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Encyclopedia of American Immigration, 2nd Edition

Pakistani immigrants

by Michael Shally-Jensen

Significance: Pakistani immigration only became a distinctive part of South Asian immigration during the 1960s. The United States has never been a primary destination for Pakistani immigrants, but they have formed distinctive subgroups in certain areas of settlement. After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, their Muslim identity became problematic.

Pakistan did not exist as a distinct nation until 1947, when both it and India were formed from British India. The reason for the split was primarily religious. Though it had a secular government, India became a Hindu-majority state, while Pakistan became a primarily Muslim state.

In terms of U.S. government statistics, no separate statistics of Pakistani immigration were kept until after 1981. Before that year, Pakistanis were grouped under “Other South Asians.” Of the South Asians, only Indian immigrants had their own separate category. Statistics are further confused by the emergence of Bangladesh as a separate country in 1971 out of what was previously known as East Pakistan, the eastern wing of the two-part country formed in 1947. Bangladeshis and Pakistanis were grouped together until 1973, though probably very few Bangladeshis did immigrate at that time. In 1973, fewer than two hundred Bangladeshis were counted in the United States.

Before 1947, Pakistani immigration would have been counted as Indian. At the beginning of the twentieth century, there had been a small-scale immigration of farmers and farm laborers to Southern California, mainly to work in the newly developed rice farms of the Sacramento Valley, but no other significant influx.

First Growth

After independence, most Pakistani emigrants went to the United Kingdom. British law at that time allowed previous colonials unfettered entry into Great Britain. Other Commonwealth countries, especially Canada and Australia, also had generous provisions for other Commonwealth immigrants. By contrast, U.S. immigration policy allowed little possibility for Pakistani entry.

This policy began to change after 1965, when passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 allowed professionals and other people with needed skills entry. A slow trickle of Pakistani professionals began to take advantage of the liberalized immigration policy, aided by tightening restrictions in the United Kingdom and lack of job opportunities in their native country. The tendency of Pakistan to drift into undemocratic military regimes also alienated a number of professionals and skilled workers.

The main professions of these immigrants were in medicine and engineering. In 1971, just over two thousand immigrants joined the five thousand or so Pakistanis already in the United States, mainly in the larger population centers of New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Numbers edged up during the 1970s and 1980s but never reached more than six thousand per year. Some also came as students or tourists and then changed their status while in the United States.

At first, the trend was for single men to come, establish themselves, then sponsor spouses to join them, or return to Pakistan, marry, and bring their spouses back with them. Those who failed to qualify as doctors or pharmacists in the United States reinvented themselves as small businessmen, often running convenience stores or gas stations. Taxi driving was a favored occupation among those who came with less education.

Subsequent Development

The turning point in numbers came in 1991, when the annual immigration suddenly jumped to 20,355. The lottery system allowed a number of unskilled Pakistanis to immigrate. Meanwhile, provisions for wider family sponsorship allowed a number of brothers, sisters, and parents to enter. Pakistani society is very family-oriented, with the extended family being the norm. During the 1990s, some 124,500 Pakistanis were admitted, making the Pakistani community the ninth-largest of all Asian communities.

Certain stresses began to manifest themselves as a second generation grew up in the United States. The arranged marriage system was still enforced where possible to maintain cultural identity, but spouses from Pakistan found it difficult to adjust to new gender roles within American culture. Divisions between religious groups, especially Sunnis and Shias, kept communities divided. Though Pakistanis mixed easily with other South Asian Muslims, they found it difficult to mix with Muslim immigrants from the Middle East or of African origin. The desire for fair-skinned spouses was especially troublesome, fed as it was by the Bollywood movie culture.

The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, DC, and the subsequent involvement of Pakistan on the American political stage were especially problematic for both the existing community and new immigrants. Numbers of immigrants actually declined, with 51,600 entering between 2001 and 2004 and 14,900 in 2005. Persian Gulf states absorbed a growing number of Pakistani migrant workers, who were much more at home there in a Muslim culture. Also, immigration to the Commonwealth countries continued at quite high levels. Movement among the worldwide Pakistani diaspora was also a significant feature.

By 2019, approximately 550,000 Pakistani immigrants and their children lived in the United States. The highest numbers of residents were counted in New York, Texas, and California, with the majority living in New York City, followed by communities in Houston, Washington, DC, and Chicago. About 275,000 were first-generation (foreign-born) immigrants. Most Pakistani immigrants were naturalized citizens (63 percent, as compared to the average for all immigrants of 44 percent). Many in the Pakistani diaspora community (first- and second-generation) held degrees from higher education institutions (33 percent had a bachelor’s degree; and 37 percent held a master’s degree or PhD). Remittances to the home country exceeded $14 billion.

Further Reading

1 

Afzal, Ahmed. Lone Star Muslims: Transnational Lives and the South Asian Experience in Texas. New York: New York University Press, 2015.

2 

McCloud, Aminah Beverly. Transnational Muslims in American Society. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2006.

3 

Narayan, Anjana, and Bandana Purkayastha. Living Religions: Hindu and Muslim South Asian-American Women Narrate Their Experiences. Sterling, VA: Kumarian Press, 2009.

4 

Prashad, Vijay. The Karma of Brown Folk. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000.

5 

Quraishi, Uzma. Redefining the Immigrant South: Indian and Pakistani Immigration to Houston during the Cold War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020.

6 

“The Pakistani Diaspora Community in the United States.” Migration Policy Institute, June 2015, www.migrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/publications/RAD-Pakistan.pdf.

7 

U.S. Census Bureau. “The Asian Alone or in Combination Population in the United States—2019: American Community Survey, 1-Year Estimates,” US Census Bureau, www.census.gov/data/tables/2019/demo/race/ppl-ac19.html.

8 

Waters, Mary C., and Reed Ueda, eds. The New Americans: A Guide to Immigration Since 1965. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Shally-Jensen, Michael. "Pakistani Immigrants." Encyclopedia of American Immigration, 2nd Edition, edited by Michael Shally-Jensen, Salem Press, 2021. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=AmImm2e_0448.
APA 7th
Shally-Jensen, M. (2021). Pakistani immigrants. In M. Shally-Jensen (Ed.), Encyclopedia of American Immigration, 2nd Edition. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Shally-Jensen, Michael. "Pakistani Immigrants." Edited by Michael Shally-Jensen. Encyclopedia of American Immigration, 2nd Edition. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2021. Accessed October 22, 2025. online.salempress.com.