Peruvian Americans are Americans of Peruvian descent.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau 2021 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates, as of 2021[update], 720,626 U.S. residents identify themselves as being of Peruvian origin.[1] Approximately 62% of Peruvian Americans were born in Peru, with a growing population of Peruvian Americans being born in the United States.
Peruvian Americans immigrated to the United States in four major waves. Small but significant waves of immigration occurred in San Francisco during the gold rush (along with Chilean miners beginning in 1848) and the Metro Detroit area in the 1950s. Another wave of immigration occurred again early in the twentieth century, due largely to the burgeoning textile industry in New York and New Jersey. In the 1950s, there were a reported approximate 100 Peruvian families that resided in Paterson, New Jersey.[3]
Factors that influenced Peruvian emigration was the decrease in employment, political persecution, public insecurity and violence, economic uncertainty, theft, and impunity.[4] Beginning in the 1970s another wave of Peruvians arrived in the United States, most of whom were fleeing Peru's militaristic government under the dictatorships of Juan Velasco Alvarado and Francisco Morales Bermúdez, both of which were marked by coups and socio-economic instability. The 1980s and 1990s saw the most significant influx of Peruvians to U.S. shores, this time in response to the hyperinflation crisis that plagued the Peruvian economy, internal unrest in Peru by terrorist groups, and an authoritarian government headed by Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori.[5]
Immigrants often come from urban areas of Peru, especially Lima, and the majority settle in the New York City metropolitan area—particularly in Paterson and Passaic in New Jersey and the New York City borough of Queens. Peruvian Americans are also clustered in the metropolitan areas of Miami; Los Angeles; Houston, Texas; Washington, D.C.; and Virginia.[5]
Recently, Peru has enjoyed economic growth and political stability since the start of the millennia. As a result, there has been a decline in the amount of Peruvian immigration to the United States unto 2019 under economic pretenses and instead for education.
Settlement in the United States
The states with the largest number of Peruvian Americans are Florida, California, New Jersey, and New York. Texas and Virginia are also home to significant communities of people of Peruvian descent.
Little is known about the earliest Peruvian immigrants who came to the United States during the California gold rush. Later Peruvian immigrants began arriving in the early twentieth century to work in textile mills in Paterson, New Jersey, which is now home to one of the largest Peruvian communities in the United States. Paterson has a significant number of businesses run by Peruvian Americans, as well as social and political organizations, and remains a destination for Peruvian immigrants of all social classes.[5]
The most famous and first aspect of Peruvian culture that deals with the United States is the book, "The Incas's Florida" La Florida del Inca written at the end of sixteenth century by the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega. Garcilaso's book details the travels of the explorer Hernando de Soto who had participated in the Forty-Years War between the Incas and the Spanish (1531–1571) and who later came to the lands that would become part of the United States and that the Spanish called "Florida."
The most popular dishes of Peruvian food in the U.S. include ceviche (raw fish "cooked" in lime juice), papa a la huancaína, and anticuchos y tamales. Peruvian cuisine is often recognized for being one of the most diverse and appreciated of the world's cuisines, with influences including Native American, European, and African. Since there is a sizable Chinese and Japanese minority in Peru, an Asian influence has also been deeply incorporated in Peruvian cuisine. There are Chifas, or Asian-style Peruvian restaurants that serve typical Chinese or Japanese food with a Peruvian culinary influence. Inca Kola, a soda that originated in Peru, is sold in many heavily concentrated Latin American areas.
The extended family commonly serves an economic function, too, with some new immigrants temporarily living with extended family already established in the United States, and in expensive urban centers, such arrangements sometimes are permanent.[8]
Socioeconomic status
Nearly half of Peruvians have resided in the United States for over 20 years, with 46% of foreign-born Peruvians reported to have lived in the United States for 20 years or more.[9]
Despite being a relatively recent ethnic group, the median household income for Peruvians meets the average American household income and 44% of Peruvians born in the United States over the age of 25 have college degrees,[10] exceeding the U.S. national average of 24%.
Around 90% of Peruvians lived above the poverty rate in 2017, with a poverty rate of 10% compared to the United States national average of 12.3% that same year.
Activism
The Peruvian American Coalition in Passaic, New Jersey[11] functions as an activist organization on behalf of the overall welfare of Peruvian Americans.
Notably, a rapidly growing number of Peruvian Americans, about 10,000 in 2018,[13] have established an increasingly prominent community in Paterson, New Jersey,[14] which is considered by many to be the capital of the Peruvian Diaspora in the United States,[15] partially owing to the presence of the Peruvian Consulate. Market Street, the Little Lima in downtown Paterson, is the largest Peruvian American enclave and is lined with Peruvian-owned restaurants, bakeries, delicatessens, bodegas, travel agencies, and other businesses. The Peruvian American community has expanded into Paterson's neighboring areas of Fair Lawn, Elmwood Park, Clifton, and Passaic in Northern New Jersey as well, all within the New York City Metropolitan Area. The annual Peruvian Independence Day Parade is held in Paterson.[16][17]
Carlos De Valdez (1894–1939) – Peruvian film actor who appeared in around forty American films. He spend the last years of his life in United States (where he died).[21]
Fernando Belaúnde Terry – American educator, former President of Peru (1963–1968; 1980–1985)
Robert Garcia – Mayor of Long Beach, California, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California's 42nd district (first Peruvian-American elected to Congress)
^Baía, Larissa Ruiz (1999). "Rethinking Transnationalism: Reconstructing National Identities among Peruvian Catholics in New Jersey". Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs. 41 (4): 93–109. doi:10.2307/166193. ISSN0022-1937. JSTOR166193.
^Durand, Jorge, and Mariana Ortega Breña. "The Peruvian Diaspora: Portrait of a Migratory Process." Latin American Perspectives, vol. 37, no. 5, 2010, pp. 12-28. JSTOR, www.jstor.org.lpclibrary.idm.oclc.org/stable/25750407.
De Ferrari, Gabriella. Gringa Latina: A Woman of Two Worlds (Houghton Mifflin, 1996).
Packel, John. "Peruvian Americans." Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America, edited by Thomas Riggs, (3rd ed., vol. 3, Gale, 2014), pp. 467–476. online
Paerregaard, Karsten. "Inside the Hispanic Melting Pot: Negotiating National and Multicultural Identities among Peruvians in the United States.” Latino Studies 3 (2005): 76–96.
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