Bengali Americans

Bengali Americans
Total population
	375,143 [1] (~.01% of U.S. population)
Regions with significant populations
	New York City, Central Los Angeles [2]
Languages
	American English, Bengali
Religion
	Predominantly Islam, minority Hinduism, small minority Christianity, Buddhism
Related ethnic groups
	Bangladeshi Americans, Indian Americans

Bengali Americans (Bengali: মার্কিন বাঙ্গালী) are Americans of Bengali ethnic, cultural and linguistic heritage and identity. They trace their ancestry to the historic ethnolinguistic region of Bengal in South Asia (now divided between Bangladesh and India). Bengali Americans are also a subgroup of Bangladeshi Americans and Indian Americans. Bengalis are also classified under Bangladeshi Americans.

[3] Significant immigration of Bengalis to the United States started after 1965.

Bengali Americans may refer to:

Bangladeshi Americans, Americans of Bangladeshi descent of Bengali Hindu ancestry and Bengali Muslims. Bengali Muslims are usually classified as Bangladeshi Americans and American Muslims.
Bengali Indian Americans, Americans of Indian and Bengali Hindu descent whose ancestral origins are in West Bengal, Bangladesh or erstwhile East Bengal, Jharkhand, Purnia, Odisha, Goalpara region, Assam, the Barak Valley, Tripura, Nepal, Meghalaya, Rakhine state and other parts of India who are known as Probashi Bengalis. Bengali Hindu Americans also come from Southeast Asia, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South America, Caribbean and other parts of the world.

Culture

Many Bengali Americans participate in an annual conference, the North American Bengali Conference, in order to celebrate their culture and discuss issues the community faces. They often form regional organizations to network and plan events.

Religions

Bengali Americans are mostly adherents of either Islam or Hinduism. This is manifested in the yearly celebration of Durga Puja, Eid ul-Fitr, and other religious celebrations. Several secular holidays are also enjoyed by the whole community, such as the Bengali new year, Pohela Boishakh.

Notable people

Sears Tower (now Willis Tower), was designed by Fazlur Rahman Khan. It was the tallest building in the world for over two decades.

Raj Chandra Bose - Indian American Mathematician
Moni Lal Bhoumik - Indian American physicist and a bestselling author.
Arianna Afsar – former Miss California; placed in the Top 10 of the 2011 Miss America pageant
Saif Ahmad – World Series of Poker winner
Maqsudul Alam – scientist and professor
Jalal Alamgir (d. 2011) – political scientist and professor
Mir Masoom Ali – George and Frances Ball Distinguished Professor of Statistics, Ball State University
Kali S. Banerjee – statistician and professor[4]
Rais Bhuiyan – shooting survivor and activist
Amar Bose - founder of Bose Corporation
Ananda Mohan Chakrabarty - scientist
Purnendu Chatterjee - industrialist
Subir Chowdhury – author and management consultant
Hansen Clarke – United States Congress in 2010, from Michigan's House of Representatives
Tarak Nath Das - anti-British Bengali Indian revolutionary and internationalist scholar
Hasan M. Elahi – interdisciplinary media artist
Rajat Gupta, former CEO of McKinsey and Company
M. Zahid Hasan, the Eugene Higgins endowed chair professor at Princeton University and scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, known for ground-breaking discoveries in the quantum world[5]
Fazle Hussain – professor of mechanical engineering, physics, and earth science at the University of Houston
Abul Hussam – inventor of the Sono arsenic filter
Norah Jones - singer and actress
Mindy Kaling- actress
Jawed Karim – co-founder of YouTube; designed key parts of PayPal
Mohammad Ataul Karim – electrical engineer[6]
Sumaya Kazi – founder of Sumazi, was recognised by BusinessWeek as one of America's Best Young Entrepreneurs
Abdus Suttar Khan – chemist and jet fuels inventor
Fazlur Rahman Khan – pioneer of modern structural engineering
Salman Khan – founder of Khan Academy, a nonprofit educational organisation
Jhumpa Lahiri - author of The Namesake
Dipa Ma – yoga teacher
Tasmin Mahfuz - American television journalist and news anchor and Gracie award recipient for women.
Sezan Mahmud – award-winning novelist[7]
A.K. Mozumdar - first person of South Asian descent to earn US citizenship, until it was revoked by the Supreme Court in 1924
Dhan Gopal Mukerji, first South Asian winner of Newbery Medal in 1928
Raj Mukherji, Majority Whip of the New Jersey General Assembly
Shomi Patwary – designer and music video director
Iqbal Quadir – founder of Grameenphone, Bangladesh's largest mobile phone company; heads the Legatum Center at MIT
Kamal Quadir – entrepreneur; founded two of Bangladesh's key technology companies, CellBazaar and bKash
Anika Rahman – CEO of Ms. Foundation for Women
Badal Roy – tabla player, percussionist, and recording artist
Reihan Salam – conservative American political commentator; blogger at The American Scene; associate editor of The Atlantic Monthly
Shikhee – singer; auteur of industrial band Android Lust
Asif Azam Siddiqi – space historian; assistant professor of history at Fordham University
M. Osman Siddique – former US ambassador
Palbasha Siddique – singer
Narasingha Sil – professor of history at Western Oregon University
Supreme Understanding – author, publisher, activist and outspoken member of the Nation of Gods and Earths
Monica Yunus – Bangladeshi-Russian-American operatic soprano
Sohla El-Waylly – American chef, restaurateur, and YouTube personality as part of Bon Appetit’s staff.
Samarendra Nath Roy - Indian American Mathematician

References

ACS 1-Year Estimates
"More Foreign-Born Immigrants Live In NYC Than There Are People In Chicago". Huffington Post. 19 December 2013. Retrieved 25 February 2015. Over 40 percent of the United States' Bengali population lives in New York City.
"Bengali speakers to be counted in US census".
"In Memoriam Kali S. Banerjee". Retrieved 17 March 2015.
"16 faculty members, 18 alumni elected to nation's historic academies". The Princetonian. Retrieved 2020-05-21.
"News at Old Dominion University". Archived from the original on 14 December 2012. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
"Archived copy". Archived from the original on 12 July 2013. Retrieved 11 December 2013.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.

[1] ACS 1-Year Estimates

[2] "More Foreign-Born Immigrants Live In NYC Than There Are People In Chicago". Huffington Post. 19 December 2013. Retrieved 25 February 2015. Over 40 percent of the United States' Bengali population lives in New York City.

[3] "Bengali speakers to be counted in US census".

[4] "In Memoriam Kali S. Banerjee". Retrieved 17 March 2015.

[5] "16 faculty members, 18 alumni elected to nation's historic academies". The Princetonian. Retrieved 2020-05-21.

[6] "News at Old Dominion University". Archived from the original on 14 December 2012. Retrieved 17 March 2015.

[7] "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 12 July 2013. Retrieved 11 December 2013.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)

Asian Americans^{1, 2, 6}
East Asian	Chinese Hong Kong Tibetan⁴ Uyghur Hoklo/Hokkien Fuzhou/Hokchiu Hakka Taiwan Japanese Hawaii Korean Mongolian
South Asian⁵	Bangladeshi Bengali Bhutanese Indian Indo-Caribbean Bengali Gujarati Punjabi Sindhi Tamil Telugu Nepalese Pakistani Baloch Pashtun Punjabi Sindhi Sri Lankan Tamil
Southeast Asian	Burmese Cambodian Filipino Hmong Indonesian Karen (Karen) Laotian Malaysian Mien Singaporean Thai Vietnamese
Other	Asian Hispanic and Latino Punjabi Mexican Multiracial Americans Afro-Asian Amerasian Eurasian
History	General Immigration Military
Topics	Arts and Entertainment Demographics Politics Stereotypes Movement
Religion	Buddhists Christians Catholics Protestants Hindus Jainism Muslims Sikhs
Regions	California Hawaii Maryland New York City Puerto Rico Washington
Notes ¹ The U.S. Census Bureau definition of Asians refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent. ² The United States Government classified Kalmyks as Asian until 1951, when Kalmyk Americans were reclassified as White Americans. ³Central Asians are classified as White Americans. ⁴ The U.S. Census Bureau reclassifies anyone identifying as "Tibetan American" as "Chinese American". ⁵ Bengali Americans may be classified as Bangladeshi or Indian. Punjabi Americans may be classified as Indian or Pakistani. ⁶ Those of West Asian extraction (i.e. the Middle East and the Caucasus) are classified as White under the U.S. Census.