| Notable Trinidadian and Tobagonians: Kareem Abdul Jabbar · Jennifer Carroll · Nia Long Guru · Tatyana Ali · Nicki Minaj |
| Total population |
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| Trinidadian and Tobagonian 164,778 Americans [1] 0.1% of the US population |
| Regions with significant populations |
| New York, Maryland, Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, California |
| Languages |
| Religion |
| Related ethnic groups |
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Indo-Trinidadians, Afro-Trinidadians, Chinese Trinidadians, Trinidadian Canadians, Trinidadian British, Trinidadian Australian |
Trinidadian and Tobagonian Americans are Americans of Trinidadian and Tobagonian heritage or immigrants born in Trinidad and Tobago who achieve United States citizenship. The largest proportion of Trinidadians live in New York City and in other places such as Maryland, Florida, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. There are 164,778 Trinidadian Americans living in the U.S.
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Trinidadian and Tobagonian immigration to the United States, which dates back to the seventeenth century, was spasmodic and is best studied in relation to the major waves of Caribbean immigration. The first documented account of black immigration to the United States from the Caribbean dates back to 1619, when a small group of voluntary indentured workers arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, on a Dutch frigate. The immigrants worked as free people until 1629 when a Portuguese vessel arrived with the first shipload of blacks captured off the west coast of Africa. In the 1640s Virginia and other states began instituting laws that took away the freedom of blacks and redefined them as chattel, or personal property. Trinidad, like many other islands in the British West Indies, served as a clearinghouse for slaves en route to North America. The region also acted as a "seasoning camp" where newly arrived blacks were "broken-in" psychologically and physically to a life of slavery, as well as a place where they acquired biological resistance to deadly European diseases.
From 1966 to 1970, 23,367 Trinidadian and Tobagonian immigrants, primarily from the educated elite and rural poor classes, legally migrated to the United States. From 1971 to 1975, the figure climbed to 33,278. It dropped to 28,498 from 1976 to 1980, and only half that amount between 1981 and 1984, when the Reagan administration began placing greater restrictions on U.S. immigration policy. Less than 2,300 Trinidadian and Tobagonian immigrants arrived in 1984 and that number scarcely increased during President Reagan's second term of office. A few European-Trinidadians migrated during the latter half of the twentieth century, primarily because they were losing their grip on political power in the Republic with the rise of nationalism and independence. The majority of those immigrants came to the United States because Britain had restricted immigration from the Commonwealth islands to the British Isles. A larger number migrated in the late 1980s when oil prices fell, sending the Republic into a deep recession. Trinidadians and Tobagonians are now the second largest group of English-speaking West Indian immigrants in the United States.
The top US communities with the highest percentage of people claiming Trinidadian-Tobagonian ancestry are:[2]
Top 101 U.S. communities with the most residents born in Trinidad & Tobago are:[3]
Trinidadian and Tobagonian immigrants generally select one of two options: they either make a quick livelihood in the United States before returning home, or they join American society permanently, usually immersing themselves in Black culture if Afro-Trinidadian or Indian culture if Indo-Trinidadian or in the wider Caribbean American communities. Many of the early Trinidadians and Tobagonians aged 35 and older did return to their native land. Later immigrants often chose the second option and increasingly became part of the distinctly Caribbean community in New York City and Florida.
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