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Thai Americans

Thai Americans mostly consist of three ethnic groups: Thai, Chinese, and Lao. In Thailand's national discourse, ethnic Thai have been regarded as superior to non-Thai, whereas ethnic Lao have been marginalized as “backward,” and ethnic Chinese as “the other” because of their connections with China and their economic clout. However, many U.S. residents know little about Thailand, a country estimated to have a 2007 population of 65.7 million, or its people, often confusing Thailand with Taiwan and Thai with Taiwanese. Ethnic hierarchies so meaningful in Thailand have been disrupted in the United States. This entry reviews the history of Thais in the United States.

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Early Arrivals

The first documented Thai immigrants were the famous conjoined Siamese twins, Chang and Eng. They left Siam (as Thailand was called before 1939) and arrived in Boston in August 1829. The term Siamese twins originated because of them, but in Siam, they were known as the “Chinese twins,” the offspring of a Chinese immigrant father and a mother who was “three-quarters Chinese and one-quarter Siamese.” Thailand's king was proud of governing people of diverse ethnic groups, so to be identified as Chinese in Siam at that time was not considered shameful, or a sign of inferiority, as it was for much of the 20th century.

U.S. showman P. T. Barnum has been credited with inventing the term Siamese twins in 1853, but Chang and Eng coined it themselves in 1832, 21 years earlier. However, self-identifying as Siamese did not mean that Chang and Eng rejected their Chinese identity. Even after adopting a U.S. lifestyle, they wore Chinese queues for many years. In the 19th century, a queue was the key symbol of being Chinese. The twins developed different attachments to China, Siam, and the United States throughout their lives. Siam was where they were born and grew up. The United States was where they became U.S. citizens, celebrities, slaveholders, and gentlemen farmers. Their identifications were plural, overlapping, and transforming.

Only a few Thai immigrants came to the United States in the 1940s and 1950s. According to INS records, just 458 Thais registered as immigrants from 1951 to 1960. Most were students, and a disproportionate number of those students were ethnic Chinese whose ancestors had long been depicted as the “trading minority” in Thailand.

An Increasing Flow

In response to the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 and a shortage of medical personnel, thousands of nurses, doctors, scientists, and engineers came to the United States. Since 1968, increasing numbers of ethnic Thai, ethnic Lao, and ethnic Chinese have immigrated to the United States. After graduating, many students did not want to return to Thailand. Some stayed and opened the first Thai restaurants in the United States, pioneers in an industry that continues to thrive. Thus, a professional and entrepreneurial class has quietly but steadily emerged from the former student body.

Ethnic Lao are called Thai Isan. Isan also refers to the northeast, Thailand's poorest region. Among Thai immigrants in the United States, missionary monks and women who married U.S. servicemen are predominantly ethnic Lao. From 1968 to 1977, 14,688 Thai women immigrated to the United States as wives of U.S. servicemen; many of these women came from peasant families and had only a primary school education.

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