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Honduran Americans (Spanish: honduro-americano, norteamericano de origen hondureño or estadounidense de origen hondureño) are Americans of Honduran descent. Honduran Americans are a group of people who may descend from Spanish, Honduran Native (including Mayan), Garifuna, African, Palestinian and Chinese people, among many others.
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The Honduran population at the 2015 Census was 837,694 . Hondurans are the eighth largest Hispanic group in the United States and the third largest Central American population, after Salvadorans and Guatemalans.
History
The first Hondurans came to United States in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, in the 1820s, while the country, part of Central America, gained its independence from Spain and was founded as the republic of Honduras. All periods of conflict have led to minor waves of Honduran emigration to the United States. This was the case after the 1956 military coup.
Hondurans immigrated to the United States in the 1960s, primarily to Miami, New York City, and Los Angeles. The main reason for Hondurans to leave their country was to escape poverty and seek a better life in the United States.
Many Honduran-Americans are migrant farm laborers who first established themselves in the largest U.S. cities, in which they had support networks from the Honduran-American communities. In the late1980s and 1990s, most Honduran-Americans lived in New York City (33,000), Los Angeles (24,000), and Miami (18,000). In 2000, Hondurans grew to be the third largest immigrant from Central America.
Military Service
Honduran-Americans have actively participated in U.S. military service. A total of 13.7 percent of native (U.S.) Honduran-American males older than 16 years are in the military. In addition, 769 Honduran-American non-citizen males serve in the military.
Socioeconomics
Usually, Honduran-Americans live in areas with high economic growth and demand for employment in construction, domestic services, and other industries. Many Honduran-Americans suffer discrimination, as other Hispanic groups do.
Honduran-American girls tend to spend more years in school than Honduran-Americans boys, in part due to pressure by their families on boys to start working at age 12 or 14. A total of 1,091 Honduran-Americans have a master's degree, 862 have other professional degrees, and 151 have a doctoral degree. The majority of these individuals are women.
Demographics
According to the 2010 United States Census there are 633,401 Hondurans living in the United States. By 2011, the number of Hondurans estimated to reside in the United States by the Census Bureau's American Community Survey was 702,000. In 2014, according to Pew Research, "60% of 573,000 Honduran immigrants in the U.S. are unauthorized".