History in the United States
- Immigrants from areas that are now part of Pakistan had been migrating to America as early as the eighteenth century, working in agriculture, logging, and mining in the western states of California, Oregon, and Washington.[3] The passage of the Luce-Celler Act of 1946 allowed these immigrants to acquire U.S. citizenship through naturalization. Between 1947 and 1965, only 2,500 Pakistani immigrants entered the United States; most of them were students who chose to settle in the United States after graduating from American universities, according to reports from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. This marked the beginning of a distinct 'Pakistani' community in America. However, after President Lyndon Johnson signed the INS Act of 1965 into law, eliminating per-country immigration quotas and introducing immigration on the basis of professional experience and education, the number of Pakistanis immigrating to the United States increased dramatically.[4] By 1990, the U.S. Census bureau indicated that there were about 100,000 Pakistani Americans in the United States and by 2005 their population had grown 210,000.[5]
History in the United States
- Pakistani Americans are classified as Asian Americans by the United States Census Bureau. Geographically, they are South Asian American and are widely related to various ethnic groups including Indian Americans, Arab Americans, Turkish Americans and Afghan Americans since Pakistanis belong to various ethnic groups which connects them with India, Afghanistan, etc.. respectively.
- In previous decades, Pakistani Americans were also variously classified as White American, the "Hindu race", and Other.[88] Even today, where individual Pakistani Americans do not racially self-identify, and instead report Muslim (or a sect of Islam such as Shi'ite or Sunni), Jewish, and Zoroastrian as their "race" in the "Some other race" section without noting their country of origin, they are automatically tallied as white.[89] This may result in the counting of persons such as Pakistani Muslims, Pakistani Jews, and Pakistani Zoroastrians as white, if they solely report their religious heritage without their national origin.[citation needed]
