Bulgarian Americans

Bulgarian Americans are citizens of the United States with significant Bulgarian heritage. Those can include Bulgarian Americans living in the United States for one or several generations, dual Bulgarian American citizens, or any other Bulgarian Americans who consider themselves to be affiliated to both cultures or countries. Some Bulgarian Americans might be born in Bulgaria, the United States or other countries with ethnic Bulgarian population. Because some Bulgarians are not American citizens, others are dual citizens, and still others' ancestors have come to the US several generations ago, some of these people consider themselves to be simply Americans, Bulgarians, Bulgarians living in the United States or American Bulgarians.

History

Mass Bulgarian immigration to the United States began sometime in the second part of the 19th century. Chicago is a good example of a city known through the years for being inhabited by a significant numberquantify|date=August 2008 Bulgarians compared to other cities. There was a book written by a Bulgarian writer Aleko Konstantinov called "To Chicago and Back" (Bulgarian:"До Чикаго и назад") from that period. However, according to the US census for 2000 the highest number of Bulgarians lived in the cities of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami.

The United States has one of the highest numbers of Bulgarians than any country in the world. As many as 250,000¹ Bulgarians live in the country. From the Eastern European countries, Bulgaria has the second highest number of students who study in the United States, after Russia.

Demographics

There might be as many as 250,000ref|1 Bulgarians in the United States at the present time, according to 2004 estimates of the Agency for Bulgarians Abroad. The United States Census of 2000 shows that there were 63,000 people of Bulgarian descent in the US. According to the same source, the state with the largest number of Bulgarians is California, followed by Illinois, New York, Florida, and Ohio. According to the US census for 2000 the cities with the highest numbers of Bulgarian Americans are New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami. 17% of Bulgarian Americans hold a bachelor's degree or higher [http://www.ethnicusa.com/markets/bulgarian.shtml/] . Bulgarian Americans have an annual median household income of $44,578 [http://www.ethnicusa.com/markets/bulgarian.shtml/] . 28% of Bulgarian Americans are married with children under the age of 18 [http://www.ethnicusa.com/markets/bulgarian.shtml/] .

An estimated 10,000 Bulgarian Americans continue to live in Michigan today. In contrast, only about three to four thousand Bulgarians reside in the New York metropolitan area. Other cities hosting large numbers of Bulgarian Americans include Gary, Fort Wayne, and Indianapolis, Indiana; Lorain, Toledo, Cleveland, Youngstown, and Akron, Ohio; and Los Angeles, California.

Language

According to the 22nd US Census, 28,565 people indicated that they speak Bulgarian at home in 2000. Some Bulgarian Americans speak Bulgarian, especially the more recent immigrants, while others might not speak the language at all, or speak Bulgarian mixed with English to a lesser or greater extent. Some Bulgarian Americans understand Bulgarian even though they might not be able to speak the language. There are cases where older generations of Bulgarians or descendants of Bulgarian immigrants from the early part of the 20th century are fluent in the Bulgarian language as well.

Famous Bulgarian Americans

See List of Bulgarian Americans

Further reading

* Encyclopedia of Multiculturalism. Ed. Susan Auerbach. New York: Marshall Cavendish, 1994. REF E 184 .A1 E58 1994
* The Bulgarian Americans by Claudia Carlson (Chelsea House, out of print, 1990) ISBN 0-87754-865-X
* Peter Menikoff: The Story of a Bulgarian Boy in the Great American Melting Pot by Peter Dimitrov Yankoff (Cokesbury Press, out of print)
* University of Minnesota. Immigration History Research Center.
* The Immigration History Research Center: A Guide to Collections. Compiled and edited by Suzanna Moody and Joel Wurl; foreword by Rudolph J. Vecoli. New York: Greenwood Press, 1991. xxiii, 446 pp., ill., bibliographies. LC call number: Z1361 .E4U58 1991 LH&G; MRR Alc LC control number: 91016262
* Nikolay G. Altankov, The Bulgarian-Americans (Palo Alto, Calif.: Ragusan Press, 1979)
* Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. Gale, 2000. 3 vols. by Eleanor Yu, ISBN 0-7876-3986-9, 2000.

Notes

Estimates of the Agency for Bulgarians Abroad for the numbers of ethnic Bulgarians living for the country in question based on data from the Bulgarian Border Police, the Bulgarian Ministry of Labour and reports from immigrant associations. The numbers include members of the diaspora (2nd and 3rd generation descendants of Bulgarian immigrants), legal immigrants, illegal immigrants, students and other individuals permanently residing in the country in question as of 2004.
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External links

* [http://www.everyculture.com/multi/Bu-Dr/Bulgarian-Americans.html "Bulgarian Americans" by Eleanor Yu. Material on Everyculture.com]
* [http://www.Bulgarite.com "Bulgarians in America by Bulgarite.com" ]