Asturian Americans

The first Asturian immigrants came to North America as soldiers, officers and settlers with the Spanish Army in the wake of Spain's conquest of what is today Mexico and the southwestern US. Some came directly to areas that would eventually become American territory, while others came to the US via Mexico or Cuba.

The first known child of European descent to be born in what is now the continental US was Martín de Argüelles (Asturian: Martín d'Argüelles), born in 1566 in the Spanish settlement of St. Augustine, Florida (San Agustín, La Florida), the oldest continuously occupied European-founded city anywhere in the continental United States.

Centro Asturiano de Tampa, Florida

In the early decades of the 20th century thousands of Asturians left Spain and Cuba and came to work in the thriving tobacco industry of Tampa, Florida, or the zinc and coal mines of West Virginia and Pennsylvania. These Asturian immigrants organized themselves in tight-knit communities, setting up clubs and welfare organizations to provide and care for its members.

One such club is the Centro Asturiano de Tampa, a historic site in Ybor City, Tampa, Florida. It is located at 1913 Nebraska Avenue. Established in 1902, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 24, 1974. It was designed by Tampa architect M. Leo Elliott.

On Asturian immigration, the "Asturian-American Migration Forum" states:

Asturias, a northern Spanish region on the Cantabrian Sea (Bay of Biscay), has been a center of mining and metallurgy for thousands of years. Between 1900 and 1924, thousands of Spaniards emigrated from Asturias to the United States. Many of those immigrating were skilled workers who followed the zinc, coal, and other heavy industry to the New World. Others were led by family ties, a desire to avoid military service, or the promise of adventure.

These Asturian immigrants established an informal but lively network which connected Spain, Cuba, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, California, and other locations within the US.

The 2010 US Census failed to include an Asturian category, leaving Asturian-Americans with the only choice of checking the Hispanic category, unlike Basques or Scotch-Irish Americans, who, even though they do not come from independent countries, are recognized by the US Census with their own categories.

This caused some controversy at the "Asturian-American Migration Forum", as one member recalls:

The 2010 U.S. Census failed to reveal our Asturian heritage.(...)Spanish Hispanic does not help to clarify my long standing desire for recognition of the Asturian descendants who have been contributing to this country.(...)We Asturians are simply lumped in the same category with other Spanish peoples for the sake of convenience.

Another member clarified the feelings of the Asturian community at the US Census' lack of sensibility with their heritage:

The woman [census clerk] who ambushed me when I was entering my home put me through the drill. When she came to nationality I replied "Asturiano, Spanish." She asked "Mexican?," I said no, "Basque?," I replied no. She looked perplexed , and then angry that I wouldn't just be Mexican. I told her that my family lived thousands of miles from Mexico, and she just blinked at me. I saw her check Hispanic as she turned to leave.

• Asturian people
• Asturias
• Californio
• European Americans
• Basque Americans
• Catalan American
• Hispanic
• Hispanos
• Centro Asturiano de Tampa
• History of Ybor City
• Origins of New Mexico Families: A Genealogy of the Spanish Colonial Period
• Hispanic and Latino Americans
• Hispanic Society of America
• Hyphenated American
• Nuevomexicano
• New Mexican Spanish
• List of Hispanic and Latino Americans
• Spanish people
• Spain–United States relations
• Tejano
• White Americans
• White Hispanic and Latino Americans
• White Latin American

• Colahan, Clark (2008). Spanish American Heritage. Multicultural America.
• Ramírez, Roberto R. (2004). We the People: Hispanic Population in the United States. Census 2000 Special Reports. U.S. Census Bureau.
• Pérez, Juan M. (October 2005). The Hispanic Role in America. Coloquio Revista Cultural.
• Asturian-American Migration Forum. A discussion board for the descendants of Asturian-Americans.