Yemenis in the United States

Yemenis who live in the United States, unlike some other immigrants, have remained deeply loyal to their motherland. Almost every Yemeni in the U.S. still maintains ties with home. What keeps this bond is their deep affection for their country and their strong attachment to one of oldest inhabited regions in the world. Many Yemenis leave Yemen in search of work and better opportunities. However, they plan to return one day to their motherland.

Researchers seem to agree that Yemenis started immigrating to the U.S. in the late nineteenth century. After World War II, many changes began to take place globally. America soon became familiar to Yemenis as the land of immense wealth and opportunity. Many sought visas through relatives and friends already in the U.S. and in subsequent years arrived in the U.S. to offer others the same.

The number of Yemenis arriving in the 1950s and 60s remained small and began to increase in the mid 70s. In the late 70s the number declined as many decided to go to the Gulf countries where they worked and made the money they needed to send or take back home with them. As the economic situation of the gulf countries began to change and their opportunities began to dwindle, it became more difficult for Yemenis to find jobs and make as much money as they used to. The Gulf War drove more than a million and a half Yemenis out of the Gulf countries. Many sought to return to the U.S. and some of them succeeded in going as visitors, and are still trying to adjust their legal status.

Yemeni communities in the U.S. are concentrated in three states: New York, Michigan, and California. The past few years have witnessed an increase in the number of Yemenis in Virginia and in the Carolinas. Their distribution has been influenced by the financial opportunities offered by these areas.

Yemenis who settled in Buffalo and the surrounding areas did so when the steel industry was active there. New York city and the surrounding areas attract Yemenis who open groceries, delicatessens, and candy stores. In Michigan, car manufacturing lured Yemenis into settling in the Detroit area. California offered Yemenis an occupation they were very familiar with: farming. Until recently, most of the Yemenis who arrived in California worked as farmers. Today, a growing number of them have established their own grocery businesses in Fresno, San Francisco, Oakland, Bakersfield, etc.

Some researcher suggest that Yemenis distinguish themselves from other groups. One researcher wrote: There really is no Arab group comparable to the Yemenis, 90% of whom unaccompanied young males, semi-literate or illiterate, with little knowledge of English most have not taken root here and shuttle back and forth on jumbo planes to Yemen, buying homes and land back there. In short, the Yemenis with some exceptions constitute the most definitely 'Arab' of any migrating group from the Arab World.

The Yemenis who settle in the U.S. have usually been the educated, or they are well established small businessmen. This group finds the opportunities promised by this land and are usually able to take advantage of the various opportunities present in this society. Over 90% of them, however, resent the American life and refuse to adapt it. They struggle to remain Yemeni and compromise the least they can. They try to insulate their families as much as they can by strengthening their religious beliefs and practices. They marry among themselves… their daughters seldom marry an outsider. They often send their children to Yemen to strengthen their bond with the homeland. In the end they find themselves forced to compromise, creating a new world for themselves and their families, a world many label as the Yemeni-American.

About 75% of the Yemenis in the U.S. are non-settlers. They go to the U.S. to work for several years and return to Yemen to spend several months with their families. Then they repeat the same cycle. They spend their lives going back and forth between the U.S. and Yemen. Though most of the non-settlers are married, they are often unaccompanied by their spouses. They leave their families in Yemen often to insulate their families from the profane world of America. They find it hard to adapt to the American way of life. They are afraid of compromising their identity as Muslims, and as Yemenis. Therefore, many Yemenis limit their lives to work, apartment, and their local coffee house. The resentment of assimilation springs from the differences in religion, tradition, and values between the very conservative Yemenis and liberal America. Since families are the true cornerstone of the Yemeni society, they remain the major concern for the immigrants.

The greatest struggles for Yemenis in the U.S. seem to arise when children born in the U.S. try to absorb some of ‘American culture’, which is vehemently rejected by the immigrants from the old country.

Nevertheless, these Yemeni immigrants come to America out of a desire to live in a revived, powerful, and prosperous Yemen. The unification of Yemen, the discovery of oil, and recent government actions have re-enforced the hopes and dreams the Yemenis have for their country of origin. With good income from their American jobs, they buy real estate in Yemeni cities and build beautiful houses, some of them build mansions, reflecting their ultimate desire to settle in the land of their ancestors, a land they can call their own. To them, immigration to the U.S. is simply a means to an end… to return to their motherland where they are not strangers.

Some information for this posting came from an article in the Yemen Times Issue 42 (October 20th thru 26th, 1997), Vol.VII