| Notable Lithuanian Americans: George A. Romero · Brandon Flowers · Anthony Kiedis Charles Bronson · Dick Durbin · John C. Reilly |
| Total population |
|---|
| 726,773 [1] 0.2% of the US population (2009) |
| Regions with significant populations |
| Northeast, Midwest |
| Languages |
| Religion |
|
Roman Catholic, minority Romuvan |
| Related ethnic groups |
Lithuanian Americans are citizens of the United States who are of Lithuanian ancestry. According to the United States Census, there are 712,165 Americans of full or partial Lithuanian descent. New Philadelphia, Pennsylvania has the largest percentage of Lithuanian Americans (20.8%) in the United States.
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Large numbers of Lithuanians first came to the United States in 1867-1868 after a famine in Lithuania.[2] (Lithuania at that time still formed part of the Russian Empire: Saint Petersburg had annexed the Lithuanian lands piece by piece between 1772 and 1795 in the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth between Prussia, (later part of Germany), the Austrian-based Habsburg Monarchy and Czarist Russia, which ceased to exist in 1917-1918. Lithuania became independent again in 1918.) The beginnings of industrialization and commercial agriculture in the Russian Empire as well as a population boom that exhausted available land transformed Lithuanian peasant-farmers, once considered an immovable fixture of the land, into migrant-laborers. The pressures of industrialization drove numerous Lithuanian peasants to emigrate to the United States continuing until the outbreak of the First World War. This first wave of Lithuanian immigrants to the United States ceased when the US Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act in 1921, followed by the Immigration Act of 1924 driven by xenophobic anti-immigrant attitudes against the newcomers from Eastern Europe. The Immigration Act of 1924 was aimed at restricting the Eastern and Southern Europeans who had begun to enter the country in large numbers beginning in the 1890s.
A second wave of Lithuanians emigrated to the United States as a result of the Soviet occupation of Lithuania during and after the Second World War. After the war's end and the subsequent reoccupation of Lithuania by the Soviet Union, these Displaced Persons were allowed to immigrate to the United States and to apply for American citizenship thanks to a special act of Congress which bypassed the quota system that was still in place until 1967.
Immigration of Lithuanians into the US resumed after Lithuania regained its independence after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1990. This wave of immigration has tapered off recently as the decline of the dollar and the entry of Lithuania into the EU have made countries such as Ireland and the United Kingdom a more attractive option for potential Lithuanian emigrants.
Lithuanians differed from most immigrant groups in the United States in several ways. First, they did not plan to remain permanently and become "Americanized." Instead their intent was to live in the US temporarily to earn money, invest in property, and wait for the right opportunity to return to Lithuania. Official estimates were that 30% of the emigrants from the Russian provinces of Poland-Lithuania returned home. When adjusted to include only non-Jews the number is closer to 50-60%. Lithuanian immigrants who mostly came to the United States from Imperial Russia lived in a social environment akin to early European feudal society, where classless Jews performed the essential middle roles of artisans, merchants and moneylenders.
American employers considered Lithuanian immigrants, like the Poles as better suited for arduous manual labor in coal-mines, slaughterhouses, and steel mills, particularly in the primary stages of steel manufacture. Consequently, Lithuanian migrants were recruited for work in the coal mines of Pennsylvania and the heavy industries (steel mills, iron foundries, slaughterhouses, oil and sugar refineries) of the Northeastern United States as well the Great Lakes cities of Chicago, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Buffalo, Milwaukee, and Cleveland.
Many famous people in the United States are or have been aware of their Lithuanian ancestry, including famous anarchist Emma Goldman, movie directors Robert Zemeckis and John Milius[3], actors Ruta Lee, Blackie Dammett, John C. Reilly, Charles Bronson, Brendon Small and Daniel Jason Sudeikis, rock stars Anthony Kiedis, Brandon Flowers, Michael Gira and Thalia Zedek, model Jurgita Valts, notorious criminal Alvin Karpis, radio host Tom Leykis, scientist Marija Gimbutas, and Bishop Louis Vezelis, OFM. Current Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin is half-Lithuanian. Famous skateboarder Natas Kaupas, one of the innovators of street skating in the late 1980s and early 1990s, is of Lithuanian heritage. Others, such as J. D. Salinger, Sean Penn and Pink, had their Jewish ancestors come from Lithuanian lands.
Many American sport celebrities have Lithuanian heritage: Eleanor Dapkus, Johnny Unitas, Vitas Gerulaitis, Frank Lubin, Dick Butkus, Joe Jurevicius, Jack Sharkey and James Laurinaitis to mention a few. Lithuanian Americans have also distinguished themselves in the arts such as stained glass artist and painter Adolfas Valeška as well as modern artists such as Jonas Mekas, the avant-garde filmmaker and George Maciunas, founder of the Fluxus movement.
Two fictional characters of Lithuanian birth who immigrated to the United States have prominently captured the American imagination. The first is Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant around whom Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel chronicles the life of the Lithuanian community in Chicago and the treatment of workers in the Chicago Stockyards. The second, Hannibal Lecter, is the fictional villain from The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal was born in Lithuania but later moved to the United States and took US citizenship. Marko Ramius, the Soviet submarine captain in The Hunt for Red October, is also described as "Lithuanian by birth" and as the "Vilnius Schoolmaster".
Chicago, Illinois, is home to the second largest population of Lithuanians in the world, and the old "Lithuanian Downtown" in Bridgeport was once the center of Lithuanian political activity for the whole United States. Another large Lithuanian community can be found in the Coal Region of northeastern Pennsylvania, particularly in Schuylkill County where the small borough of New Philadelphia has the largest percentage of Lithuanian Americans (20.8%) in the United States. There is also a large community of Lithuanian descent in the coal mining regions of Western Pennsylvania, northern West Virginia Panhandle and Eastern Ohio tri-state area. Grand County, Colorado's Lithuanian-American community has the unusual distinction in that it is the only sizable immigrant population in an otherwise fairly homogeneous population in a rural, mountainous community. There is also a small but vibrant Lithuanian community in Presque Isle, Maine. Many Lithuanian refugees settled in Southern California after World War II; they constitute a community in Los Angeles.
The states with the largest Lithuanian-American populations today are:[4]
| Illinois | 87,294 |
| Pennsylvania | 78,330 |
| California | 51,406 |
| Massachusetts | 51,054 |
| New York | 49,083 |
There also were and are a significant number of Lithuanians and their descendents in Canada. Many are in Ontario particularly around the Hamilton-Missisauga-Toronto area near the coast of Lake Ontario. In 2011, a huge increase in Lithuanians in Victoria, BC was noticed. [5][6][7] Some have moved to the United States.
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