Russian Americans

Russian Americans are Americans of full or partial Russian ancestry. The term can apply to recent Russian immigrants to the United States, as well as to Russian settlers and their descendants in the 19th-century Russian possessions in what is now Alaska. Russian Americans comprise the largest Eastern European and East Slavic population in the U.S., the second-largest Slavic population after Polish Americans, the nineteenth-largest ancestry group overall, and the eleventh largest from Europe.
In the mid-19th century, Russian immigrants fleeing religious persecution settled in the U.S., including Russian Jews and Spiritual Christians. During the broader wave of European immigration to the U.S. that occurred from 1880 to 1917, a large number of Russians immigrated primarily for economic opportunities; these groups mainly settled in coastal cities, including Brooklyn on the East Coast; Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and various cities in Alaska on the West Coast; and Chicago and Cleveland in the Great Lakes region.
After the Russian Revolution and subsequent Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1922, many White émigrés also arrived, especially in New York, Philadelphia, and New England. Emigration from Russia subsequently became very restricted during the Soviet era. However, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, immigration to the United States increased considerably.
In several major U.S. cities, many Jewish Americans who trace their heritage back to Russia and other Americans of East Slavic origin, such as Belarusian Americans and Rusyn Americans, sometimes identify as Russian Americans. Additionally, certain non-Slavic groups from the post-Soviet space, such as Armenian Americans, Georgian Americans, and Moldovan Americans, have a longstanding historical association with the Russian American community.

Demographics

According to the Institute of Modern Russia, the Russian American population was estimated at 3.13 million in 2011. The American Community Survey of the U.S. Census shows the slightly over 900,000 Americans age 5 and over spoke Russian at home in 2020.
Many Russian Americans do not speak Russian, having been born in the United States and brought up in English-speaking homes. In 2007, however, Russian was the primary spoken language of 851,174 Americans at home, according to the US census. According to the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University, 750,000 Russian Americans were ethnic Russians in 1990.
The New York City metropolitan area has historically been the leading metropolitan gateway for Russian immigrants legally admitted into the United States. Brighton Beach continues to be the most important demographic and cultural center for the Russian American experience. However, as Russian Americans have climbed in socioeconomic status, the diaspora from Russia and other former Soviet-bloc states has moved toward more affluent parts of the New York metropolitan area, notably Bergen County, New Jersey. Within Bergen County, the increasing size of the Russian immigrant presence in its hub of Fair Lawn prompted a 2014 April Fool's satire titled, "Putin Moves Against Fair Lawn".
Sometimes, Carpatho-Rusyns and Ukrainians who emigrated from Carpathian Ruthenia in the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century identify as Russian Americans. More recent émigrés would often refer to this group as the starozhili — "old residents". This group became the pillar of the Russian Orthodox Church in America. Today, most of this group has become assimilated into the local society, with ethnic traditions continuing to survive primarily around the church.

Russian-born population

Russian-born population in the US since 2010:

Year	Number
2010	383,166
2011	399,216
2012	399,128
2013	390,934
2014	390,977
2015	386,529
2016	397,236
2017	403,670
2018	391,094
2019	391,641

Social status

The median household income in 2017 for Americans of Russian descent is estimated by the US census as $80,554.

Ethnicity	Household Income	College degrees
Russian	$80,554	60.4
Polish	$73,452	42.5
Czech	$71,663	45.4
Serbian	$79,135	46.0
Slovak	$73,093	44.8
Ukrainian	$75,674	52.2
White non-Hispanic	$65,845	35.8
Total US population	$60,336	32.0

History

Colonial era

Russian America (1733–1867)

The territory that today is the U.S. state of Alaska was settled by Russians and controlled by the Russian Empire; Russian settlers include Slavic Russians but also Russified Ukrainians, Russified Romanians, and Indigenous Siberians, including Yupik, Mongolic peoples, Chukchi, Koryaks, Itelmens, and Ainu. Georg Anton Schäffer of the Russian-American Company built three forts in Kauai, Hawaii. The southernmost such post of the Russian American Company was Fort Ross, established in 1812 by Ivan Kuskov, some north of San Francisco, as an agricultural supply base for Russian America. It was part of the Russian-America Company, and consisted of four outposts, including Bodega Bay, the Russian River, and the Farallon Islands. There was never an established agreement made with the government of New Spain which produced great tension between the two countries. Spain claimed the land but had never established a colony there. The well-armed Russian fort prevented Spain from removing the Russians living there. Without the Russians' hospitality, the Spanish colony would have been abandoned because their supplies had been lost when Spanish supply ships sank in a large storm off the South American coast. After the independence of Mexico, tensions were reduced and trade was established with the new government of Mexican California.
Russian America was not a profitable colony because of high transportation costs and the declining animal population. After it was purchased by the United States in 1867, most Russian settlers went back to Russia, but some resettled in southern Alaska and California. Included in these were the first miners and merchants of the California gold rush. All descendants of Russian settlers from Russian Empire, including mixed-race with partial Alaska Native blood, totally assimilated to the American society. Most Russians in Alaska today are descendants of Russian settlers who came just before, during, and/or after Soviet era; two thirds of the population of town of Alaska named Nikolaevsk are descendants of recent Russian settlers who came in the 1960s.

Immigration to the US

First wave (1870–1915)

The first massive wave of immigration from all areas of Europe to the United States took place in the late 19th century. Although some immigration took place earlier—the most notable example being Ivan Turchaninov, who immigrated in 1856 and became a United States Army brigadier general during the Civil War—millions traveled to the New World in the last decade of the 19th century, either for political reasons, economic opportunity, or some combination of both. Between 1820 and 1870 only 7,550 Russians immigrated to the United States, but starting in 1881, the immigration rate exceeded 10,000 a year: 593,700 in 1891–1900, 1.6 million in 1901–1910, 868,000 in 1911–1914, and 43,000 in 1915–1917.
The most prominent Russian groups that immigrated in this period were seeking freedom from religious persecution in Imperial Russia. These included Russian Jews, escaping the 1881–1882 pogroms, who moved to New York City and other coastal cities; the Spiritual Christians, treated as heretics at home, who settled largely in the Western United States in the cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Portland, Oregon; two large groups of Shtundists who moved to Virginia and the Dakotas, and mostly between 1874 and 1880 German-speaking Anabaptists, Russian Mennonites and Hutterites, who left the Russian Empire and settled mainly in Kansas, the Dakota Territory, and Montana. Finally in 1908–1910, the Old Believers, persecuted as schismatics, arrived and settled in small groups in California, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and New York. Immigrants of this wave include Irving Berlin, legend of American songwriting and André Tchelistcheff, influential Californian winemaker.
World War I dealt a heavy blow to Russia. Between 1914 and 1918, starvation and poverty increased in all parts of Russian society, and soon many Russians questioned the War's purpose and the government's competency. The war intensified anti-Semitic sentiment. Jews were accused of disloyalty and expelled from areas in and near war zones. Furthermore, much of the fighting between Russia, and Austria and Germany took place in Western Russia in the Jewish Pale of Settlement. World War I uprooted half a million Russian Jews. Because of the upheavals of World War I, immigration dwindled between 1914 and 1917. But after the war, hundreds of thousands of Jews began leaving Europe and Russia again for the US, modern-day Israel and other countries where they hoped to start a new life.

Second wave (1916–1922)

A large wave of Russians immigrated in the short time period of 1917–1922, in the wake of October Revolution and Russian Civil War. This group is known collectively as the White émigrés. The US was the third largest destination for those immigrants, after France and Serbia. This wave is often referred to as the first wave, when discussing Soviet era immigration. The head of the Russian Provisional Government, Alexander Kerensky, was one of those immigrants.
Since the immigrants were of the higher classes of the Russian Empire, they contributed significantly to American science and culture. Inventors Vladimir Zworykin, often referred to as "father of television", Alexander M. Poniatoff, the founder of Ampex, and Alexander Lodygin, arrived with this wave. The US military benefited greatly with the arrival of such inventors as Igor Sikorsky, Vladimir Yourkevitch, and Alexander Procofieff de Seversky. Sergei Rachmaninoff and Igor Stravinsky are by many considered to be among the greatest composers ever to live in the United States of America. The novelist Vladimir Nabokov, the violinist Jasha Heifetz, and the actor Yul Brynner also left Russia in this period.
As with first and second wave, if the White émigré left Russia to any country, they were still considered first or second wave, even if they ended up moving to another country, including the US at a later time. There was no 'strict' year boundaries, but a guideline to have a better understanding of the time period. Thus, 1917-1922 is a guideline. There are Russians who are considered second wave even if they arrived after 1922 up to 1948.