Bengali Americans
Americans of Bengali birth or descent
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bengali Americans (Bengali: মার্কিন বাঙালি) 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.[11]
- Bangladesh or Bangladeshi origin (80.0%)
- India or Indian origin (20.0%)
মার্কিন বাঙালি Markin Bangali | |
|---|---|
 Pohela Boishakh celebartions at Dallas, Texas | |
| Total population | |
 750,000 (2025 est.)[b] 453,191 (2020 US Census)[9]
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| Regions with significant populations | |
| New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Miami, Minneapolis, Houston, Dallas, Seattle, Denver, Los Angeles,[10] San Francisco | |
| Languages | |
| Bengali, English | |
| Religion | |
| Majority Islam ~80% Minority Hinduism: ~18% Buddhism: ~1% Christianity: ~1% | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Bangladeshi Americans, Indian Americans, Nepalese Americans, Tamil Americans, Telugu Americans, Punjabi Americans |
Culture
Many Bengali Americans participate in an annual conference, the North American Bengali Conference (Government of West Bengal initiative), 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[16] and New York City.[17]
Notable people
- Jay Bhattacharya - first Indian American NIH director
- 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[18]
- 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
- 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[19]
- Fazle Hussain – professor of mechanical engineering at the Texas Tech University
- 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[20]
- 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