Guatemalan American

Daphne Zuniga · Luis von Ahn
Total population
1,081,858 0.35% of the US population [1]
Regions with significant populations
Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Greater Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, Miami
Languages
American English, Spanish
Religion
Predominately Roman Catholic

A Guatemalan American is an American of Guatemalan descent.

The Guatemalan American population in the USA in 2009 was estimated by the US Census Bureau at 1,081,858 (+/-36,453). Guatemalans are the 2nd largest national subgroup of Central Americans in the USA (after Salvadorans).^[2]

Guatemalan-Americans tend to concentrate mainly in Greater Los Angeles, followed by the New York metropolitan area, Baltimore-Washington area, Greater Boston, and San Francisco Bay Area. Also Texas and Pennsylvania have very rapidly growing Guatemalan populations.^[3]

As of 2009, the largest Guatemalan communities were in the following metropolitan areas:

1. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside CSA: 249,000 (4.3% of Hispanics)
2. New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island CSA: 85,000 (2.1%)
3. Washington DC-Baltimore CSA: 53,000 (7.4%)
4. Houston-Baytown-Huntsville CSA: 40,000 (2.0%)
5. San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland CSA: 39,000 (3.8%)

The states with the highest number of Guatemalans are as follows:

1. California 344,000
2. Florida 88,000
3. Texas 73,000
4. New York 60,000
5. New Jersey 42,000

History of Guatemalans in the USA[link]

Guatemalans have emigrated to the USA since the 1930s and 1940s.^{[citation needed]} Along with other Central Americans such as Costa Ricans, they first arrived by way of Mexico and settled in urban areas like Chicago, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Houston, New York City and San Francisco.

The intensification of the Guatemalan Civil War during the 1970s and 1980s led to an influx of tens of thousands of Guatemalan refugees into the United States via Mexico, via both legal and illegal means. Guatemalan refugees became an important political and economic influence on seeking an end to the civil war, which finally came about in 1996. They also organized to change policies of the Mexican government in dealing with Guatemalan immigrants' legal status, their experience in Mexico, and difficulties of Guatemalans in Mexico immigrating to the US.

During the Guatemalan civil war, there was massive destruction of rural villages and farmlands. In the 1996 peace accords, there was a free exchange of civilian land to favor the rise of corporate agribusinesses with the drop of prices of local agricultural products. This heavily affected farm workers and inhabitants of the countryside and they had to immigrate into the US through Mexican territory. After September 11, 2001, Mexican officials made new laws through an initiative limiting immigration visas and other repressive measures on the southern Mexican border through Plan Sur, a binational treaty with the Guatemalan government.

The difference with Guatemalans in the US from other Latinos is that a large percentage of Guatemalans are Evangelical Protestants. Guatemala had seen a rise of Protestant and Evangelist churches in the late 20th century, although the majority of Guatemalans are Roman Catholics. According to the national census in 2006, Protestants constituted about 30% of the population in Guatemala, the majority are from rural indigenous communities. Guatemalan-Americans are a contributor to the rise of Hispanic Protestants in the USA during the 2000s.

US communities with high percentages of people of Guatemalan ancestry[link]

The top 25 US communities with the highest percentages of people claiming Guatemalan ancestry are:^[4]

1. Georgetown, Delaware 21.60%
2. Ellijay, Georgia 17.17%
3. Brewster, New York 15.03%
4. Stamford, Connecticut 12.90%
5. Central Falls, Rhode Island 12.29%
6. Langley Park, Maryland 11.26%
7. Green Forest, Arkansas 8.35%
8. Chamblee, Georgia 7.44%
9. Buena Vista, Georgia 7.27%
10. Collinsville, Alabama 7.12%
11. Indiantown, Florida 7.10%
12. Both the town and village of Mount Kisco, New York 6.58%
13. Trion, Georgia 6.17%
14. Schuyler, Nebraska 5.83%
15. Cedartown, Georgia 5.59%
16. Morganton, North Carolina 5.46%
17. Fairview, New Jersey 5.45%
18. Canton, Georgia 5.18%
19. Monterey, Tennessee 5.08%
20. Lexington, Nebraska 4.89%
21. Lake Worth, Florida 4.87%
22. Immokalee, Florida 4.36%
23. Tice, Florida 4.21%
24. Carthage, Missouri 4.06%
25. Siler City, North Carolina 3.96%
26. Jamesport, New York 3.87%

U.S. communities with the most residents born in Guatemala[link]

Top 25 U.S. communities with the most residents born in Guatemala are:^[5]

1. Georgetown, DE 25.1%
2. East Ellijay, GA 17.7%
3. Ellijay, GA 16.8%
4. Brewster, NY 16.3%
5. Indiantown, FL 14.8%
6. Langley Park, MD 13.4%
7. Central Falls, RI 11.75%
8. Chamblee, GA 10.3%
9. Providence, RI 10.2%
10. Mount Kisco, NY 8.9%
11. Green Forest, AR 8.3%
12. Lexington, NE 8.1%
13. Buena Vista, GA 7.9%
14. Saluda, SC 7.5%
15. Collinsville, AL 7.3%
16. Canton, GA 7.1%
17. Page Park, FL 7.0%
18. Quioque, NY 6.6%
19. Fairview, NJ 6.6%
20. Jennings, FL 6.3%
21. Morganton, NC 6.2%
22. Immokalee, FL 5.6%
23. Monterey, TN 5.4%
24. San Rafael, CA 5.4%
25. Robbins, NC 5.3%
26. Indio, CA 5.1%
27. Coachella, CA 5.0%

References[link]

See also[link]

• List of Guatemalans

Allan Nairn (born 1956) is an award-winning American investigative journalist who became well known when he was imprisoned by Indonesian military forces under United States-backed strongman Suharto while reporting in East Timor. His writings have focused on U.S. foreign policy in such countries as Haiti, Guatemala, Indonesia, and East Timor.

In "A Witness to U.S.-Supported Horror," The Washington Post noted:

"As a reporter he has gathered facts in El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti and other countries where amoral regimes have murdered and suppressed their own people and been rewarded by weapons or the succor of economic aid from Washington. Nairn specializes in human rights stories. As valuable as the annual reports of such organizations as Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International may be, they remain abstract compilations of horrors, not muddy-boot accounts from Third World villages and streets where people chance their lives to practice the simplest of freedoms. Nairn goes further: exposing links between local violence - clubbing Timorese students, death squads in El Salvador, disappearances in Guatemala - to the sanctioning of that violence by successive arms-supplying U.S. administrations." ^[1]

Biography[link]

Nairn was born in Mobile, Alabama to a Puerto Rican mother. In high school, he got a job with consumer activist Ralph Nader, working for him for six years. His book The Reign of ETS: the Corporation That Makes up Minds, an investigation of the SAT I exam and its creators, the Educational Testing Service, was printed as part of the Ralph Nader report in 1980.

In 1980, Nairn visited Guatemala in the middle of a campaign of assassination against student leaders amidst a chaotic counterinsurgency campaign against Marxist guerrillas active in both urban and rural areas. He interviewed U.S. corporate executives there, who endorsed the death squads, and he decided to further investigate death squad activities in that country and in El Salvador, also in the throes of civil war. Subsequently, Nairn became interested in East Timor and helped found the East Timor Action Network (ETAN), which was instrumental in bringing the independence movement in East Timor to international attention.

In 1991, covering developments in East Timor, Nairn and fellow journalist Amy Goodman were badly beaten by Indonesian soldiers after they witnessed a mass killing of Timorese demonstrators in what became known as the Santa Cruz Massacre. He was beaten with the butts of M16 rifles and had his skull fractured in the melee. Nairn was declared a "threat to national security" and banned from East Timor, but he re-entered several times illegally, and his subsequent reports helped convince the U.S. Congress to cut off military aid to Jakarta in 1993. In a dispatch from East Timor on March 30, 1998, Nairn disclosed the continuing U.S. military training of Indonesian troops implicated in the torture and killing of civilians. In 1999, Nairn was detained briefly by the Indonesian Army in East Timor, where he had chosen to remain after most other media had evacuated following East Timor's independence referendum.

In an article published in The Nation in 1994, Nairn revealed the U.S. government's role in establishing and funding the Haitian paramilitary death squad, Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH).

On March 24, 2010 it was revealed that Nairn could be facing possible detention and criminal charges in Indonesia for revealing US backed Indonesian Military assassinations of civilian activists. An Indonesian Military spokesperson told the Jakarta Globe that the military is considering legal actions against Nairn's publication.^[2]

Awards[link]

In 1993, Nairn and Amy Goodman received the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial First Prize for International Radio award for their reporting on East Timor.^[3] In 1994, Nairn won the George Polk Award for Journalism for Magazine Reporting.^[4] Also in 1994, Nairn received the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism for his writing on Haiti for The Nation magazine.^[5]

Quotation[link]

"The United States has no monopoly on the abuse of power. But since I am an American this is where I have some influence and responsibility."^[6]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Allan Nairn's blog - "News and Comment"
• Allan Nairn page (Links to various articles by Nairn)
• Allan Nairn's articles at The Nation
• "U.S. Complicity in Timor" (The Nation, September 27, 1999)
• Interview with Allan Nairn (Mobile, Alabama, April 25, 2000)
• "A discussion of the Guatemalan and the CIA" interview on Charlie Rose (talk show) with Elliott Abrams, Robert Torricelli and Allan Nairn, March 31, 1995 (video).
• Interview on Democracy Now (Jan. 6, 2010)
• EXCLUSIVE…Indonesian Forces Tapped by Obama for Renewed US Aid Implicated in New Assassinations A phone interview with Allan Nairn on Democracy Now (March 19, 2010)
• EXCLUSIVE…Journalist Allan Nairn Facing Possible Arrest in Indonesia for Exposing US-Backed Forces Assassinated Civilians A phone interview with Allan Nairn on Democracy Now (March 24, 2010)
• Allan Nairn: U.S. Comparative Advantage is in Killing, And It’s Using It" - video report by Democracy Now!
• Journalist/Activist Allan Nairn speaks on East Timor, Indonesia, East Timor Action Network, Occupy Wall Street and more - video from January 2012 talks for ETAN and OccupyWallStreet ThinkTank

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