Kurdish Americans
Kurds in the United States refers to people born in or residing in the United States of Kurdish origin or those considered to be ethnic Kurds.
The majority of Kurdish Americans are recent migrants from Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. Most have roots in Kurdistan Region or Iranian Kurdistan. The Iraqi Kurdish people comprise the largest proportion of ethnic Kurds living in the US.
The first wave of Kurdish immigrants arrived as refugees during the 1970s as a result of the Iraqi–Kurdish conflict. A second wave of Kurdish immigrants arrived in the 1990s fleeing Saddam Hussein's genocidal Anfal Campaign in northern Iraq. The most recent wave of Kurdish immigrants arrived as a result of the 2011 Syrian Civil War and the 2014 Iraqi Civil War, including a number who worked as translators for the U.S. military.
In recent years, the Internet has played a large role in mobilizing the Kurdish movement, uniting diasporic communities of Kurds around the Middle East, South East Asia, European Union, Canada, the US, and Australia.
History
Kurdish immigration to the US began in the 20th century, after the World War I, with several waves of migration to the United States from the area considered Kurdistan. Following the war, the Iraqi Revolution increased the emigration of Kurds to the United States. After the war, the Kurds had been promised an autonomous region, Kurdistan in the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920. The ideology of the time was heavily influenced by Woodrow Wilson's doctrine of the right to self-determination.After the Turkish War of Independence, however, the treaty was annulled and replaced with the Treaty of Lausanne, which denied any Kurdish claim to an autonomous region. After the reversal of Kurdish land claims and ensuing persecution, Kurdish emigration from the Middle East began. Many diaspora communities were established in Europe and other Kurds emigrated to the US.
Following the wave of migrants that left in the aftermath of the World Wars, a second wave of Kurds in 1979 came from the north of Iraq and Iran. Migration was mainly due to the Iranian Revolution in 1979. There were also large groups of Kurds that left because of the socio-political turmoil, a byproduct of the revolution and general political instability. Many of the immigrants who made the journey in 1979 had hoped to overthrow the Shah or at least opposed him. The opposition to the Shah, many immigrants from Iran were granted asylum with little trouble and received assisted travel to the US. Other byproducts of the revolution were border disputes between Iran and Iraq, which culminated in the Iran–Iraq War, from 1980 to 1988 and the Anfal Campaign.
The third distinguished wave of Kurdish migrants arrived between 1991 and 1992 and is considered to be the largest of the four waves. The migration was partly due to Kurdish support for Iran in the Iran–Iraq War because Saddam Hussein had retaliated by attacking multiple Kurdish regions with chemical weapons. The most horrific and infamous of these attacks occurred at Halabja in 1988. Although different groups of Kurds have alternate interpretations of the attack, Kurds usually regard the event as evidence of genocide against the Kurdish people and have used that claim for political gains. Although there was widespread support for Iran from Iraqi Kurds, the war caused severe internal divisions within the Kurdish population. Thousands of Kurds then moved to the US.
Another major wave of Kurdish migration to the United States or at least to Nashville, which has the largest concentration of Kurdish communities in the country, was in 1996 and 1997, following a major civil war between Iraqi Kurdistan's two major political parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. The Iraqi army began targeting hundreds of individuals accused of working against Saddam's regime. The International Organization for Migration initiated an evacuation. Kurdish refugees crossed the Turkish border, after which they were evacuated to Guam, a US territory, and later resettled in the US.
The collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime in April 2003 led to a massive influx of Kurds returning to lands they were displaced from during the Ba'athist policies. Several groups of Kurds emigrated to the United States by the instability caused by land disputes between returning Kurds and Arabs whose land they had occupied
Demography
The total Kurdish population in the United States according to the 2000 census was 9,423. More recent accounts estimate the total Kurdish population in the US at around 15,361. Other sources claim that the number of ethnic Kurds in the United States is between 15,000 and 20,000 people.Nashville includes the largest Kurdish population in the United States. A neighborhood in south Nashville has been nicknamed as "Little Kurdistan" due to its large number of Kurds. Based on the 2000 census, the Kurdish population in Tennessee is 2,405, and in Nashville, the Kurdish population is 1,770. According to Salahadeen Center of Nashville, there are more than 10,000 Kurds living in Nashville. As of 2017, there were approximately 15,000 Kurds in Nashville out of the estimated 40,000 that reside in the entire United States. This is the largest population of Kurds in the United States. However, the U.S. Census data shows there are approximately 4,000 Kurds in Davidson County, and 5,000 in Tennessee, much lower than what Kurdish community officials estimate. There are also sizable populations in Dallas, Texas, Atlanta, Georgia, areas of Southern California such as San Diego, Binghamton, New York, Fargo–Moorhead area of North Dakota and Minnesota, Omaha, Nebraska and Bridgeport, Connecticut as well as Waterbury, Connecticut. Most have roots in northern Iraq or northwestern Iran.
California and Tennessee, both according to U.S. Census data published in 2020, have a similar number of Kurds, hovering around 5,000. There are nearly 2,000 Kurds in San Diego County alone, and most Californian Kurds live in Southern California, with some, but significantly less of a presence in Northern California. There are approximately 3,000 Kurds in Texas, especially within the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex area.