Canadian Americans

Americans of Canadian descent

This article is about Americans of Canadian origin. For Americans of French-Canadian origin, see French-Canadian Americans. For Canadians of American origin, see American Canadians.

Ethnic group

Canadian Americans

Américains canadiens (French)

Total population
French Canadians : 255,600 alone or 933,700 incl. combination
Canadians: 255,000 alone or 580,500 incl. combination [1]
Regions with significant populations
Portland, Maine • Boston • Concord • Hartford • New England • New York City • Washington • California • Washington, D.C. • Philadelphia • New Orleans • Orlando • Atlanta • Texas • Charlotte • Raleigh • Detroit • Columbus • Chicago • Milwaukee • Phoenix • Portland, Oregon • most urban areas
Languages
English • French • Franglais
Religion
Christianity[2]
Related ethnic groups
Americans, American Canadians, Canadians
A French-Canadian family from Montréal in 1913

Canadian Americans (French: Américains canadiens) are American citizens or in some uses residents whose ancestry is wholly or partly Canadian, or citizens of either country who hold dual citizenship.[3] Today, many Canadian Americans hold both US and Canadian citizenship.

The term Canadian can mean a nationality or an ethnicity. Canadians are considered North Americans due their residing in the North American continent. English-speaking Canadian immigrants easily integrate and assimilate into northern and western U.S. states as a result of many cultural similarities, and in the similar accent in spoken English.[4] French Canadians, because of language and culture, tend to take longer to assimilate.[5] However, by the 3rd generation, they are often fully culturally assimilated, and the Canadian identity is more or less folklore.[6] This took place, even though half of the population of the province of Quebec emigrated to the US between 1840 and 1930.[7] Many New England cities formed 'Little Canadas', but many of these have gradually disappeared.

This cultural "invisibility" within the larger US population is seen as creating stronger affinity among Canadians living in the US than might otherwise exist.[8] According to US Census estimates, the number of Canadian residents was around 640,000 in 2000.[9] Some sources have cited the number to possibly be over 1,000,000.[10] This number, though, is far smaller than the number of Americans who can trace part or the whole of their ancestry to Canada. The percentage of these in the New England states is almost 25% of the total population.

In some regions of the United States, especially New England or the Midwest, a Canadian American often means one whose ancestors came from Canada.[11]

## American cities founded by or named after Canadians

[edit]

* Biloxi, founded by Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville
* Bourbonnais, Illinois, named after François Bourbonnais
* Chandler, Arizona, founded by Dr. Alexander J. (A.J.) Chandler[12]
* Dubuque, founded by and named after Julien Dubuque
* Hamtramck, named after Jean François Hamtramck
* Juneau, named after Joe Juneau
* Milwaukee, founded by Solomon Juneau
* Mobile, founded by Pierre LeMoyne d'Iberville
* New Orleans, founded by Lemoyne de Bienville
* Ontario, California, founded by George Chaffey
* Saint Paul, first settled by Pierre Parrant
* Vincennes, Indiana, founded by François-Marie Bissot

## Canadian American Day

[edit]

The Connecticut State Senate unanimously passed a bill in 2009, making June 24 Canadian American Day in the state of Connecticut. The bill allows state officials to hold ceremonies at the capitol and other places each year to honor Americans of Canadian ancestry.[13]

## Aboriginal Canadian Americans

[edit]

As a consequence of Article 3 of the Jay Treaty of 1794, official First Nations status, or in the United States, Native American status, also confers the right to live and work on either side of the border. Unlike the U.S., Canada has not codified the Jay Treaty. Canadian courts readily reject the Jay Treaty free passage of goods right.[14]

## Study

[edit]

Some institutions in the United States focus on Canadian-American studies, including the Canadian-American Center at the University of Maine,[15] the Center for Canadian American studies at Western Washington University,[16] and the University at Buffalo Canadian-American Studies Committee.[17]

## Notable people

[edit]

For a more comprehensive list, see List of Canadian Americans.

## See also

[edit]

* American Canadians

* United States portal
* Canada portal

* Category:American people of Canadian descent
* Category:Canadian emigrants to the United States
* Category:Canadian expatriates in the United States
* Canada–United States relations
* Franco-Americans
* French Canadians
* Little Canadas
* Quebec diaspora

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "Over Half of White Population Reported Being English, German or Irish". Census.gov. Retrieved 2025-02-01.
2. ^ Multicultural America: A Multimedia Encyclopedia.
3. ^ Cain, Patrick (4 April 2014). "How to get rid of your U.S. citizenship". Global News Canada. Retrieved 26 July 2020.
4. ^ "Veta: Good vocabulary - Accent training online - American Accent". veta.in. Archived from the original on November 29, 2011.
5. ^ l'Actualité économique, Vol. 59, No 3, (september 1983): 423-453 and Yolande LAVOIE, L'Émigration des Québécois aux États-Unis de 1840 à 1930, Québec, Conseil de la langue française, 1979.
6. ^ Barkan, Elliott Robert (1980). "French Canadians". In Thernstrom, Stephan; Orlov, Ann; Handlin, Oscar (eds.). Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups. Cambridge, MA / London: Harvard University Press. p. 392\. ISBN 0674375122. OCLC 1038430174.
7. ^ l'Actualité économique, Vol. 59, No. 3 (September 1983): 423–453 and Yolande LAVOIE, L'Émigration des Québécois aux États-Unis de 1840 à 1930, Québec, Conseil de la langue française, 1979.
8. ^ "Program No. 65 "Who's Canadian"". This American Life. Chicago Public Radio. May 30, 1997. Archived from the original on April 21, 2009. Retrieved March 2, 2009.
9. ^ "c2kbr01-2.qxd" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on September 20, 2004. Retrieved May 18, 2011.
10. ^ Stewart, Alice R. (1987), "The Franco-Americans of Maine: A Historiographical Essay", Maine Historical Society Quarterly, 26 (3): 160–179
11. ^ Mark Paul Richard, From 'Canadien' to American: The Acculturation of French-Canadian Descendants in Lewiston, Maine, 1860 to the Present, PhD dissertation, Duke University, 2002; Dissertation Abstracts International, 2002 62(10): 3540-A. DA3031009, 583p.
12. ^ "Chandler, Alexander J. (A.J.)". ChandlerpediA. Retrieved 11 June 2016.
13. ^ Edmonton Sun, April 21, 2009
14. ^ Nickels, Bryan. "Native American Free Passage Rights Under the 1794 Jay Treaty: Survival Under United States Statutory Law and Canadian Common Law". Boston College. Archived from the original on July 19, 2011. Retrieved May 18, 2011.
15. ^ "Canadian-American Center". University of Maine. Retrieved May 18, 2011.
16. ^ "The Center For Canadian American Studies". WWU. Archived from the original on July 1, 2007.
17. ^ "Canadian American Studies Committee, University at Buffalo". buffalo.edu. Archived from the original on 2011-09-17.

## Further reading

[edit]

Further information: French Canadians § Further reading

* Brault, Gerard J. (March 15, 1986). The French-Canadian Heritage in New England. University Press of New England. ISBN 0-87451-359-6.
* Desrosiers-Lauzon, Godefroy. Florida's snowbirds: Spectacle, mobility, and community since 1945 ( McGill-Queen's University Press, 2011).
* Doty, C. Stewart (1985). The First Franco-Americans: New England Life Histories from the Federal Writers' Project, 1938–1939. University of Maine at Orono Press.

* Fedunkiw, Marianne P. "Canadian Americans" in Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America, edited by Thomas Riggs, (3rd ed., vol. 1, Gale, 2014), pp. 395–405. Online
* Hamilton, Janice (2006). Canadians in America. Lerner. ISBN 0-8225-2681-6.; for secondary schools.
* Hansen, Marcus Lee. The Mingling of the Canadian and American Peoples, Vol. I: Historical (Yale University Press, 1940), major scholarly study, coverage to 1938; vol 2 never published; online.
* McQuillan, D. Aidan. "Franch-Canadian Communities in the American Upper Midwest during the Nineteenth Century." Cahiers de géographie du Québec 23.58 (1979): 53–72.
* Newton, J. Lason. " 'These French Canadian of the Woods are Half-Wild Folk': Wilderness, Whiteness, and Work in North America, 1840–1955" Labour / Le Travail (2016)., 77:121–150. online
* Parker, James Hill (1983). Ethnic Identity: The Case of the French Americans. University Press of America.

* Sharp, Paul F. Whoop-Up Country: The Canadian-American West, 1865-1885 ( University of Minnesota Press, 1955).
* Simpson, Jeffrey (2000). Star-Spangled Canadians: Canadians Living the American Dream. HarperCollins ISBN 0-00-255767-3; recent history
* Smith, Marian L. "The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) at the US-Canadian border, 1893-1993: An overview of issues and topics." Michigan Historical Review (2000): 127–147. online
* Sorrell, Richard S. "The survivance of French Canadians in New England (1865–1930): History, geography and demography as destiny." Ethnic and Racial Studies 4.1 (1981): 91–109.
* Truesdell, Leon E. The Canadian Born in the United States: An Analysis of the Statistics of the Canadian Element in the Population of the United States, 1850 to 1930 (Yale UP, 1943). online review

## External links

[edit]

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