page_title: Ethiopian Americans
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Ethiopian Americans / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Businesses on Fairfax Avenue in the Little Ethiopia neighborhood of Los Angeles, California
context_page_description: Ethiopian Americans are Americans of Ethiopian descent, as well as individuals of American and Ethiopian ancestry.
context_section_description: In 1919, an official Ethiopian goodwill mission was sent to the United States to congratulate the Allied powers on their victory during the First World War. The four-person delegation included Dejazmach Nadew, the nephew of Empress Zawditu and Commander of the Imperial Army, along with Blattengeta Heruy Welde Sellase, Mayor of Addis Ababa, Kentiba Gebru, Mayor of Gondar, and Ato Sinkas, Dejazmach Nadew's secretary.
  After his official coronation, Emperor Haile Selassie sent forth the first wave of Ethiopian students to continue their education abroad. Almost a dozen Ethiopian students likewise went to the United States. They included Makonnen Desta, who studied anthropology at Harvard, and later became an interim Ethiopian Minister of Education; Makonnen Haile, who studied finance at Cornell; and Ingida Yohannes, veterinary medicine at New York University. Three other students - Melaku Beyen, Besha Worrid Hapte Wold, and Worku Gobena - went to Muskingum, a missionary college in Ohio, two of them later transferring to Ohio State University. Melaku Beyan, who was one of the two who attended Ohio State, later received his medical degree at Howard Medical School in Washington, D. C.
  Overall, approximately 20,000 Ethiopians moved to the West to achieve higher education and conduct diplomatic missions from 1941 to 1974 under the Selassie's rule. However, the net movement of permanent immigrants remained low during this period as most temporary immigrants ultimately returned to Ethiopia with a Western education to near assured political success, while the relative stability of the country determined that few Ethiopians would be granted asylum in the United States.
  The passing of the 1965 Immigration Act, the Refugee Act of 1980, as well as the Diversity Visa Program of the Immigration Act of 1990, contributed to an increased emigration from Ethiopia to the United States, prompted by political unrest during the Ethiopian Civil War. The majority of Ethiopian immigrants arrived later in the 1990s, following the Eritrean–Ethiopian War. Immigration to the U.S. from Ethiopia during this 1992-2002 period averaged around 5,000 individuals per year.
  Since the 1990s, around 1000 Hebrew speaking, Ethiopian Jewish Israelis have settled in the US, with around half of the Ethiopian Israeli community living in New York.
  Ethiopian Americans have since established ethnic enclaves in various places around the country, particularly in the Washington D. C., and Minneapolis areas. Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles, California, has also come to be known as Little Ethiopia, owing to its many Ethiopian businesses and restaurants, as well as a significant concentration of residents of Ethiopian and Eritrean ancestry.
caption: Ethiopian businesses along Fairfax Avenue in Little Ethiopia, Los Angeles.
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