| The annual Turkish Day Parade in New York City. |
| Total population |
|---|
| 189,640 a [1][2] 500,000 [3][3][4][5][6][7] (including those of ancestral descent) |
| Regions with significant populations |
| New York City Metropolitan Area · New Jersey · North Carolina · Wisconsin · Ohio · Illinois · Indiana · Florida · Maryland · California · Texas |
| Languages |
| Religion |
|
Predominantly Sunni Islam |
| Related ethnic groups |
| Footnotes |
| a Government immigration figures on the number of Turks in the US are not fully reliable because a considerable number of Turks were born in the Balkans and USSR.[8] |
Turkish Americans (Turkish: Amerikalı Türkler) are people who have Turkish ancestry and are citizens of the United States.
Contents |
Early Turkish immigrants to the United States were predominantly from Turkey's rural community. They settled in large, industrial cities and found employment as unskilled laborers. The majority came to economically support their families in Turkey where economy suffered severely from the last World War. After the 1950s, a well-skilled and highly educated group immigrated to the United States, the majority being medical doctors, engineers, and scientists. Today, Turkish Americans are visible in virtually every community and walk of life.
Significant data shows an astounding number of sixteenth-century Mediterranean Sea clashes between the Ottoman fleets and the Portuguese. Many Turkish and Moorish seamen ended up as Portuguese galley slaves bound for the Canary Islands and the New World.[9][10] The presence of Turks in the Americas dates to the 17th century. Ottoman mariners and prisoners of war forced to slave labor on numerous Spanish galleons, have also allegedly escaped when some of these ships were wrecked near American shores and settled among Indians. Some Melungeon researchers claim Melungeons descend from these Ottomans. However, there is little authoritative evidence for this link claim. The myth of Sir Francis Drake leaving a large number of Turks on Roanoke Island in 1586 has been thoroughly debunked. Some anthropologists long questioned the Cherokee and Tuscarora Indians have Turkic and perhaps Basque ancestry from the trans-oceanic fishermen from the regions of Asturias, Cantabria, Galiza and Navarre of northern Spain in the 16th century instead.
It is also known that during the American Civil War, Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid, in support of the North had sent a symbolic camel caravan of material and goods and many of the Turks who came with this shipment settled down in Michigan, esp. the Detroit area. By the turn of the 20th century, both ethnic Turks and national groups under the Ottoman Empire: i.e. Albanians, Greeks, Bulgarians, Romanians, Ukrainians, Armenians, Georgians, Serbs, Bosnians and Arab Christians were already immigrating to and settled the industrial cities of the Northeast and Midwest U.S.
From the 1820s until 1920 over 1.2 million people from the Ottoman Empire immigrated to North America. Approximately 15% of these immigrants (roughly 200,000) were Muslims, including about 50,000 ethnic Turks.[11] Many ethnic Turks from Harput, Elâzığ, Akçadağ, Antep and Macedonia embarked for the Americas from Beirut, Mersin, Izmir, Trabzon and Salonica but declared themselves as Syrians or even Armenians in order to avoid discrimination and gain easy access at the port of entry.[12]
The largest number of ethnic Turks appear to have entered the United States prior to World War I, roughly between 1900 and 1914 when American immigration policies were quite liberal. The Ottoman entry into World War I put an end to the Ottoman emigration to the United States. However, a fairly large number of ethnic Turks from the Balkan provinces of Albania, Kosovo, Western Thrace, and Bulgaria emigrated and settled in the United States. They were listed as Albanians, Bulgarians and Serbians according to their country of origin, even though many of them were ethnically Turkish and identified themselves as such.[12] Moreover, many immigrant families who were ethnically Albanian, Bulgarian, Greek, Macedonian or Serbian included children of Turkish origin whose parents had been cleansed after Macedonia was partitioned between Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece following the Balkan War of 1912-13. These Turkish children had been sheltered, baptised and adopted, and then used as field laborers. When the adopting families had to emigrate to America, they listed these children as family members, but most of these Turkish children still remembered their origin.[12]
However, upon knowledge of the allied occupation of Istanbul and Greek occupation of Izmir, fights broke out between Turks and Greeks in factories and streets and about half of the Turkish community in the United States returned to Turkey to participate in the Turkish War for Independence. In the 1920s, some hundreds of Turkish immigrants including Arabs from the Levant arrived as agricultural laborers in the valleys of California and Arizona.
A second exodus of Turks occurred during the Great Depression. Turkish President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk sent Turkish ships to America, offering free passage home to any Turk who would leave, so many Turks took up the offer and returned to Turkey. Another wave of migration came right after World War II when the United States passed the Alien Registration Act. After this date, especially more elite Turks, academics and professionals, migrated to the United States for better educational and economic opportunities. Along with the brain drain immigrants, many working class Turks also settled in the United States. A brief history of the Turkish presence in the United States can be found at AmerikadakiTurk.
Most Turks who first came to the United States were rural, illiterate and poor but showed a remarkable degree of ethnic solidarity and sought to preserve their traditions.[13] Most Ottoman migrants to North America belonged to low income groups and their main goal was to work for a number of years in any job, without becoming a part of the country, and to save enough money to buy land and houses upon returning to their homeland. The rate of returnees among Ottoman Turks was very high; with more than half of the Muslims returning to their native lands.[13]
One factor compelling ethnic Turks to return home was the lack of suitable Muslim women for them to marry in the United States.[13] The great majority of Turkish immigrants at the time were men; only a few brought their wives and families. Moreover, those Turks who did marry non-Muslim women were assimilated into American culture and thus the number of Turks who survived culturally as Turks in America was very low. Those who maintained a degree of their ethnic identity did so either because they had formed their own small communities, or were gathered around a makeshift mosque, or had enough of an education and strength of personality and willpower to preserve their identity as Turks.[13] Most Turks looked upon America as a culturally alien land where they had been driven by sheer necessity and where they wanted to stay as little time as possible.[14] Consequently they refused to strike permanent roots, build mosques, and establish their own communities as Muslims. At the start of the First World War the Turks ethnic identity was just beginning to differentiate itself from their basic Islamic identity and they, therefore, found it difficult to understand how one could be a Turk and a Muslim and live in a predominantly Christian country.[14]
Thousands of Turkish doctors, engineers, and other technicians came to America for training, and a number of them stayed on, becoming immigrants. The estimates of this brain drain from Turkey for the years 1948-80 range between ten and twenty-five thousand people.[15] Although a large number of professionals returned to Turkey, a significant number took advantage of the quota system, which gave priority to professionals whose skills were needed in the United States. The same was true for a large number of capable students who earned graduate degrees and were offered attractive positions in U.S academia, industry and business management. The number of Turkish students in the United States varied between 800-2,000 per year and about 10-15% of Turkish students obtaining postgraduate degrees stayed permanently in the United States and received the green card; five years later they could receive U.S. citizenship. Eventually Turkey also accepted dual citizenship and many Turks who had become U.S. citizens and cut off their ties to Turkey then renewed their interest in their old society.[15] The difference between these post-World War II immigrants and their Ottoman predecessors is evident in key areas, such as the definition of identity, level of education and income, and social position. The new wave of immigrants not only identified themselves from the beginning as Turks but also defended and promoted the cultural and political aspects of their Turkishness in an open and direct fashion, either individually or as organized groups. Their education and income placed these early professionals turned immigrants at a social level far above both the destitute, largely uneducated and ignored Ottoman immigrants and the average American.[15]
Turkish immigration to the United States underwent another qualitative transformation beginning in the mid-1970s as the result of various unrelated factors, such as the rising interest in business, the lack of employment opportunities in Turkey, the proliferation of well-trained professionals, and political-ideological conflicts.[16] During this period the number of legal and illegal immigrants from Turkey to the United States began to increase steadily.[17] So too did the number of ethnic Turks born in the USSR and Balkan countries, who took advantage of the protection offered by the United States to people escaping from behind the Iron Curtain. However, the overwhelming majority of Turks who came to America after 1970 still had been born and educated in Turkey and shared the common political culture of the Turkish republic, its values and its identity.[17]
The Turkish immigrants arriving after the mid-1970s consisted mostly of professionals, including engineers, economists, and teachers, whose numbers tended to increase while the number of incoming doctors was decreasing by a series of new qualifications requested by American medical authorities.[17] The new Turkish immigrants also included many small businessmen, artisans and skilled workers, as well as unskilled laborers who found employment in a variety of occupations such as construction and building maintenance. A number of these latter immigrants, following the American interest in ethnic cuisines, began to opened restaurants serving Turkish food.[17]
Since the 1970s, the number of Turkish immigrants has risen to more than 2,000 per year.[18] Members of this most recent immigrant group vary widely. Many opened small businesses in the United States and created Turkish American organizations, thus developing Turkish enclaves, particularly in New York City. Still others came for educational purposes.
According to the 2000 US census, there are 117,575 Americans (and to 2005 American Community Survey there are 164,945) of full or partial Turkish descent. From the beginning of Turkish immigration to the United States, many Turks have settled in or around large urban centers. The greatest number have settled in Paterson, New Jersey and the New York City Metropolitan Area, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, and Philadelphia. Other concentrations of Turkish Americans may be found along the East Coast in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland and Virginia; and some have ventured into California (esp. Los Angeles), Minnesota, Indiana, Texas, Florida and Alabama.[19]
Little Istanbul is a neighborhood in the South Paterson area of Paterson, New Jersey and represents the largest ethnic Turkish enclave in the United States. Paterson is a major traditional gateway for immigrants looking to make a start in the new world. Today, the faces in Paterson are often of immigrants from the Islamic world. Little Istanbul is bordered by Madison Avenue to the north, Crooks Avenue to the south, Hazel Street to the west, and East Railway Avenue to the east.
The Turkish American community is becoming more close-knit as their social life is revolved around coffee houses and benevolent societies. In Peabody, Massachusetts, coffee houses on Walnut Street became a congregating place for the Turks living in the area. It was here the community members exchange news about their villages while sipping Turkish coffee and noshing on sweet pastry. The Boston metropolitan area has been an area of choice for late 20th century Turkish immigration.
The top US communities with the highest percentage of people claiming Turkish ancestry in 2000 are:[20]
| Community | Place type | % Turkish |
|---|---|---|
| Islandia, NY | village | 2.5 |
| Edgewater Park, NJ | township | 1.9 |
| Fairview, NJ | borough | 1.7 |
| Goldens Bridge, NY | populated place | 1.6 |
| Point Lookout, NY | populated place | 1.4 |
| Marshville, NC | town | 1.4 |
| Boonton, NJ | town | 1.3 |
| Bellerose Terrace, NY | populated place | 1.3 |
| Cliffside Park, NJ | borough | 1.3 |
| Franksville, WI | populated place | 1.3 |
| Ridgefield, NJ | borough | 1.3 |
| Chester, OH | township | 1.3 |
| Bay Harbor Islands, FL | town | 1.2 |
| Herricks, NY | populated place | 1.2 |
| Barry, IL | city | 1.2 |
| Cloverdale, IN | town | 1.2 |
| Highland Beach, FL | town | 1.2 |
| Friendship Village, MD | populated place | 1.2 |
| New Egypt, NJ | populated place | 1.1 |
| Delran, NJ | township | 1.1 |
| Trumbull County, Ohio | township | 1.1 |
| Summit, IL | village | 1.1 |
| Haledon, NJ | borough | 1.0 |
Numerous Turkish Americans have made notable contributions to American society, particularly in the fields of education, medicine, arts and science.
Tunç Yalman, artistic director of the Milwaukee Repertory Theater, and Osmar Karakas, who was awarded the 1991 National Press Award for the best news photograph, have contributed significantly to the arts.
Muhtar Kent is the current president and CEO of the Coca-Cola Company.
Perhaps the most successful Turkish name associated with music outside of Turkey and in the United States is Atlantic Records' founder, Ahmet Ertegün. His promotion of some of the most famous R&B and soul artists in North America and contribution to the American music industry has earned him a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame together with his brother Nesuhi Ertegün. Arif Mardin is another major popular music producer and arranger in America. Ertegun's clients included the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, ABBA, The Cult, Peter Frampton, Manowar, Queensryche, Twisted Sister, AC/DC, Jimi Hendrix, Aretha Franklin, the Bee Gees, Carly Simon, Roberta Flack, Bette Midler and many more. After briefly meeting Ahmet Ertegün at the Newport Jazz Festival, he joined Atlantic Records and served as their Vice President until his death.
Turkish American organizations have primarily tried to promote the Turkish culture as well as Turkey’s position in international affairs and have generally supported the positions taken by the Turkish government.[21] They have been lobbying for Turkey's entry into the European Union and other Western European forums for cooperation. They have also defended Turkish involvement in Cyprus.[21] Turkish Americans have also expressed concerns about the Greek lobby in the United States undermining the typically good Turkish-American relations.[21][22]
Mehmet Oz (Turkish: Mehmet Cengiz Öz) (born June 11, 1960) is a Turkish-American cardiothoracic surgeon and author. He has made frequent appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show, as well as appearances on Larry King, CNN, and other networks.
In the fall of 2009, Winfrey's Harpo Productions and Sony Pictures launched a syndicated daily talk show featuring Oz, called The Dr. Oz Show.[23]
Feza Gürsey (1921–1993) was the J. Willard Gibbs Professor Emeritus of Physics at Yale University. He contributed major studies on the group structure of elementary particles and the symmetries of interactions. Professor Gursoy helped bridge the gap between physicists and mathematicians at Yale. He was the winner of the prestigious Oppenheimer Prize and Wigner Medal.
Muzafer Şerif (born July 29, 1906, in Ödemiş, İzmir, Turkey – died October 16, 1988, in Fairbanks, Alaska) was one of the founders of social psychology. He helped develop social judgment theory and realistic conflict theory.
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