Croatian Americans

Croatian Americans are descended from the Croats, a Slavic people. There are major Croat populations in Croatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina (where, along with Bosniaks and Serbs, they are one of the country's three constituent peoples). Early migration as well as large-scale migration in the 15th century during the Ottoman Empire's incursions into Croatia led to long-established Croat communities in Serbia (Croatian is the official language of the province of Vojvodina), Montenegro, Hungary, Slovenia, Romania, Austria, Italy, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. There is also a large Croat diaspora created by more recent immigration, especially from the dawn of the 20th century, when Croats left for North and South America for economic opportunities; the middle of the 20th century, when Croats fled the new Communist regime; and in the 1990s, when refugees fled the Yugoslav wars. The wars began in 1991 when Croatia declared its independence from the former Socialist Federal Republic of [Page 621]Yugoslavia, prompting war with its Serb minority and the Yugoslav People's Army. More than half a million Croats were displaced during the wars.

The United States has the largest population of Croatians outside of their native land: 420,763 in a 2007 survey, a decrease from the 1990s’ peak as many immigrants returned home after the end of the Yugoslav Wars. This number does not reflect the Croatian heritage of many of the Americans identifying as Austrian, Bosnian, Yugoslav, Slav, or Dalmatian. Most Croatian Americans are Catholic, though there are sizable Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, Muslim, and Jewish groups.

The largest Croatian American populations are found in Pennsylvania (50,350), Illinois (43,613), Ohio (41,812), California (29,071), New York (23,650), Wisconsin (16,202), Missouri (8,941), and Indiana (8,433). Croatians are fairly well distributed throughout the country.

The earliest Croatians to come to the United States likely arrived before the Revolutionary period. There has been some recent scholarship suggesting the possibility of Dalmatian contact with the New World before Columbus, one of many different theories about Columbian predecessors to contact the New World; the theory has not received widespread support. But the Dalmatians were adept sailors and were certainly present in the United States in that role early in the nation's history. More sustained immigration from Croatia began toward the end of the 19th century, as immigration from the region in general became more common, with immigrants— usually young men without families—coming to America in search of work. The Industrial Revolution offered numerous opportunities for laborers on the railroads, in the mines, and in factory towns. The farms of the midwest and the factories of northern cities became home to most of these immigrants, though only a minority settled permanently; the rest returned home once they had earned enough money. In California, the oyster farming industry was established by Croatian Americans. The oldest restaurant in California, San Francisco's Tadich Grill, was founded by Croatian Americans in 1849 and remains Croatian owned today.

The descendants of those who stayed settled throughout the country. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, part of the motivation for the institution of free public education throughout the country was cultural assimilation: the “melting pot” of the United States was powered by public schooling, which taught English, civics, and American history to the children of immigrants, reducing the odds of immigration populations remaining self-contained enclaves. Croats were especially prominent in the mining and forestry industries as they expanded in the early 20th century, and the Croatian American population figures in Minnesota and Wisconsin are likely drastically underestimated as many Croatian American descendants from this period have assimilated so completely they no longer identify as such, or identify more broadly as Slav. Later immigrants, especially from the 1960s on, were more likely to settle in large cities where there was more access to affordable housing, education, and employment opportunities. Political and religious freedoms were frequent motivations.

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