Lithuanian American

Infobox Ethnic group
group = Lithuanian American


caption = Notable Lithuanian Americans: Anthony Kiedis·Charles Bronson·Dick Durbin·John C. Reilly flagicon|Lithuania flagicon|USA
poptime = 2000 US census put the number at 659,992
0.2% of the US population

popplace = Northeast, Midwest
langs = American English, Lithuanian
rels = Predominately Roman Catholic, with followers of Protestantism and Judaism as well
related = Lithuanians, Prussian Lithuanians, Latvian American

Lithuanian Americans are citizens of the United States who are of Lithuanian ancestry. According to the 2000 US census, there are 659,992 Americans of full or partial Lithuanian descent.

History

Large numbers of Lithuanians first came to the United States in 1867-1868 after a famine in Lithuania, (which was at that time part of Russia, having been annexed by Russia between 1772 and 1795 when the Polish-Lithuanian Kingdom was carved up by Prussia, (now part of Germany), Austria-Hungary (which became dwindled down to Austria in 1918) and Czarist Russia, which ceased to exist in 1917-18, and when Lithuania became independent again.) [CathEncy|wstitle=Lithuanians in the United States] . 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 collapse 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.

Occupations

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.

Contribution

is half-Lithuanian.

Many American sport celebrities have Lithuanian heritage: Johnny Unitas, Vitas Gerulaitis, Frank Lubin, Dick Butkus and Joe Jurevicius, 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.

Distribution

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 (twenty-five percent) in the United States. 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 a also a small but vibrant Lithuanian community in Presque Isle, Maine.

thumb|right|310px|Distribution of Lithuanian Americans according to the 2000 census.The states with the largest Lithuanian-American populations today are: [ [http://www.euroamericans.net/lithuanians.htm Euroamericans.net: Lithuanians in America] ]

ee also

* Lithuanians in Chicago
* European American
* Hyphenated American

References