Sierra Leonean Americans
Sierra Leonean Americans are an ethnic group of Americans of full or partial Sierra Leonean ancestry. This includes Sierra Leone Creoles whose ancestors were African American Black Loyalists freed after fighting on the side of the British during the American Revolutionary War.[3] Some African Americans trace their roots to indigenous enslaved Sierra Leoneans exported to the United States between the 18th and early 19th century. In particular, the Gullah people of partial Sierra Leonean ancestry, fled their owners and settled in parts of South Carolina, Georgia, and the Sea Islands, where they still retain their cultural heritage. The first wave of Sierra Leoneans to the United States, after the slavery period, was after the Sierra Leone Civil War in the 1990s and early 2000s. According to the American Community Survey, there are 34,161 Sierra Leonean immigrants living in the United States.[2]
Demography[edit]
Currently, 80% of African Americans who are descendants of enslavesd Africans have some ancestors that came from Bunce Island in Sierra Leone.
Most Sierra Leonean immigrants reside in the Baltimore- Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. Other Sierra Leonean communities are settled in suburbs of Alexandria, Fairfax, Arlington, Falls Church, and Woodbridge in Virginia, and in Landover, Lanham, Cheverly, Silver Spring, and Bethesda in Maryland. There are also Sierra Leonean communities in the Boston and Los Angeles metropolitan areas, and in New Jersey, Florida, Pennsylvania, New York, Texas, Oregon and Ohio.
Most Sierra Leoneans are Muslims and practitioners of native cultures, but there are also many Christians. Sierra Leonean Americans communicate in English, either as a first or second language, due to the British colonial history. However, Krio is the lingua franca and primary language of communication among diverse groups of Sierra Leoneans living abroad[13] although a few still speak tribal languages reflecting their unique heritage. Many Sierra Leonean residents in the USA work in two or three jobs to reach enough salary to help their families in their country, whilst some others have university degrees. Indeed, while some Sierra Leoneans arrived in the United States to pursue university studies, some are already holders of degrees from British universities or from Fourah Bay College in Freetown. Many Sierra Leoneans residing in the USA incorporate their children to secret organizations of Sierra Leonean origin, which teach them the cultures own of their tribes. Sierra Leonean Americans have also been helped by many former Peace Corps volunteers who worked in Sierra Leone. In the US, many Sierra Leoneans have established relationships (and have even intermarried) with people from other cultures and nationalities, especially with other African immigrants.[4]
Organizations[edit]
Although Sierra Leoneans in United States belong to a variety of ethnic and religious groups have been created organizations to help Sierra Leonean community entire. So, the Chicagoland Association of Sierra Leoneans, formed in 1996, is a nonprofit organization to unite Sierra Leoneans in a community, socialize newcomers, and help to Sierra Leoneans living in Chicago and abroad. Also in 1975 it created one organization named Tegloma ("let's progress" in Mende) in Washington DC, the largest nonprofit, nonpolitical Sierra Leonean organization in the world, and it help Sierra Leoneans in te world and promoting Mende culture, the culture of the second largest ethnic group in Sierra Leone. There is an organization created in New York on behalf of health care providers that represent nursing. In 2008 the Sierra Leone Nurses Association (SLNA) was started in New York, in honor of the original SLNA started originally in Sierra Leone in 1961. Following the first chapter in the USA started in 2007 in California. And worldwide chapters since. There is a union organization called Union of Sierra Leone organizations in New York (USLO) in 2010.[12]