Albanian Americans

The language spread of Albanian in the United States as of the 2000 census.
States Total population  United States 216,400 (2024) (0.07% of the US population)[1][2] Regions with significant populations New York City Philadelphia Jacksonville Clearwater and Tampa Detroit Chicagoland Waterbury Dallas-Fort Worth Greater Boston  New York Over 60,000[3]  Michigan 25,000-43,400[3]  Massachusetts 21,300[3]  Ohio 4,000-20,000[4]  Illinois 15,300[3]  Connecticut 12,000[3]  New Jersey 14,000[5]  Pennsylvania 10,000[5]  Florida 17,000[5]  California 5,000[5]  Texas 7,000[5]
Languages
American English Albanian other languages
Religion
Islam Christianity Irreligion

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Albanian Americans (Albanian: shqiptaro-amerikanët) are Americans of full or partial Albanian ancestry and heritage in the United States. They trace their ancestry to the territories with a large Albanian population in the Balkans and southern Europe, including Albania, Italy, Kosovo, North Macedonia and Montenegro. They are adherents of different religions and are predominantly Muslims and Christians, while some are irreligious.

In 2024, there were 215,000 American citizens of Albanian descent living in the United States,^[2] mostly in the Northeast and the Great Lakes region.^[6] In 1990, there were 47,710 Albanians.^[7] The figure includes all people affiliated with United States who claim Albanian ancestry, both those born in the country and naturalized citizens, as well as those with dual citizenship who affiliate themselves with both cultures. According to data from a 2008 survey by the United States government, there are 201,118 Americans of full or partial Albanian descent.^[8]

People of Albanian descent are often concentrated in the Greater Philadelphia, Greater Boston, Greater Cleveland, Ohio; Metro Detroit, Michigan; Jacksonville, Florida; New York City, and Waterbury, Connecticut areas.

History

The first Albanian documented to have emigrated to the United States was Kolë Kristofori (English: Nicholas Christopher), who landed in Boston in the early 1880s and is remembered as the pioneer of the Albanian ethnic group in the U.S.^[10] It was not until the 1900s that large numbers of Albanians reached the U.S. East Coast: most of them were young bachelors from southern Albania.^[10]

The majority of this first wave of emigrants, approximately 10,000, did not intend to permanently settle in the U.S., and went back to Albania after World War I.^[10] Meanwhile, another group of emigrants from Albania reached the U.S. This new group settled and intermarried in their new country.^[10] The number of Albanians that reported the Albanian language as their mother tongue in 1920 was around 6,000.^[10]

In addition to New York, Connecticut, Florida and Michigan having most of the Albanian population, pockets of sizable Albanians are found in San Diego County, which has roughly up towards 1,000 Albanians, many residing in Santee, or in the East San Diego County area. There are also several hundred Albanian Americans in the Sacramento Valley, especially in and around Carmichael. Pasadena, in Los Angeles, also has several hundred Albanians.^[11] A small yet sizable Albanian community can be found in Washington state, including Mercer Island and within the Seattle area.^[12]

The Dallas, Texas area also has an Albanian community; a Balkan/Albanian restaurant, cultural center in Lewisville, and a thousand to two thousand Albanians reside in the Dallas area.

Jacksonville has the most Albanian Americans in Florida with 3,812 Albanians, having almost 1/4 of all Albanian Americans in Florida and 1.76% of all Albanian Americans.^[13] Jacksonville's population is 0.4% Albanian by ancestry.

Post-World War II

After World War II the Albanians who emigrated to the U.S. were mostly political emigrants, and by 1970 the figure rose to around 17,000.^[10]

Following the Expulsion of Cham Albanians from Greece in the aftermath of World War II, many of them migrated to the United States, asserting that the Communist government in Albania discriminated against and persecuted them.^[14] They managed to retain their traditions and language,^[14] and created in 1973 the Chameria Human Rights Association which later merged and became Albanian American Organization Chameria which aimed to protect their rights.^[15][16] (see Cham Albanians).

Allowing for the families that had abandoned their mother tongue, it is estimated that around 70,000 US citizens with an Albanian background lived in the US in 1980.^[17]

In the 1990s, many Albanians from Albania, Montenegro, Serbia, and the Republic of North Macedonia emigrated to the United States as refugees of war. Another Albanian American (Kosovan-Americans) community in the Riverside/San Bernardino area of California includes Kosovars who entered the United States at the March Joint Air Reserve Base in Riverside.^[18]

Arbëreshë Americans

Some of the first ethnic Albanians to arrive in the United States were immigrants from Italy who descended from a group of Albanians known as the Arbëreshë. The Arbëreshë were a group of Albanians who fled to the Kingdom of Naples and to the Kingdom of Sicily in the 15th century to avoid invasion by the Ottoman Empire.

This group of Albanians is distinguishable from other Albanian Americans due to their Italianized names, as well as their Albanian Greek Catholic religion. Nevertheless, Arbëreshë have a strong sense of identity, and are unique in that they speak an archaic dialect of Tosk Albanian called Arbëresh, which does not have any Ottoman influence.

Greater New Orleans has a large Arbëreshë community, mostly descended from 19th century Sicilian immigrants. Oftentimes, wherever there are Italians, there are a few Arbëreshë mixed with them. Arbëreshë Americans, therefore, are often indistinguishable from Italian Americans due to being assimilated into the Italian American community.

Population

Demographics

The top 10 cities in the United States that have the most Albanian Americans.^[19]

Albanians tend to live in the Upper South, the Midwest, and the Northeast. The Alabanian community is generally concentrated in the Northeast, with populations mostly in New York City, Yonkers area, Waterbury, Connecticut area, Philadelphia, Boston and nearby Quincy. There are some Albanian communities in Florida, mainly in the Jacksonville area. The main other Albanian communities are in the Midwest, such as in Metro Detroit, Michigan, and Chicagoland. There are few Albanian communities elsewhere, with a small population in California and a slightly higher proportion in Texas, especially Dallas.^[20] Within the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, Plano has a large community in addition to the metropolitan area's two aforementioned cities. The zip code of 75075, west of the Central Expressway in Plano, is 1.5% Albanian; 500-600 residents.^[21]

According to the American Community Survey (ACS) for 2012 the number of Albanians in the USA had grown to 214,300.^[22] The ethnic Albanian population in the US is highly concentrated in few places. With over 60,000 Albanian-Americans, the largest community is in New York which dominates as a center of the Albanian community.^[3] 0.3% of New York State reports Albanian ancestry, and about 0.5% of NYC residents report Albanian ancestry. There is a concentrated Albanian community around the Bronx, especially around Belmont and Bedford Park as well as parts of Westchester County such as Yonkers.^[23]

Some 43,400 live in Michigan, about 21,300 live in Massachusetts, approximately 20,000 live in Ohio (in Greater Cleveland, especially Lakewood and the West Side of Cleveland), 15,300 live in Illinois and about 12,000 live in Connecticut.^[3][4][24] The three largest communities (New York, Michigan and Massachusetts) account for 58% of the total Albanian-American population.^[3] Michigan has an Albanian American percentage for the state recorded at 0.4%, higher than New York's at 0.3%; thus having Michigan having the highest percentage of Albanian Americans of any state.

Hamtramck, Michigan is 3% ethnically Albanian. There are 5,000 Albanians in Macomb County, and several thousand in Wayne County. While few live in the Detroit city proper, many live also in the suburbs such as St. Clair Shores and Farmington Hills. (See History of the Albanian Americans in Metro Detroit).

The Greater Philadelphia Area of Pennsylvania is rife with Albanian-descended persons. Philadelphia city proper, as well as the suburbs of Progress and Berwyn are over 2% Albanian ethnically, and Philadelphia has over 5,000 Albanians in residence; 0.3% of the city's population.^[25]

The DMV area encompassing D.C., Virginia, and Maryland, has several thousand Albanians: many reside in Fairfax County, Virginia (1,000; 120 in Dulles Town Center; 100 Floris; 100 in Oakton, and several dozen in other various cities and communities within the county), Arlington, Virginia, Loudoun County, Virginia, Montgomery County, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. itself has an Albanian American proportion that is slightly higher than the American figure of 0.06% (D.C.'s is 0.08%).

Albanian-Americans are on average younger than non-Albanian Americans, having an average age of 33.5 in comparison to the American national average of 37.7. Albanian-Americans also have a higher percentage of males than non-Albanian Americans with 52.1% of the community being male versus the American national average of 49.2%. ^[26]

There is a sizable Albanian population in Missouri, especially in Greater St. Louis; the town of Bella Villa, which also has a large population of another Southern European ethnic group (Bosnian Americans), is 4% Albanian.^[27]

According to the 2000 Census, Fairview, North Carolina has the highest percentage of people stating they have Albanian Ancestry followed by Hamtramck, Michigan at 2.8%.

Albanian-born population

Albanian-born population in the U.S. since 2010 (excludes Albanians born in Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro):^[28]

Year	Number
2010	77,407
2011	86,010
2012	83,746
2013	81,047
2014	81,622
2015	89,744
2016	93,033

Schools and language preservation

New York City Public Schools would start teaching Albanian language in the late 2010s; the language was offered to PS 105 in Morris Park, Bronx.^[29] Starting in 2024, Albanian language is taught at an Albanian and Montenegrin American cultural center to roughly 60 children in Ridgewood, Queens, NYC, entitled the "Fol Shqip School," and Mercy College is the only college known to be teaching Albanian courses in New York City.^[30][31]

Notable people

Selected people:

• 
  Danny DeVito
• 
  Joe DioGuardi
• 
  Ferid Murad
• 
  William G. Gregory
• 
  Jim Belushi
• 
  Regis Philbin
• 
  Eliza Dushku
• 
  Mike Bongiorno
• 
  Action Bronson
• 
  Martin Shkreli
• 
  Bebe Rexha
• 
  Ava Max

See also

• European Americans
• Albanian diaspora
• Albania-United States relations
• Albanian American Student Organization
• History of the Albanian Americans in Metro Detroit
• History of Albanians in Maine
• Albanians in New York City

References

Further reading

• Federal Writers' Project, Works Project Administration (WPA) of Massachusetts. The Albanian Struggle in the Old World and New (1939).
• Fischer, Bernd J. “Albanian Refugees Seeking Political Asylum in the United States: Process and Problems.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 31#1 (2005): 193–208.
• Jurgens, Jane. "Albanian Americans." in Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America, edited by Thomas Riggs, (3rd ed., vol. 1, Gale, 2014), pp. 61–73. Online
• Ragaru, Nadège, and Amilda Dymi. “The Albanian-American Community in the United States: A Diaspora Coming to Visibility.” Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism 31, nos. 1–2 (2004): 45–63.
• Thernstrom, Stephan; Orlov, Ann; Handlin, Oscar, eds. Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0674375122, pp 23–28 Online free to borrow
• Trix, Frances. The Albanians in Michigan: A Proud People from Southeast Europe (Michigan State University Press, 2001).

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