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Bengali Americans

Bengali: মার্কিন বাঙ্গালী (Markin Bangalee)
The language spread of Bengali in the United States according to U. S. Census 2000
Total population
800,000 approx. (0.2%) alone or in combination 453,191 (0.2%) people speak the language in the USA
Regions with significant populations
New York City, Washington DC, Los Angeles, SF Bay Area, Detroit
Languages
Bengali, English
Religion
Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, Irreligion
Related ethnic groups
Bangladeshi Americans, Indian Americans

Bengali Americans (Bengali: মার্কিন বাঙ্গালী) are American nationals or residents who ethnically, linguistically and genealogically identify as Bengalis. They trace their ancestry to the historic ethnolinguistic region of Bengal region, now divided between Bangladesh and West Bengal, India. Bengali Americans are also a subgroup of modern-day Bangladeshi Americans and Indian Americans.

Bengali Americans may refer to:

• Bangladeshi Americans, Americans of Bangladeshi descent who are predominantly Bengali Muslims and trace their origins from from Bangladesh.
• Indian Bengali Americans, Americans of Indian Bengali descent who are predominantly Bengali Hindus and trace their origins from the Indian states of West Bengal, Assam and Tripura.

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, Hinduism, Christianity or Buddhism. This is manifested in the yearly celebration of Eid ul-Fitr, Durga Puja, Boro Din, Buddha Purnima and other religious celebrations. Several secular holidays are also enjoyed by the whole community, such as the Bengali new year, Pohela Boishakh.

There are also at least two Bengali Buddhist temples in the United States, near Washington, DC and New York City.

Notable people

• Abhijit Banerjee - recipient of The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel
• 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
• 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
• 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
• 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
• Radha Laha - probabilist, statistician, mathematician and philanthropist
• Jhumpa Lahiri - author of The Namesake
• Dipa Ma – Vipassana meditation founder in the US
• Tasmin Mahfuz - American television journalist and news anchor and Gracie award recipient for women.
• Sezan Mahmud – award-winning novelist
• 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
• Amartya Sen - recipient of The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel
• 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
• 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

1. https://data.census.gov/table/ACSDT1Y2023.B16001?q=bengali&hidePreview=false&vintage=2018
2. https://data.census.gov/table/ACSDT1Y2023.B02018
3. https://www.reddit.com/r/IndiaSpeaks/comments/r3kfke/state_of_origin_of_indian_americans_in_usa/?rdt=63324
4. "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.
5. "Bengali speakers to be counted in US census". 10 December 2017.
6. "Virginia Bouddha Vihar, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, USA". Retrieved 25 June 2022.
7. "Sadhanananda International Buddhist Monastery, Brooklyn, New York, USA". Retrieved 25 June 2022.
8. "In Memoriam Kali S. Banerjee". Retrieved 17 March 2015.
9. "16 faculty members, 18 alumni elected to nation's historic academies". The Princetonian. Retrieved 2020-05-21.
10. "News at Old Dominion University". Archived from the original on 14 December 2012. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
11. "2010 Minority-Serving Institution Faculty Scholar in Cancer Research". Archived from the original on 12 July 2013. Retrieved 11 December 2013.

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