the New York City and Los Angeles metropolitan areas are home to the largest concentrations of Tamil-speaking Sri Lankan Americans.

2009 Tamil diaspora protests

Tamil Americans took part in the worldwide Tamil diaspora protests in 2009, where they urged national and world leaders and organizations to take action toward bringing a unanimous cease fire to the Sri Lankan Civil War. Protests occurred in the United States, concurrently with other protests in other parts of the world. They were organized by local Tamil American groups, with the help of Tamil Canadians. Major protests occurred on several occasions in Washington, D.C. near the White House, as well as smaller scale protests in New York City.

Notable Tamil Americans

• Ananda Coomaraswamy - Philosopher
• Ashok Amritraj - Film producer
• Aziz Ansari - Actor and stand-up comedian
• G. V. Loganathan - Indian-born American professor and a victim of the Virginia Tech massacre
• Indra Nooyi - CEO of PepsiCo Incorporated.
• Jay Chandrasekhar - Actor and Director
• Kamala Harris - Attorney General of California
• Mary Anne Mohanraj - Writer
• Mindy Kaling - Actress
• M. Night Shyamalan - Film Director
• Padma Lakshmi - Entrepreneur, Model, and Chef
• Raj Rajaratnam - Founder of Galleon Group
• Sendhil Ramamurthy - Actor
• S. R. Srinivasa Varadhan - Mathematician
• Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah - Social anthropologist
• Sukanya Krishnan - American news anchor
• Sundar Pichai - Google Chrome Vice President
• Sunkrish Bala - Actor
• Venkatraman Ramakrishnan - Structural biologist
• Vijay Iyer - Pianist