Estonian Americans

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Estonian Americans" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (February 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Estonian Americans
Ameerika eestlased

Total population
29,128 (2021)[1] 0.01% of the US population
Regions with significant populations
California · New York · New Jersey · Washington · Florida · Oregon
Languages
American English, Estonian
Religion
Protestant (Lutheran), Deism
Related ethnic groups
Estonian Canadians, Finnish Americans, Latvian Americans, Lithuanian Americans

Estonian Americans (

.

History

Estonian-American population as of the 2000 U.S. census[2]
California	3,465
New York	2,892
New Jersey	2,331
Washington	1,401
Florida	1,393

The first recorded arrival of immigrants from Estonia (then part of Sweden) to what is now the United States occurred already in 1627 in the colony of New Sweden along the Delaware River. Emigration from Estonia started on a larger scale in the late 19th century, when Estonia was part of the former Russian Empire, and continued until the mid-20th century. However, it is difficult to estimate the number of Estonian-Americans before 1920, since they were often referred to as "Russians" in the national censuses.^[3]

The beginnings of

and commercial agriculture in the Russian Empire transformed many Estonian farmers into migrants. The pressures of industrialization drove numerous Estonian farmers to emigrate to the United States until Estonia became an independent country in 1918, at the end of World War I.

During World War II, Estonia was invaded and occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940–1941, and by Nazi Germany in 1941–1944. In 1944, in the face of the country being re-occupied by the Soviet Red Army, 80,000 people fled from Estonia by sea to Germany and Sweden, becoming

.

Some thousand of them moved on from there and settled in the United States. After the war's end, these

Some of these refugees and their descendants started returning to Estonia at the end of the 1980s.

Notable people

President

Conductor

.

Chemist

Rootare-Prenzlow Equation

.

In journalism,

Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning

.

20/20

.

Alar Toomre is an astronomer recognized for his research on the dynamics of galaxies. The Toomre sequence and Toomre Instability are named in his honor.

In entertainment, singer and actress

.

Hollywood actor Johann Urb (born January 24, 1977) is an Estonian living and working in the United States.

(born February 7, 1987), better known mononymously as Kerli, is an Estonian pop singer residing in the United States since 2005.

Psychologist, psychobiologist and neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp (June 5, 1943 — April 18, 2017) coined the term 'affective neuroscience', the name for the field that studies the neural mechanisms of emotion.

(born February 13, 1979) is an American actress, fashion designer, and model.

Toomas Hendrik Ilves, born December 26, 1953, in Sweden but raised in New Jersey, was the President of Estonia.

See also

• European Americans
• Hyphenated American
• New York Estonian House
• Estonia–United States relations
• Estonian Canadians

References

Further reading

• Aun, K. The Political Refugees: A History of Estonians in Canada (McClelland and Stewart, 1985)
• Granquist, Mark A. "Estonian Americans." in Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America, edited by Thomas Riggs, (3rd ed., vol. 2, Gale, 2014), pp. 97-106. Online
• Kulu, H. and Tammaru, T. "Ethnic return migration from the East and the West: the case of Estonia in the 1990s", Europe-Asia Studies (2000) 52#2: 349�69.
• Pennar, Jaan; Parming, Tönu; Rebane, P. Peter (1975). The Estonians in America, 1627-1975: a chronology & fact book. Oceana Publications.
  OCLC 1288426
  .
• Tannberg, Kersti, and Tönu Parming. Aspects of Cultural Life: Sources for the Study of Estonians in America (New York: Estonian Learned Society in America, 1979).
• "Estonians" in Stephan Thernstrom, Ann Orlov and Oscar Handlin, eds. Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (1980) Online
• Tammaru, Tiit, Kaja Kumer-Haukanõmm, and Kristi Anniste. "The formation and development of the Estonian diaspora." Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 36.7 (2010): 1157-1174. online
• Walko, M. Ann. Rejecting the Second Generation Hypothesis: Maintaining Estonian Ethnicity in Lakewood, New Jersey (AMS Press, 1989).

External links

• Estonian Americans at Countries and Their Cultures