Palestinian Americans

Palestinian Americans are one of the major Arab American population groups. However, they are relatively difficult to count via federally collected data. The 2010 American Community Survey estimated 82,744 people of Palestinian ancestry in the United States, which would make them just under 6 percent of the Arab population and 0.026 percent of the total U.S. population. However, nearly 18 percent of the Arab American population identified themselves as simply “Arab,” which likely includes many Palestinians, and it is also possible that some of the 55,000 people identifying as having Jordanian ancestry are of mixed Jordanian-Palestinian ancestry, given that half of Jordan's population is ethnically Palestinian.

The data collected by the Detroit Arab American survey suggests that approximately 12 percent of southeast Michigan's Arab population is Palestinian or Jordanian, making them the third-largest population group of Arab Americans; it is unclear if this is representative of the Arab population of the United States as a whole. Of people who identified as Palestinian in the 2006 to 2010 American Community Surveys, 55.5 percent were U.S. born. The largest Palestinian American populations are located in California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Texas; like other Arab Americans, Palestinian Americans tend to be concentrated in urban areas and the near suburbs.

Demographically, Palestinian Americans compare well to the rest of the American population. Twenty-three percent of Palestinian Americans over 25 have a bachelor's degree, and 15.7 percent have a graduate degree, as opposed to 17.6 percent and 10.3 percent, respectively, of the total population. This education is reflected in their high household incomes; the median Palestinian American household has an income of $55,950, more than $4,000 higher than the median American household. However, 16 percent of Palestinian American families are below the poverty line, which is greater than the American average (10.1 percent).

Palestinian Americans have larger families than the American average (4.12 persons per family, as opposed to 3.17). Over a quarter of Palestinian Americans speak only English at home, and of the remainder, over 80 percent speak English very well. The picture that emerges from the demographic data is of a highly educated, professionally successful, and well-integrated ethnic group.

Although the first waves of migration from the Arab world to North America were mostly from what is now Lebanon, there have been small Palestinian communities in the United States since the early 20th century. However, migration increased prodigiously after World War II, when tensions between Zionists and other European Jews immigrating to Palestine and the native population began to increase.

The war between the newly created state of Israel and its neighbors in 1948 led to the creation of the Palestinian diaspora, consisting both of Palestinian individuals who left their homes during the 1948 war and lived as refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Kuwait, and elsewhere and of those who remained within historical Palestine, either in the territory that became Israel or in the West Bank and Gaza, held by Jordan and Egypt until 1967 and by Israel since. Palestinian immigration to the United States increased again after 1967, when the West Bank and Gaza were [Page 1671]occupied, and has remained high. Because of the geographic dispersal of Palestinians, Palestinian Americans have roots in a variety of nation-states, hold different legal statuses, and have different historical and political experiences. They may have emigrated directly from Israel, the West Bank, or Gaza from a neighboring Arab country or from another location, particularly Latin America. However, most people who have at least some Palestinian ancestry identify strongly with that heritage, despite any previous family migrations.

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