Uzbek Americans

Uzbek Americans are Americans of Uzbek descent or Uzbek immigrants with American citizenship.

The New York City Metropolitan Area, including Brooklyn and Queens in New York City and Fair Lawn in Bergen County, New Jersey, is home to by far the largest Uzbek population in the United States.^[3][4][5][6]

History

Since the late 1950s, over 1,000 Uzbek families migrated to the United States, according to unofficial data. The first of them came from Europe, but from the mid-1960s they mainly came from Turkey and, to a lesser extent, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.

The biggest wave of Uzbek immigrants to the United States settled in the country in the 1980s, from Afghanistan, because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Since the early 1990s to the present day, most of the Uzbeks of Uzbekistan who migrate to the U.S. settle there under the so-called Green Card Lottery.^[7]

Demography

Every year for the last 5-6 years, around 1,000-1,800 Uzbeks win the green card lottery. Thus, more than 20,000 ethnic Uzbeks are citizens of the United States today.^[8] Uzbeks live mainly in New York and New Jersey, growing rapidly in populations particularly in the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens in New York City and in Northern New Jersey. However, smaller pockets of Uzbek Americans can be found in other major American metropolitan areas. The years of 2012 and 2013 had the largest migration of Muslim Uzbeks to the United States in history, much more so than the 1000-1800 green card lottery winners that were originally set in place.

Most Uzbek migrants are engaged in business and science, working in various institutions and companies. Part of the Uzbek diaspora is involved in government offices, schools and colleges of the country, as well as in areas like defense, aviation and medicine. Some representatives of the Uzbek diaspora hold senior executive positions in a number of American states. In the United States, according to officials of law enforcement, representatives of the Uzbek diaspora are the most law-abiding and rarely violate the law. Among them are many families of models.^[7]

Organizations

As with other ethnic groups in the United States, Uzbek Americans also have several cultural associations. For example, the Vatandosh Uzbek American Federation(VUAF) was established in January 2011. This association is a non-profit organization. Vatandosh promotes the social welfare of its members by developing and fostering cultural and social awareness and relations between the American and Uzbek people in the United States. (vatandosh.org)

By other way, from December 13, 1958, Uzbeks of USA was formed the "Turkestan -America" (ATA) Association in Philadelphia (PA), which joined the citizens of the former Soviet Turkestan living in United States, taking advantage the growing number of immigrants in the United States of Central Asian origin. Under federal law the U.S. first registered Association in Philadelphia and, later (in 1961), it was recorded in New York.

The " Turkestan -America " Association is a non -profit organization that represents the interests of the community of Central Asia in the U.S. organization and help their integration into American society. Company activities intended to provide assistance and support of the peoples of Central Asia in the United States, through the preservation of cultural and educational organizations and charitable activities of their native language, identity, cultural heritage and national traditions.

In the structure of society has a council homes and offices it comes to issues of women and youth. Comprehensive strengthening and intensifying the relationship between members of society, both within their organizations and with representatives of other U.S. and foreign communities, Turkestan society promotes awareness worldwide about the association " Turkestan America " about the history and culture of the peoples of Central Asia, to foster mutual understanding, trust and friendship between the peoples of Central Asia and America supports and strengthens the links with other similar organizations such as the Federation of American Turkey.

In order to improve their situation and protect the interests of the ATA provides its members a number of privileges and benefits. In particular, the Turkestan Association membership provides access to many resources and programs of society, inclusion on the mailing list of the organization; privileges in the election, the possibility to obtain special discounts on family and personal matters, space guarantees for burial on favorable terms; subscribe to newspapers, the ability to publish news and announcements on the website and ATA.

Currently the company is one of the largest NGOs in the U.S. and is highly respected. The association has a rather narrow and multilateral ties with the U.S. government, is active in the political life of the country. One of the main activities of the ATA was most recently anticommunist propaganda. Members of the public have used all Congress sessions, international conferences, festivals and other events in order to inform the world about the problems of Soviet Turkestan, tried to articulate what the nations of Central Asia are not able to say in conditions of strict censorship and lack of transparency. So they were in charge of the world about Stalin Bans buried without shroud fellow Uzbek people reprisals against Gorbachev.

At the same time, members of the ATA organized rallies and demonstrations outside the UN, wrote memoranda on the release of the Uzbek people . Faced with criticism of the Soviet system and protect the interests of the citizens of CA members of the association were active against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Besides the above, the Association of Turkestan participated annually in the activities with the "Captive Nations Week". "Captive Nations Week", which refers to Lithuania, Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, Latvia, Estonia, "White Ruthenia" (Belarus), "Idel-Ural" (Volga region), "Cossacks" ("land of the Cossacks "), Turkestan, etc., which is held annually in the U.S. in the third week of July, according to Act of Congress "captive nations", № 86-90, adopted in 1958.^[7]

Notable Uzbek-Americans

• Varvara Lepchenko
• Sylvia Nasar
• Nazif Shahrani
• Farhod Sulton
• Alexei Sultanov
• Milana Vayntrub
• Rita Volk

See also

• Uzbekistan-United States relations

References

Asian Americans1, 2 Central Asian3 Mongolian Uzbek East Asian Chinese Hong Kong Taiwanese Tibetan4 Japanese Korean South Asian5 Bangladeshi Bhutanese Indian Indo-Caribbean Bengali Punjabi Tamil Nepalese Pakistani Sri Lankan Tamil Southeast Asian Burmese Cambodian Filipino Hmong Indonesian Laotian Malaysian Mien Singaporean Thai Vietnamese Other Afro-Asian Amerasian Asian Hispanic and Latino Americans Eurasian Multiracial American Punjabi Mexican History General Immigration Military Topics Arts and Entertainment Demographics Politics Stereotypes Religion Buddhists Christians Catholics Protestants, etc. Hindus Jainism Muslims Sikhs Notes  1 The U.S. Census Bureau definition of Asians refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent. 2 The United States Government classified Kalmyks as Asian until 1951, when Kalmyk Americans were reclassified as White Americans. 3 The U.S. Census Bureau considers Mongolians and Uzbeks as Central Asians, but a specific Central Asian American group similar to Middle Eastern American does not yet exist. 4 The U.S. Census Bureau reclassifies anyone identifying as "Tibetan American" as "Chinese American". 5 Bengali Americans may be classified as Bangladeshi or Indian. Punjabi Americans may be classified as Indian or Pakistani. Tamil Americans may be classified as Indian or Sri Lankan.