Albanian Americans

Albanian-Americans are citizens of the United States who are of Albanian ancestry. According to the 2000 US census, there are 113,661 Americans of full or partial Albanian descent. The States with the largest Albanian-American populations are New York (32,428), Michigan (15,343), Massachusetts (10,594), New Jersey (7,336) and Connecticut (7,200).

Albanian Population figures, as estimated by the Albanians in America

Though the US census shows that their is about 113,661 Americans of full or partial Albanian descent, by Albanians figures they estimate themselves in America between 500,000 to 1,000,000. The place with the largest Albanian settlement is the New England area. The second largest concetration of Albanians in America is in The Mid West. The third largest Albanian settlement in America is in the southeast and the fourth is the southwest.

Settlement Patterns

Early Albanian immigrants settled around New England and then moved to other parts of Massachusetts where unskilled factory labor was plentiful. One such example of this is in Biddeford, Maine, where they established the first Mosque in America. Prior to 1920, most of the Albanians who migrated to the United States were Orthodox Tosks from the city of Korce in southern Albania.

Most were young males who either migrated for economic gain or were seeking political asylum and did not intend to remain permanently in the United States. They lived in community barracks or konaks, where they could live cheaply and send money home. The konak gradually gave way to more permanent family dwellings as more women and children joined Albanian men in the United States. Early Massachusetts settlements were established in Worcester, Natick, Southbridge, Cambridge, and Lowell. The 1990 census reveals that the largest number of Albanians live in New York City with a high concentration in the Bronx, followed by Chicago, Los Angeles, Denver, Detroit, New Orleans, Miami, Pittsburgh, and Washington, D.C.

In the years following the NATO invasion of Kosovo in 1999, a large percentage of ethnic-Albanian women from Kosovo married American police officers and contractors from all corners of the United States, who were in Kosovo working under the United Nations. This trend, which has continued to present day as late as 2006, is a drastic deviation from the traditional Albanian cultural stance of marrying only within it's own culture.

History of Albanians in America

• 1886 -- The first immigrant from Albania to America, Koli Kristofer, arrives in Boston.
• 1892 -- Koli Kristofer (later ordained as a priest), after returning to Albania spoke of the wonders of the "new world" to his countrymen, comes back to Boston accompanied by 17 other Albanians.

Albanians in Massachusetts

• 1999 -- It is estimated that there are now over 35,000 Albanians living in Greater Boston including some 1000 Kosovar Albanians.

Albanians in Michigan

• 2006 -- It is estimated by Albanians that their is over 100,000 Albanians living in southeast Michigan. Spread around cities like Troy, Bloomfield, Farmington Hills, Steerling Heights, Hamtramck, Royal oak, Westland, Wayne, etc.

References

• Euroamericans.net: Albanians in America