Tibetan Americans are
Americans
Americans are the Citizenship of the United States, citizens and United States nationality law, nationals of the United States, United States of America.; ; Although direct citizens and nationals make up the majority of Americans, many Multi ...
of
Tibetan
Tibetan may mean:
* of, from, or related to Tibet
* Tibetan people, an ethnic group
* Tibetan language:
** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard
** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken dial ...
ancestry. As of 2020, more than 26,700 Americans are estimated to have Tibetan ancestry.
The majority of Tibetan Americans reside in
Queens, New York
Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...
.
History
Ethnic Tibetans began to immigrate to the United States in the late 1950s.
[Bhuchung K. Tsering]
Enter the Tibetan Americans: Tibetan Americans establish a presence in the United States
Tibet Foundation Newsletter, February 2001. Section 134 of the
Immigration Act of 1990 gave a boost to the Tibetan immigration to the US, by providing 1,000 immigrant visas to Tibetans living in India and
Nepal
Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne,
सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...
.
Chain migration
Chain migration is the social process by which immigrants from a particular area follow others from that area to a particular destination. The destination may be in another country or in a new location within the same country.
John S. MacDona ...
followed, and by 1998 the Tibetan-American population had grown to around 5,500, according to a census conducted by
Central Tibetan Administration
The Central Tibetan Administration (, , ), often referred to as the Tibetan Government-in-Exile, is a non-profit political organization based in Dharamshala, India. Its organization is modeled after an elective parliamentary government, comp ...
(CTA). The
2000 United States Census
The United States census of 2000, conducted by the Census Bureau, determined the resident population of the United States on April 1, 2000, to be 281,421,906, an increase of 13.2 percent over the 248,709,873 people enumerated during the 1990 ce ...
counted 5,147 US residents who reported Tibetan ancestry.
[Global Nomads: The Emergence of the Tibetan Diaspora (Part I)]
by Seonaigh MacPherson (University of British Columbia), Anne-Sophie Bentz (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies), Dawa Bhuti Ghoso
Immigration timeline
* 1948
Telopa Rinpoche
Tilopa (Prakrit; Sanskrit: Talika or Tilopadā; 988–1069) was an Indian Buddhist monk in the tantric Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism.
He lived along the Ganges River, with wild ladies as a tantric practitioner and mahasiddha. He practic ...
is hired by
Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...
to teach
Tibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism (also referred to as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Lamaism, Lamaistic Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, and Northern Buddhism) is the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Bhutan, where it is the dominant religion. It is also in majo ...
.
* 1952
14th Dalai Lama's elder brother,
Taktser Rinpoche Taktser Rinpoche (; ) was born in 1922 in "the small village of Taktser, meaning 'roaring tiger,' located in the Amdo region of eastern Tibet." He became a lama of the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism and was named Thubten Jigme Norbu, the oldes ...
and his friend
Dhondup Gyaltsen immigrate to the United States.
*1955
Geshe
Geshe (Tib. ''dge bshes'', short for ''dge-ba'i bshes-gnyen'', "virtuous friend"; translation of Skt. ''kalyāņamitra'') or geshema is a Tibetan Buddhist academic degree for monks and nuns. The degree is emphasized primarily by the Gelug lineage, ...
Ngawang Wangyal
Ngawang Wangyal (), aka Sogpo (Mongolian) Wangyal, popularly known as Geshe Wangyal and "America's first lama," was a Buddhist lama and scholar of Kalmyk origin. He was born in the Astrakhan province in southeast Russia sometime in 1901 and died ...
arrives in the U.S. He serves as religious leader and spiritual teacher of a
Kalmyk Mongolian community in
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
and teaches at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
.
* 1957–71 Tibetan guerrilla fighters are trained by the CIA and launch numerous incursions into Tibet.
* 1958 The first
Tibetan Buddhist
Tibetan Buddhism (also referred to as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Lamaism, Lamaistic Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, and Northern Buddhism) is the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Bhutan, where it is the dominant religion. It is also in majo ...
monastery
A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which ...
in
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
,
Labsum Shedrup Ling, is established in
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
under the spiritual guidance of Geshe Wangyal.
* 1960 The
Rockefeller Foundation establishes eight centers for
Tibetan studies in the U.S., which invite 17
Tibetan lamas.
* 1964 Six Tibetans, four from
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
and two from the U.S., enroll in a year-long special intensive program at
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
to study
public administration
Public Administration (a form of governance) or Public Policy and Administration (an academic discipline) is the implementation of public policy, administration of government establishment (public governance), management of non-profit est ...
and
economics
Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.
Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyzes ...
.
* 1967–69 Six Tibetans immigrate to the U.S. to work as
lumberjacks for the
Great Northern Paper Company
Great Northern Paper Company was a Maine-based pulp and paper manufacturer that at its peak in the 1970s and 1980s operated mills in Arkansas, Georgia, Maine, and Wisconsin and produced 16.4% of the newsprint made in the United States. It was also ...
in
Portage Lake, Maine. The following year, 21 others joined them.
* 1971 The CIA cancels its covert operations supporting
Tibetan guerillas following President
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
's trip to
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
and a new era of improved
U.S.–Sino relations.
* 1986 There are 256 Tibetans living in the U.S. according to a population survey conducted by the Office of Tibet, New York.
* 1988
Tibet Fund begins administering yearly
Fulbright Program
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people o ...
scholarship
grant
Grant or Grants may refer to:
Places
*Grant County (disambiguation)
Australia
* Grant, Queensland, a locality in the Barcaldine Region, Queensland, Australia
United Kingdom
* Castle Grant
United States
* Grant, Alabama
* Grant, Inyo County, ...
s to bring Tibetans
students and professionals to the U.S. for
higher education
Higher education is tertiary education leading to award of an academic degree. Higher education, also called post-secondary education, third-level or tertiary education, is an optional final stage of formal learning that occurs after comple ...
.
* 1989 The
Tibetan United States Resettlement Project (TUSRP) is established to support the resettlement of 1,000 Tibetans.
Edward Bednar is appointed director.
* April 1989 ICT president
Tenzin Tethong
Tethong Tenzin Namgyal ( born 1947) is a Tibetan politician and a former Prime Minister ( Kalon Tripa) of Central Tibetan Administration.
Naming practice
Traditionally, ordinary Tibetan people carry a first personal name and may or may not c ...
, the Dalai Lama's Representative
Rinchen Dharlo and Edward Bednar meet with
pro-Tibet organizations,
resettlement agencies,
congressional staff
Congressional staff are employees of the United States Congress or individual members of Congress.
History
Before the American Civil War, members of Congress did not have staff assistance or even offices, and "most members worked at their desks ...
,
immigration law advisors, etc. to begin 18 months of advocacy for TUSRP.
* 1991 As part of Fulbright scholarships administered by
Tibet Fund, Berea College in Berea, Kentucky enrolls the first batch of two students with two succeeding each following year to study in 4 year undergraduate programs. The program still continues with over 20 graduates, who have mostly resettled in America.
* 1992 The first group of the 1,000 Tibetans arrives in the U.S. under the TUSRP and settles in six cluster sites throughout the U.S.
* 1993 In little more than a year since the first group of Tibetans arrived in 1992, 21 cluster sites open in 18 different states across the United States.
* 1993–2002 Through family reunification, more Tibetans arrive to join the original 1,000. By 2002 there are approximately 8,650 Tibetans and 30 Tibetan community associations in the United States.
Demography
An estimate of c. 7,000 was made in 2001,
[ and in 2008 the CTA's Office of Tibet in New York informally estimated the Tibetan population in the US at around 9,000.][ In 2020, The Central Tibetan Administration estimated the number of Tibetans living in the United States to be over 26,700.][ The migration of the Tibetans to the United States took on the pattern of 22 "cluster groups", located primarily in the ]Northeast
The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...
, the Great Lakes
The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lak ...
region and the Intermountain West
The Intermountain West, or Intermountain Region, is a geographic and geological region of the Western United States. It is located between the front ranges of the Rocky Mountains on the east and the Cascade Range and Sierra Nevada on the wes ...
. Other communities include Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...
and Charlottesville, Virginia. Tibetan Americans who are born in Tibet or elsewhere in China are officially recognized as Chinese nationals.
Northeast
Communities of Tibetan Americans in the Northeast exist in Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
and Amherst, Massachusetts, Ithaca, New York
Ithaca is a city in the Finger Lakes region of New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake, Ithaca is the seat of Tompkins County and the largest community in the Ithaca metropolitan statistical area. It is named a ...
, and New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, and in the states of Connecticut
Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capita ...
, Vermont
Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...
and New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
. In New York and New Jersey, they live primarily in Queens and New Brunswick.
The town of Northfield, Vermont
Northfield is a town in Washington County, Vermont, United States. The town lies in a valley within the Green Mountains and has been home to Norwich University since 1866. It contains the village of Northfield, where over half of the population ...
has been home for many years to the seat of the current Trijang Rinpoche
The Third Trijang Rinpoche, Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso (1901–1981) was a Gelugpa Lama and a direct disciple of Pabongkhapa Déchen Nyingpo. He succeeded Ling Rinpoche as the junior tutor of the 14th Dalai Lama when the Dalai Lama was nineteen ...
, who has been estranged from the Dalai Lama
Dalai Lama (, ; ) is a title given by the Tibetan people to the foremost spiritual leader of the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" school of Tibetan Buddhism, the newest and most dominant of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The 14th and current D ...
due to the Dorje Shugden
Dorje Shugden ( bo, རྡོ་རྗེ་ཤུགས་ལྡན་, Wylie: ''rdo rje shugs ldan'', ), also known as Dolgyal and Gyalchen Shugden, is an entity associated with the Gelug school, the newest of the schools of Tibetan Buddhism. ...
controversy, which has become a cultural heritage center for thousands of followers.
Mid-Atlantic
In the Mid-Atlantic region, the largest communities can be found in Northern Virginia
Northern Virginia, locally referred to as NOVA or NoVA, comprises several counties and independent cities in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. It is a widespread region radiating westward and southward from Washington, D.C. Wit ...
, Washington D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, Na ...
, Montgomery County, Maryland, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
, and Charlottesville, Virginia.
Great Lakes region
Communities of Tibetan Americans in the Great Lakes
The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lak ...
region exist in Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
and in the states of Minnesota
Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...
, Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
, Indiana
Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...
, Wisconsin
Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
and Michigan
Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...
. There is a Tibetan Mongol Buddhist Cultural Center in Bloomington, Indiana
Bloomington is a city in and the county seat of Monroe County in the central region of the U.S. state of Indiana. It is the seventh-largest city in Indiana and the fourth-largest outside the Indianapolis metropolitan area. According to the Mo ...
near the campus of Indiana University
Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana.
Campuses
Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI.
*Indiana Universi ...
. The late brother of the Dalai Lama
Dalai Lama (, ; ) is a title given by the Tibetan people to the foremost spiritual leader of the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" school of Tibetan Buddhism, the newest and most dominant of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The 14th and current D ...
was a professor at the university.
Minnesota has the second largest concentration of Tibetan Americans in the United States.
Western United States
Communities of Tibetan Americans in the western U.S. exist in Seattle, Washington
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region ...
, Portland, Oregon
Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...
, Berkeley, California
Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...
, several locations in Southern California
Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...
, and in the cities and states of Colorado Springs, Colorado, Boise, Idaho
Boise (, , ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho and is the county seat of Ada County. On the Boise River in southwestern Idaho, it is east of the Oregon border and north of the Nevada border. The downtown ar ...
, Montana
Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbi ...
, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Albuquerque ( ; ), ; kee, Arawageeki; tow, Vakêêke; zun, Alo:ke:k'ya; apj, Gołgéeki'yé. abbreviated ABQ, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico. Its nicknames, The Duke City and Burque, both reference its founding in ...
, Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
, and Salt Lake City, Utah
Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...
.
Every year, Seattle holds an annual Tibet Festival in August.
Colorado
Although quite small in number overall, Colorado has one of the highest concentrations of Tibetans in North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
, focused on Boulder, Colorado Springs
Colorado Springs is a home rule municipality in, and the county seat of, El Paso County, Colorado, United States. It is the largest city in El Paso County, with a population of 478,961 at the 2020 United States Census, a 15.02% increase since ...
, Douglas County and Crestone. The state has Naropa University whose values statement states, "We are Buddhist-inspired, ecumenical, and nonsectarian welcoming faculty, staff, and students of all faiths as well as those who don’t ascribe to any religion." There is a Buddhist commune west of Castle Rock and several cities have Tibetan outreach organizations. Colorado Springs alone has three Tibetan stores and a restaurant.
Much of the reason behind this rather peculiar demographic is that Tibetan guerillas were secretly trained by the Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
(CIA) at Camp Hale
Camp Hale was a U.S. Army training facility in the western United States, constructed in 1942 for what became the 10th Mountain Division. Located in central Colorado between Red Cliff and Leadville in the Eagle River valley, it was named fo ...
outside of Leadville
The City of Leadville is a statutory city that is the county seat, the most populous community, and the only incorporated municipality in Lake County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 2,602 at the 2010 census and an estimated ...
. Camp Hale was used as a training camp for expatriate Tibetans to be inserted to aid the existing resistance in Tibet after the region was retaken by the Chinese People's Liberation Army
The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the principal military force of the China, People's Republic of China and the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The PLA consists of five Military branch, service branches: the People's ...
, between 1959 and 1965.
From 1958 to 1960, Anthony Poshepny
Anthony Alexander Poshepny (September 18, 1924 – June 27, 2003), known as Tony Poe, was a CIA Paramilitary Operations Officer in what became the Special Activities Division (renamed Special Activities Center in 2016). He was known for h ...
trained various special missions teams, including Tibetan Khambas and Hui
The Hui people ( zh, c=, p=Huízú, w=Hui2-tsu2, Xiao'erjing: , dng, Хуэйзў, ) are an East Asian ethnoreligious group predominantly composed of Chinese-speaking adherents of Islam. They are distributed throughout China, mainly in the n ...
Muslims
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abraha ...
, for operations in China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
against the Communist government. Poshepny sometimes claimed that he personally escorted the 14th Dalai Lama out of Tibet, but sources in the Tibetan exile deny this.
The site was chosen because of the similarities of the Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico ...
in the area with the Himalayan Plateau
The Tibetan Plateau (, also known as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau or the Qing–Zang Plateau () or as the Himalayan Plateau in India, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central Asia, Central, South Asia, South and East Asi ...
. The CIA parachuted four groups of Camp Hale trainees inside Tibet between 1959 and 1960 to contact the remaining resistance groups, but the missions resulted in the death or capture of many team members.
Notable people
* Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam Trungpa ( Wylie: ''Chos rgyam Drung pa''; March 5, 1939 – April 4, 1987) was a Tibetan Buddhist meditation master and holder of both the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages of Tibetan Buddhism, the 11th of the Trungpa tülkus, a tertön, sup ...
, Buddhist meditation master
* Ngawang Wangyal
Ngawang Wangyal (), aka Sogpo (Mongolian) Wangyal, popularly known as Geshe Wangyal and "America's first lama," was a Buddhist lama and scholar of Kalmyk origin. He was born in the Astrakhan province in southeast Russia sometime in 1901 and died ...
, Buddhist priest and scholar
* Tarthang Tulku
Tarthang Tulku () (born 1934) is a Tibetan teacher ( lama) who introduced the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism into the United States, where he works to preserve the art and culture of Tibet. He oversees various projects including Dharma P ...
, introduced the Nyingma
Nyingma (literally 'old school') is the oldest of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. It is also often referred to as ''Ngangyur'' (, ), "order of the ancient translations". The Nyingma school is founded on the first lineages and transl ...
tradition of Tibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism (also referred to as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Lamaism, Lamaistic Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, and Northern Buddhism) is the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Bhutan, where it is the dominant religion. It is also in majo ...
into the United States
* Thupten Jigme Norbu, Tibetan lama, writer, civil rights activist and professor of Tibetan studies
* Trijang Rinpoche
The Third Trijang Rinpoche, Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso (1901–1981) was a Gelugpa Lama and a direct disciple of Pabongkhapa Déchen Nyingpo. He succeeded Ling Rinpoche as the junior tutor of the 14th Dalai Lama when the Dalai Lama was nineteen ...
, Gelug
240px, The 14th Dalai Lama (center), the most influential figure of the contemporary Gelug tradition, at the 2003 Bodhgaya (India).
The Gelug (, also Geluk; "virtuous")Kay, David N. (2007). ''Tibetan and Zen Buddhism in Britain: Transplantati ...
Lama and a direct disciple of Pabongkhapa Déchen Nyingpo
Pabongkhapa Déchen Nyingpo (), (1878–1941) was a Gelug lama of the modern era of Tibetan Buddhism. He attained his Geshe degree at Sera Mey Monastic University, Lhasa, and became a highly influential teacher in Tibet. He was unusual for t ...
* Kesang Marstrand, folk singer, songwriter, and guitarist
* Lobsang Nyandak, former representative of the 14th Dalai Lama to the Americas and president of the Tibet Fund
* Aftab Pureval
Aftab Karma Singh Pureval (born September 9, 1982) is an American attorney and politician serving as 70th Mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio, since January 4, 2022. On January 14, 2021, he declared his candidacy for the 2021 Cincinnati mayoral election. O ...
, Mayor of Cincinnati
Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...
See also
* Tibetan Canadians
* Students for a Free Tibet
* American Himalayan Foundation
The American Himalayan Foundation (AHF) is a non-profit organization in the United States that helps Tibetans, Sherpas, and Nepalis living throughout the Himalayas. AHF builds schools, plants trees, trains doctors, funds hospitals, takes care of ...
* Tibet Fund
References
External links
Tibetan Association of Northern California
Tibetan Community of New York and New Jersey
Tibetan American Foundation of Minnesota
* ttps://www.dctibetan.org/ Capital Area Tibetan Association
{{Demographics of the United States
Asian-American society