Tamil Americans

Tamil Americans (தமிழ் அமெரிக்கர்கள்) are Americans who are of Tamil origin. The majority of Tamil Americans come from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Significant minorities are from other Indian states like Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, etc., as well as from other countries like Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Singapore.

In 2000, the number of Tamil speakers in the US numbered approximately 50,000 individuals. By 2010 the number surged to 127,892 and grew to 238,699 by 2020. The growth of the Tamil population in the United States is attributed to the H-1B visa program, and the presence of a large number of Tamil students studying in American universities.

Demographics

In the second half of the 20th century, Tamils from India migrated as skilled professionals to the United States, Canada, Europe, and Southeast Asia. The Tamil American population exceeds 1,500,000 individuals. The Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America functions as an umbrella organization for the growing community.

Central New Jersey is home to the largest population concentration of Tamil Americans. Sizeable populations of Indian American Tamils have also settled in New York City, and New Jersey and New York house separate Tamil Sangams. The Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and the Research Triangle area on the East Coast as well as Silicon Valley on the West Coast also have Tamil associations.Bay Area Tamil Manram

The New York City and Los Angeles metropolitan areas are home to the largest concentrations of Tamil-speaking Sri Lankan Americans. New York City's Staten Island alone is estimated to be home to more than 5,000 Sri Lankan Americans, one of the largest Sri Lankan populations outside Sri Lanka itself, and a significant proportion of whom speak Tamil.

Language

The Indian Tamil community in the United States is largely bilingual. Tamil is taught in weekly classes in many Hindu temples and by associations such as the American Tamil Academy in South Brunswick, New Jersey and the Tamil Jersey School in Jersey City.

The language's written form is highly formal and quite distinct from the spoken form. A few universities, such as the University of Chicago and the University of California, Berkeley, have graduate programs in the language.

Religion

The Indian Tamil community is majority-wise connected to the Hindu community. In most Hindu temples in the United States, the prayers are in Sanskrit. However, in North Brunswick, New Jersey, the "Tamil Temple" ("Tamil Annai Thirukkoyil") conducts all the prayers in the Tamil language. The Hindu Temple in Houston, Texas, is dedicated to Meenakshi, a manifestation of the goddess Parvathi. There are also active Tamil Christian and Muslim minorities, as well as Jains and Buddhists. Tamil Muslims also hold a Tamil Muslim Community Sangam-Iman America/QMFUSANarayanan, "Tamils," p. 877.

Notable people

* Vijay Amritraj – Indian-American tennis player and commentator
* Ashok Amritraj – Indian-American film producer
* Aziz Ansari – Actor and stand-up comedian
* Sunkrish Bala – Actor
* Krishna Bharat – Computer scientist; founder of Google News
* Jay Chandrasekhar – Actor and director
* Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar – Astrophysicist and Nobel laureate
* Raj Chetty – Economist, professor of economics at Harvard University renowned for his research on equality of opportunity in the United States
* Ananda Coomaraswamy – Philosopher
* Kancheepuram Gunalan – American Society of Civil Engineers (President)
* Kamala Harris – Vice President of the United States
* Maya Harris – Lawyer, public policy advocate, and television commentator
* Vijay Iyer – Pianist
* Poorna Jagannathan – Actress and producer
* Pramila Jayapal – U.S. Representative from Washington
* Clarence Jey – Record producer and songwriter
* Mindy Kaling – Actress
* Raja Krishnamoorthi – U.S. Representative from Illinois
* Sukanya Krishnan – News anchor
* Padma Lakshmi - Author, actress, model, television host
* G. V. Loganathan – Professor and a victim of the Virginia Tech massacre
* Nimi McConigley – Former U.S. Representative from Wyoming
* C. Mohan – Computer scientist
* Mary Anne Mohanraj – Writer
* Sendhil Mullainathan – Economist, Harvard professor
* Vasant Narasimhan - Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Novartis
* Indra Nooyi – Chairwoman and former CEO of PepsiCo Incorporated
* Sethuraman Panchanathan – Executive Vice President, Knowledge Enterprise Development and Chief Research Innovation Officer at Arizona State University
* Arogyaswami Paulraj – Wireless researcher, winner of Marconi Prize
* Sundar Pichai - Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Google
* John Prabhudoss - Current Chairman of the Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations (FIACONA)
* C. K. Prahalad – Late world-renowned management guru
* Raghuram Rajan – Economist, winner of Fischer Black Prize
* Raj Rajaratnam – Founder of Galleon Group
* V. S. Ramachandran – Physician, neuroscientist, director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, San Diego
* Venkatraman Ramakrishnan – Structural biologist and Nobel laureate
* Sendhil Ramamurthy - Film and television actor
* Visvanathan Rudrakumaran - Prime Minister of the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam
* Maya Shankar – Scientist
* Ram Shriram – Billionaire venture capitalist
* M. Night Shyamalan – Film director
* S. J. Sindu – Writer
* Siva Sivananthan – Academic, scientist, businessman and Director of the Microphysics Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago
* Rajan Somasundaram – Music composer, songwriter and multi instrumentalist
* Hari Sreenivasan – United States circuit judge
* Sid Sriram – Singer and producer
* Subra Suresh - Former President of Carnegie Mellon University
* Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah – Social anthropologist
* Chandrika Tandon – Businesswoman and artist
* Savita Vaidhyanathan – Politician, former mayor of Cupertino
* S. R. Srinivasa Varadhan – Mathematician
* Sudhir Venkatesh – Sociologist and urban ethnographer
* Prashanth Venkataramanujam – Actor, television writer, and producer; head writer and producer of Patriot Act
* Divya Victor – Poet

References

Further reading

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* Narayanan, Vasudha, "Tamils" in
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* Underwood, Kelsey Clark. "Image and Identity: Tamils' Migration to the United States." ''Papers Kroeber Anthropological Society'' (1986): 65+

{{Portal bar, Tamils, India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Asia

Asian-American society
Tamil
South Asian American
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