Acadians

Acadians are the descendants of a group of French-speaking settlers who migrated from coastal France in the late sixteenth century to establish a French colony called Acadia in the maritime provinces of Canada and part of what is now the state of Maine. Forced out by the British in the mid-sixteenth century, a few settlers remained in Maine, but most resettled in southern Louisiana and are popularly known as Cajuns.

Afghan Americans

Modern-day Afghanistan, torn by both civil and foreign wars, repeats the cycle of oppression, invasion, and turmoil that has plagued it for centuries. As the twenty-first century was about to begin, Afghan people struggled in their own land and flooded the globe in increasing numbers to escape dangers from within their borders and from without.

African Americans

The continent of Africa, the second largest on the globe, is bisected by the equator and bordered to the west by the Atlantic Ocean and to the east by the Indian Ocean. Roughly the shape of an inverted triangle—with a large bulge on its northwestern end and a small horn on its eastern tip—it contains 52 countries and six islands that, together, make up about 11.5 million square miles, or 20 percent of the world's land mass.

Albanian Americans

Albania is a mountainous country, 28,748 square miles in size, slightly larger than the state of Maryland. It is located in southeastern Europe and borders Montenegro, Serbia, and Macedonia on the north and east, Greece in the south and southeast, and the Adriatic Sea on the west.

Algerian Americans

Algeria is an Arab country in Northern Africa that gained independence from France in 1962. Bordering the Mediterranean Sea, between Morocco and Tunisia, Algeria is more than three times the size of Texas.

Amish

The year 1993 marked the existence of 300 years of Amish life. Extinct in their European homeland, today they live in more than 200 settlements in 22 states and the Canadian province of Ontario.

Apaches

The name "Apache" is a Spanish corruption of "Apachii," a Zuñi word meaning "enemy." Federally recognized contemporary Apache tribal governments are located in Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. Apache reservations are also located in Arizona and New Mexico.

Arab Americans

Arab Americans trace their ancestral roots to several Arab countries. Lebanon is the homeland of a majority of Arab Americans, followed by Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, and Jordan.

Argentinean Americans

The word Argentina is derived from the Latin word "argentum," which in English means silver. For this reason Argentina is sometimes called "The Land of Silver." The official name of the country is Republic of Argentina.

Armenian Americans

The estimated 700,000 Americans of Armenian ancestry are descended from an ancient nation located at the borders of modern Russia, Turkey, and Iran. Through much of the past 4,000 years, Armenians have been a subjugated people with no independent state until September 23, 1991, when the Soviet Union dissolved and the 3,400,000 people in that area voted to form a new Republic of Armenia.

Asian Indian Americans

India, the most populous country in South Asia, is a peninsula. Bounded by Nepal and the Himalaya mountains to the north, Pakistan to the northwest, the Indian Ocean to the south, the Arabian Sea to the west, and the Bay of Bengal to the east, India occupies about 1,560,000 square miles.

Australian and New Zealander Americans

Since immigration statistics usually combine information about New Zealand with that of Australia, and because similarities between the countries are great, they are linked in this essay also. The Commonwealth of Australia, the world's sixth largest nation, lies between the South Pacific and the Indian Ocean.

Austrian Americans

A mountainous landlocked country located in south-central Europe, Austria encompasses an area of 32,377 square miles, roughly the size of the state of Maine. Bordered to the west by Switzerland and Liechtenstein, to the south by Italy and the former Yugoslavia, to the east by Hungary, and to the north by the Czech and Slovak Republics as well as Germany, Austria lies at the center of political and geographic Europe.

Bangladeshi Americans

Bangladesh, which means the "Land of the Bengalis" in the Bengali language, is a republic located in Southeast Asia. Almost entirely surrounded by India, of which it was a part until 1947, Bangladesh is bounded to the east, north, and west by that larger country, and to the southeast by Myanmar, formerly Burma.

Barbadian Americans

Proudly referred to as "Little England" by her islanders, Barbados, a small Caribbean country, is the easternmost island in the West Indies island chain, which stretches from southeast Florida to the northern coast of South America. Its nearest neighbor, St.

Basque Americans

The Basque Country is not an independent state but a region in the western Pyrenees that straddles the border between France and Spain. Measuring only about 100 miles from end to end, Basque Country is about the size of Maryland and borders the Bay of Biscay to the north, France to the northeast, and Spain to the south and west.

Belarusan Americans

The Republic of Belarus is a newly independent country which, prior to August 25, 1991, was known as the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. Since 1922 it had formed part of the Soviet Union.

Belgian Americans

Belgium, whose official name is the Kingdom of Belgium, is a densely populated country not much larger than the state of Maryland. It covers an area of 11,781 square miles (30,519 square kilometers), bounded on the north by The Netherlands, on the west by France, and on the east by Germany.

Blackfoot

The Blackfoot Nation is actually a confederation of several distinct tribes, including the South Piegan (or Pikuni), the Blood (or Kainai), the North Piegan, and the North Blackfoot (or Siksika). They traditionally called each other Nizitapi, or "Real People." The name Blackfoot reportedly derived from the black-dyed moccasins worn by some tribal members at the time of early contact with non-Indians.

Bolivian Americans

Bolivia, the only landlocked country in the Western Hemisphere, is home to almost eight million people. Twice as large as Texas, Bolivia is a multiethnic society.

Bosnian Americans

Bosnia-Herzegovina, located on the Balkan peninsula in Eastern Europe, is a republic of the former Yugoslavia. The northern portion, Bosnia, is mountainous and wooded, while Herzegovina, to the south, is primarily flatland.

Brazilian Americans

The country of Brazil, officially called the Federative Republic of Brazil (or República Federativa do Brasil), is located in central eastern South America. A vast country, it covers 3,290,000 square miles—nearly 45 percent of South America's land mass.