Pakistani Americans

History in the United States

Immigrants from areas that are now part of Pakistan had been migrating to America as early as the eighteenth century, working in agriculture, logging, and mining in the western states of California, Oregon, and Washington. The passage of the Luce-Celler Act of 1946 allowed these immigrants to acquire U.S. citizenship through naturalization. Between 1947 and 1965, only 2,500 Pakistani immigrants entered the United States; most of them were students who chose to settle in the United States after graduating from American universities, according to reports from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. This marked the beginning of a distinct 'Pakistani' community in America. However, after President Lyndon Johnson signed the INS Act of 1965 into law, eliminating per-country immigration quotas and introducing immigration on the basis of professional experience and education, the number of Pakistanis immigrating to the United States increased dramatically. By 1990, the U.S. Census bureau indicated that there were about 100,000 Pakistani Americans in the United States and by 2005 their population had grown to 210,000.

Ethnic classification

Pakistani Americans are classified as Asian Americans by the United States Census Bureau. Geographically, they are South Asian American and are widely related to various ethnic groups including Indian Americans, Arab Americans, Iranian Americans and Afghan Americans since Pakistanis belong to various ethnic groups which connects them with India, Afghanistan, Iran, etc.. respectively.

In previous decades, Pakistani Americans were also variously classified as White American, the "Hindu race", and Other.[88] Even today, where individual Pakistani Americans do not racially self-identify, and instead report Muslim (or a sect of Islam such as Shi'ite or Sunni), Jewish, and Zoroastrian as their "race" in the "Some other race" section without noting their country of origin, they are automatically tallied as white.[89] This may result in the counting of persons such as Pakistani Muslims, Pakistani Jews, and Pakistani Zoroastrians as white, if they solely report their religious heritage without their national origin.

Demographics

The U.S. Census Bureau in 2010 estimated that there were 363,699 U.S. residents of Pakistani descent living in the United States; This is an increased population from 204,309 in 2000 U.S. Census. The Census Bureau, however, excluded those living in institutions, college dormitories, and other group quarters. Some studies estimate the size of the Pakistani community to be much higher and in 2005 research by the Pakistani embassy in the US found that the population numbered more than 700,000 people. The gap in numbers maybe a result of the U.S. census to count only Pakistani immigrants and exclude those born in the United States between Pakistani parents and those that are second/third generation Americans of Pakistani descent, another reason is that some surveys group Pakistanis with other Asians thereby distorting the true number. Pakistan is the 12th highest ranked source country for immigration into the United States.

The top 10 states of residence for the foreign-born of Pakistani origin, 2006 and top 10 metro areas of residence for the foreign-born of Pakistani origin, 2006. Out of a total population of 271,428:

45% of Pakistani Americans have origins in the Punjab Province of Pakistan. About 35% are Muhajirs and the rest are made up of other ethnic Groups from Pakistan, including Pashtuns, Balochis, Sindhis and Kashmiris. The most systematic study of the demography of Pakistanis in America is found in Prof. Adil Najam's book 'Portrait of a Giving Community', which estimates a total of around 500,000.

Pakistanis in the United States hold the largest concentrations in the states of New York and New Jersey, each with around 100,000 Pakistani-Americans.

New York City Metropolitan Area

The Greater New York City Combined Statistical Area, consisting of New York City, Long Island, and adjacent areas within New York State, as well as nearby areas within the states of New Jersey (extending to Trenton), Connecticut (extending to Bridgeport), and including Pike County, Pennsylvania, comprises by far the largest Pakistani American population of any metropolitan area in the United States, receiving the highest legal permanent resident Pakistani immigrant population. Within the greater metropolitan area, New York City itself hosts the largest concentration of Pakistani Americans of any U.S. city proper, with a population of approximately 194,000 as of the United States 2010 Census, primarily in the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn. These numbers made Pakistani Americans the fifth largest Asian American group in New York City. As of 2006, this number had increased to 200,000 people of Pakistani descent said to be living in New York City. This figure additionally rises to a number between 220,000 when illegal immigrants are also included. Pakistan International Airlines serves John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens. While New York City has celebrated North America's largest Pakistan Day parade for decades, New Jersey's first Pakistan Day Parade was held on August 16, 2015, in Edison and Woodbridge, New Jersey.

California

Silicon Valley counts highly educated and skilled workers from Pakistan most of whom work in the Information Technology, software development, and computer science sectors. From 1990 - 2000 the Pakistani population in the San Francisco Bay Area increased to 6,119 which is an increase of 76%.

Chicago

Devon Avenue has a street named after the founder of Pakistan Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

Texas

There is a large Pakistani population in Texas with estimates numbered around 50,000. They are concentrated around three main cities of Austin, Dallas and Houston (in the three County areas of Harris, Montgomery and Fort Bend). They are also located in Plano, Richardson, Carrollton, Arlington, Irving, Hurst, Euless, Flower Mound and Bedford.

The community is made up of professionals involved in medicine, IT, engineering, large businesses involved in textiles, manufacturing, real estate, management and also smaller ones such as travel agencies, motels, restaurants, convenience stores and gas stations.

Other cities

Newly arrived Pakistani immigrants mostly settle in cities like New York City, Paterson, New Jersey, Los Angeles, Boston, San Diego, San Francisco, Chicago, Denver and Detroit; like other South Asians, Pakistanis settle in major urban areas. The Pakistani American community are also prevalent in Arizona, Arkansas, Cleveland, Colorado, Connecticut, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New England, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Seattle, Virginia, Washington, D.C., Wisconsin and Utah.

Towns and cities in America with the highest percentage of Pakistani ancestry include Madison Park, New Jersey (5.7%), Herricks, New York (4.1% ), Boonton, New Jersey (4%), Lincolnia, Virginia (3%), Stafford, Texas (2%) and Avenel, New Jersey (2%).

For a more comprehensive list, see Epodunk - Pakistani Ancestry by place and Cities with the most residents born in Pakistan

US Census Data

According to the 2010 US Census here are the number of Pakistani Households in the following US Counties.

From the above list provided by the US Census 2010 data the following Metropolitan List has been compiled.

Culture

Like the terms "Asian American" or "South Asian American", the term "Pakistani American" is also an umbrella label applying to a variety of views, values, lifestyles, and appearances. Although Pakistani Americans retain a strong ethnic identity, they are known to assimilate into American culture while at the same time keeping the culture of their ancestors. Pakistani Americans are known to assimilate more easily than many other immigrant groups because they have fewer language barriers (English is the official language of Pakistan and widely spoken in the country among professional classes), more educational credentials (immigrants are disproportionately well educated among Pakistanis), and come from a similarly diverse, relatively tolerant, and multi-ethnic society. Pakistani Americans are well represented in the fields of medicine, engineering, finance and information technology. Pakistani Americans have brought Pakistani cuisine to the United States, and Pakistani cuisine has been established as one of the most popular cuisines in the country with hundreds of Pakistani restaurants in each major city and several similar eateries in smaller cities and towns. There are many Pakistani markets and stores in the United States. Some of the largest Pakistani markets are in New York City, Central New Jersey, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Houston

Languages

Pakistani Americans often retain their native languages, such as Punjabi and Urdu. As English is the official language in Pakistan and is taught in schools throughout the country, many immigrants coming to the United States generally have a good native fluency for the English language.

Many Pakistanis in the United States speak some of Pakistan's various regional languages such as Punjabi, Saraiki, Sindhi, Balochi, Pashto and Kashmiri.

Religion

Most Pakistani Americans are Muslims. Religion figures prominently in many of Pakistani American families.

The majority of Pakistanis belong to the Sunni sect of Islam, although there is a significant representation of the Shi'ite and Ahmadiyya sect. In smaller towns in America where there may not be mosques within easy access, Pakistani Americans make trips to attend the nearest one on major religious holidays and occasions. Pakistani Americans worship at mosques alongside other Muslims who might trace their ancestry to all parts of the Islamic world; there are generally no separate Pakistani American mosques.

Pakistani Americans also participate in and contribute to the larger Islamic community, which includes Arab Americans, Iranian American, Turkish American, African Americans, Indonesian Americans, Malaysian Americans, South Asian Americans, and many more ethnic backgrounds in America. They are part of the larger community's efforts to educate the country about the ideals of Islam and the teachings of Mohammed. Pakistani Americans have played important roles in the association the Muslim Students of America (MSA), which caters to the needs of Islamic students across the United States.

Although most Pakistani Americans are Muslims, there are also Hindus, Christians, and Zoroastrians within the community. Pakistani Christians, like Asian Christians, worship at churches all over the country and share in the religious life of the dominant Christian culture in America. Pakistani Hindus mainly share in the religious life of numerous Hindus from various nationalities, such as Indian American Hindus. Pakistani Hindus are mostly from Karachi. In recent times, Pakistani Zoroastrians (called Parsis) have come to the United States mainly from the cities of Lahore and Karachi. Apart from fellow Pakistanis, they also congregate with fellow Zoroastrian co-religionists from Iran.

Notable contributions

Pakistani Americans have made many contributions to the United States in many fields, such as science, politics, military, sports, philanthropy, business and economy.

Business and finance

Shahid Khan is a Pakistani American billionaire businessman who is owner of an auto-parts company and an NFL team Jacksonville Jaguars. As of 2012, he was estimated to have a net worth exceeding $6 billion and is featured on the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans, on which he ranks 179. Overall on the Forbes list of billionaires, he is the 491st richest person in the world.

Philanthropy

The Pakistani American community is said to be philanthropic, research shows that in the year 2002 the community gave close to US$1 Billion in philanthropic activities (including value of volunteered time). Since the Pakistani diaspora has spread internationally over the years, many Pakistanis living abroad choose to donate time, money and talent to further development in Pakistan. Pakathon, for example, aims to empower Pakistanis through innovation, technology and entrepreneurship.

Military

Pakistani American soldiers make up a sizable proportion of the over 4,000 Muslim service members in the US military. As of February 2008, 125 Pakistan-born service members were on active duty in the US Armed Forces, out of the 826 US service members born in South-Central Asia. This figure refers to those who were naturalized with US citizenship and does not include US-born service members of Pakistani ancestry.

Pakistani American service members have assisted with US intelligence operations, and worked as interpreters, interrogators and liaison officers in Afghanistan. Their knowledge of local languages such as Pashto and Urdu gives them an edge in coordination activities.

Occupation and Income

The Pakistani American community generally lives in a comfortable middle-class, upper-middle-class and upper-class lifestyles. Many Pakistani Americans follow the residence pattern set by other immigrants to the United States that when they increase their wealth, they are able to own or franchise small businesses; including restaurants, groceries and convenience stores, clothing and appliance stores, petrol and gas stations, newspaper booths, and travel agencies. It is common to include members of the extended and immediate family in the business.

Members of the Pakistani community believe in the symbolic importance of owning homes; accordingly, Pakistani Americans tend to save money and make other monetary sacrifices earlier on in order to purchase their own homes as soon as possible. Members of the family and sometimes the closer community tend to take care of each other, and to assist in times of economic need. Hence, it would be more common to turn to a community member for economic assistance rather than to a government agency. This leads to relatively low use of welfare and public assistance by Pakistani-Americans. According to the 2000 census, the mean household income in the United States in 2002 was $57,852 annually, whereas for Asian households, which includes Pakistanis this was $70,047. A separate study conducted by the American Community Survey in 2005, showed the mean and median incomes for Pakistani male full-time workers were US$59,310 and US$42,718 - respectively compared to the average male American full-time workers' mean and median incomes of US$56,724 and US$41,965 - respectively.

There is also incidence of poverty in the Pakistani community and in particular around the growing number of new immigrants that migrated from less privileged backgrounds in Pakistan. These migrants tend to take low-paying jobs involving manual or unskilled labor and tend to live in large cities where such jobs are readily available and in particular New York, where as of the 2000 census, poverty rates for Pakistanis in relation to the total New York population were higher overall, with 28% of Pakistanis living in poverty, which is greater than the general New York City poverty rate of 21%. Compared with those immigrants that arrived from 1965 who were either professionals or students and considered to be middle- and upper-class, the newer migrants tended to be worse off economically.

Education

According to American Factfinder, Pakistani Americans are high achievers academically and tend to be better educated as compared to other heritage groups in the United States with 87.4% being at least high school graduates and 60.9% holding a bachelor's degree or higher professional degree. Dr. Mehtab Karim, at the Pew Research Center found that 29.5% of Pakistanis completed four years of college, 22.5% completed a Master’s in a professional degree while 1.6% acquired a doctorate degree, this compared with the American national average of 17.6%, 20% and 1.1% respectively.

Physicians

An increasing number of Pakistani Americans work in the medical field. The Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent of North America, APPNA, has been meeting in various locations across the United States for the past 30 years. There are more than 15,000 doctors practicing medicine in America who are of Pakistani descent. Pakistan is the fourth highest source of IMG doctors in the U.S. and they are chiefly concentrated in New York, California, Florida, New Jersey and Illinois. Pakistan is also the fourth highest source of foreign dentists licensed in the United States. US congressmen and congresswomen have lauded the contributions of Pakistani medical professionals to the country's healthcare system.

Labour

This table shows the areas of work that Pakistanis are employed in and compares people that are born in the U.S., those born in Pakistan and those who are American nationals:

Note: FB1 = Pakistani born, NB2 = American born Pakistani and NB3 = All American nationals

The New York Times estimated that there were 109,300 workers born in Pakistan in all occupations in the US in 2007. With the top 10 occupations in ascending order being; sales-related, managers and administrators, drivers and transportation workers, doctors, accountants and other financial specialists, computer software developers, scientists and quantitative analysts, engineers and architects, clerical and administrative staff, and teachers.

Politics

Since the second wave of immigration in 1965, the Pakistani American community has not been politically inclined, but this is now changing, with the community starting to contribute funds to their candidates of choice in both parties, and running for elected office in districts with large Pakistani American populations. In recent times, Pakistani American candidates have run for the state senate in districts of such city boroughs as Brooklyn, New York. Because the community is geographically dispersed, the formation of influential voting blocs has not generally been possible, making it difficult to for the community to make an impact on politics in this particular way. However, there are increasing efforts on the part of community leaders to ensure voter registration and involvement. In 1989, observing the need for greater political coordination, activism and advocacy, a group of Pakistani Americans founded The Pakistani American Political Action Committee (PAKPAC).

Historically, Pakistani Americans have tended to vote Republican due to the shared ideology of conservatism and the perceived notion that Republican Presidents and leaders are more pro-Pakistani than Democrats. This was evident during the 2000 Presidential Election, as Pakistani Americans voted in overwhelming numbers for Republican candidate George W. Bush. However, that trend reversed itself in 2004, after George W. Bush's first term in office. His policies alienated Muslims at home and abroad, and Pakistanis were no exception. When George W. Bush was up for re-election, Pakistani Americans voted for Democratic candidate John Kerry. Former Pakistan diplomat Mohammed Sadiq (diplomat) helped establish the internship program at the Pakistan Embassy in Washington, D.C. Mr. Sadiq also helped the Pakistani American community organize and launch the Pakistan Caucus in Capitol Hill.

In the past, especially during the Cold War and the War on Terror under the Bush administration, there was the perceived notion that Republicans were more pro-Pakistani than Democrats. However, that trend reversed itself from 2011 onwards. Since then, there has been an increasing anti-Pakistani sentiment among Republican congressman which has alienated some Pakistani-Americans. Some Republican presidential candidates have criticised the democrats policy toward Pakistan. During the 2012 Republican Party presidential debates, the Republican candidates ganged up on Pakistan and questioned whether the United States could trust it. Texas governor Rick Perry called Pakistan unworthy of US aid because it had not done enough to help fight al-Qaeda. In the same year a bill was introduced by Dana Rohrabacher in the US House of Representatives proposing a hefty reduction in aid to Pakistan. President Obama has vowed to veto any proposed anti-Pakistan bills. President Obama also courted the Pakistani-American community for votes and money for his 2012 re-election campaign. In March 2012, Obama traveled to Houston, Texas for this purpose and at a dinner organised by Pakistani entrepreneurs, the President managed to raise $3.4 million in just a few hours for his re-election campaign. President Obama also pledged to continue sending aid and selling military equipment to Pakistan. According to polls, most Pakistani-Americans have now switched their votes to the Democratic Party.

In 2013, during the second inauguration of Barack Obama, the re-elected President praised the members of the Pakistani community in America and said, “I am about to go speak to the crowd in Chicago, but I wanted to thank you first. I want you to know that this was not fate and it was not an accident. You made this happen.” Talking to the Daily Times via telephone, US business leader Muhammad Saeed Sheikh said Obama in his address told that he would spend the rest of his presidency honoring the Pakistani-American support and doing what he can to finish what he started. Obama continued his praise and said, “You organised yourselves block by block. You took ownership of this campaign 5 and 10 dollars at a time. And when it was not easy, you pressed forward.”

Relations with Pakistan

Pakistani Americans have always maintained a strong bond with their homeland. Several leading airlines fly from the US to Pakistan, carrying with them thousands of Pakistanis who mostly go home to visit family and relatives. The relationship between the U.S. and Pakistani governments in the past few decades has been very close, and the Pakistani American community has benefited from this American interest in the country of their origin. Pakistani TV channels have found their way into homes of the diaspora worldwide.

Several paid TV channels are available for viewing; Pakistani TV serials, reality TV shows and political talk shows are popular among expatriates. These channels can also be viewed on the internet. Pakistani Americans maintain a deep interest in the society and politics of their country of origin. Funds are raised by the community in the US for various political parties and groups in Pakistan. From all the Pakistani diaspora, Pakistani Americans raised the largest number of funds to help Pakistan due to the 2005 earthquake. Tensions among ethnic groups like the Sindhis, Punjabis, Pashtuns, and Baluchis in Pakistan are not reflected in interaction between these subgroups in the US. Several international airlines serve the growing Pakistani community in the US connecting major US airports to those in Pakistan.

The Pakistani community in the United States also remits the largest share of any Pakistani diaspora community since 2002/03, surpassing those from Saudi Arabia which from 2000/01 were $309.9 million and increased to $1.25 billion by 2007/08 and during the same period remittances from the United States increased from $73.3 million to $1.72 billion.

In 2012 the Election Commission of Pakistan granted Overseas Pakistanis the right to vote in future Pakistani general elections. By allowing the setting up of polling stations in embassies and consulates, this move was welcomed by those Pakistanis living abroad particularly in America who stated "Overseas Pakistanis make enormous contributions to the development of Pakistan".

Discrimination

Since the September 11 attacks, there have been scattered incidents of Pakistani Americans having been mistaken targets for hate crimes and Pakistani Americans have to go under more security checks in places such as airports. Thousands of Pakistani immigrants were deported or left voluntarily.

In American popular culture

Events