Cypriot Americans

Cypriots are perhaps one of the smallest ethnic immigrant groups to settle in the United States. Today Cypriot Americans comprise both Greek-and Turkish-speaking communities. Both groups take extensive pride in their American identity as well as their respective Greek and Turkish ancestries. Most common languages spoken by Cypriot Americans are English, Cypriot-Greek, Cypriot-Turkish, Arabic, and Armenian. Today nearly 80 percent of the people of Cyprus identify as Greek Cypriots. The second-largest ethnic group is comprised of Turkish Cypriots. Most Cypriot Americans live in large metropolitan areas. In 2010, 118 Cypriots became American citizens. The largest Cypriot American community currently lives in New York City. Other cities with significant concentrations of Cypriot Americans include Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore, and Tarpon Springs. New York State is home to the largest Cypriot American community with more than 2,500 Cypriot Americans. According to the 2000 U.S. census, there are nearly 7,700 Cypriot Americans living in the United States.

Cypriot immigration to the United States was a result of political and economic instability in Cyprus. Cyprus, an island country in the eastern Mediterranean, had been historically settled and/or occupied by Phoenicians, Greeks, Venetians, Ottomans, and the British Empire. According to some sources, Cypriots began immigrating to the United States as early as the 19th century when the island of Cyprus was under Ottoman rule. Although official census on Cypriot immigration to the United States does not begin until 1955, Cyprus reports that significant immigration to the United States occurred as early as the 1930s.

According to the U.S. census, a large numbers of Cypriots immigrated to the United States between 1955 and 1979. These were times of major political and economic uncertainty in Cyprus. The late 1950s marked the end of colonial rule in Cyprus and the establishment of an independent Cypriot government. The decade that followed brought about a major economic recession in Cyprus. In the late 1970s there was a final surge of Cypriot immigration resulting from geopolitical tensions between Greece and Turkey, which ultimately divided the island between the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and the Republic of Cyprus. During these years, many Cypriots emigrated to Greece, the United Kingdom, Australia, Turkey, and the United States.

After immigrating to the United States many Cypriot Americans integrated within the dominant Greek- or Turkish-speaking communities. Thus, many Cypriot Americans today identify as being Greek Americans or Turkish Americans rather than Cypriot Americans. This phenomenon, as well as early government classifications of Cypriots as Greek, Turkish, or Middle Eastern, skewed official U.S. records on immigration from Cyprus.