LebaneseAmericans are Americans of Lebanese descent. This includes both those who are native to the United States as well as Lebanese immigrants to America. Lebanese Americans comprise 0.79% of the American population as of the American Community Survey estimations for year 2007, and 32.4% of all Americans who originate from the Middle East. Lebanese Americans have had a significant participation in American politics and have had involvement in both social and political activism. The diversity within the region sprouted from the diaspora of the surrounding countries. There are more Lebanese outside Lebanon today than within.
History
The first known Lebanese immigrant to the United States was Antonio Bishallany, a Maronite Christian, who arrived in Boston Harbor in 1854. He died in Brooklyn, New York in 1856 on his 29th birthday. Large scale Lebanese immigration began in the late 19th century. They settled mainly in Brooklyn and Boston, Massachusetts. While they were marked as Syrians, the vast majority of them were Christians from Mount Lebanon. Upon entering America, many of them worked as peddlers. This wave continued through the 1920s. During the first wave, an estimated 100,000 Lebanese had immigrated to America. Many immigrants settled in Northern New Jersey, in towns such as Bloomfield, Paterson, Newark, and Orange. Some immigrants set out west, with places such as Detroit, Michigan, Toledo, Ohio and Peoria, Illinois gaining a large number of all Lebanese immigrants. Others bought farms in states such as Texas, South Dakota and Iowa. Large numbers came via the United Kingdom, including a large number on the ill-fated liner RMS Titanic. The second wave of Lebanese immigration began in the late 1940s and continued through the early 1990s, when Lebanese immigrants had been fleeing the Lebanese Civil War. Between 1948 and 1985, over 60,000 Lebanese entered the United States. Since then, immigration has slowed to an estimated 5,000 immigrants a year, and those who do settle these days are predominantly Muslim, in contrast to the predominantly Christian population of immigrants during previous waves, but Christians are still a majority in America and in the diaspora of around 14 million Lebanese people living outside of Lebanon.
Religion
Most of the Lebanese immigrants during the first and the early part of the second waves were Christians. Muslims followed in large numbers beginning in the late 1960s. Among Muslims, the Shi'ite and Sunni communities are the largest. A number of Jews fled Lebanon for the United States due to fears of persecution, and populations of Druze and atheists also exist. This information has been distributed by all American organizations, including the Arab American Institute and the United States census team.
