Serbian Americans

Immigration Patterns

The earliest Serbian immigrants arrived in the United States around 1815, however, the largest wave of immigration occurred between 1880 and 1914. Accurate Serbian data is not available because early census data of Serbian immigrants includes many immigrants from various Slavic groups because the term Slavonic was often used in recording immigrants from Eastern Europe. Additionally, many Slavonic immigrants were [Page 1223]categorized by country of origin, so Serbs could have been listed with the Austro-Hungarians, Bosnians, Bulgarians, Croats, Dalmatians, Hercegovinians, Montenegrins, Romanians, Slovenians, Turks, or Yugoslavs.

Many immigrants came to the United States under the Displaced Persons Act of 1948 and the Refugee Relief Act of 1953. These immigrants were political refugees and displaced persons from World War II. Arrivals during the 1960s through 1980s included people who were both seeking economic opportunity and escaping Yugoslav regime.

Contemporary Community

According to the 2000 census, 134,110 U.S. residents reported Serb ancestry. Additionally, 379,052 persons reported their ancestry as Yugoslavian. In recent years, people from Serbia have sought permanent residency and refugee status, and completed the naturalization process to become citizens. From 1997 through 2006, about 44,000 Serbians immigrated to the United States. Peak years were 2001 and 2002, totaling 16,590. The number of refugees who arrived between 1997 and 2006 fluctuated. In 1999, an estimated 14,000 refugees arrived in the United States; since then, about 4,500 refugees have come. The number of Serbians who have become naturalized citizens has steadily increased each year beginning in 1997, totaling 27,192 Serbians since that year.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, there were 129,474 people of Serbian national origin in the United States. In geographic distribution, the top five states were Illinois, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana.

Among famous Serbian Americans (including both native-born U.S. residents of Serbian heritage and Serbian immigrants) are Rod Blagojevich, current governor of Illinois; Aleksandar “Sasha” Pavlovic', NBA basketball player; Mihajlo Idvorski Pupin, physicist and chemist; Nikola Tesla, inventor, physicist, and engineer; and Alfred Matthew “Weird Al” Yankovic, singer, songwriter, and satirist.