West Indian Americans are Americans

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 with origin in the Dutch-

Dutch language

Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

, English-

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, and French-speaking

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 lands of the Caribbean

Caribbean

The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...

. Their population of 2,532,380 accounted for 0.83% of the U.S. population in 2008.

Dutch West Indian Americans

Census Bureau figures for 2008 report 71,326 Americans under its category of "Dutch West Indian

Netherlands Antilles

The Netherlands Antilles , also referred to informally as the Dutch Antilles, was an autonomous Caribbean country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, consisting of two groups of islands in the Lesser Antilles: Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao , in Leeward Antilles just off the Venezuelan coast; and Sint...

", 69,090 of them U.S.-born, and 95.1% speaking only English at home. Their median age was 41.2 years, above the national median of 36.9. 13.6% of the group held bachelor's or higher degrees, versus the national average of 27.7%.

Guyanese Americans

The number of Guyanese Americans was estimated to be 214,529 in the 2000 Census.

Grenadian Americans

The number of Grenadian Americans was estimated to be 25,924 in the 2000 Census.

Haitian Americans

There were an estimated 805,691 Haitian Americans in 2008. They had a median age of 29.5 years, 7.4 years below the national average. With a 34.7% college or graduate school enrollment ratio, they surpassed the national average by eight percentage points.

Jamaican Americans

Jamaican Americans numbered 949,844 in 2008. Their median age was 34.0, near the national median of 36.9, and had a college or graduate school enrollment rate of 33.7%, well above the national ratio of 26.7%. Most Jamaican Americans immigrated to the United States: 575,960.

Trinidadian and Tobagonian Americans

Americans with origin in Trinidad and Tobago

Trinidad and Tobago

Trinidad and Tobago officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago is an archipelagic state in the southern Caribbean, lying just off the coast of northeastern Venezuela and south of Grenada in the Lesser Antilles...

were estimated at 197,592 as of 2008. They had a median age of 34.0 years, and a 38.6% college or graduate school enrollment ratio, consisting of 43.5% for females and 31.1% for males.

Virgin Islander Americans

There were 16,020 Virgin Islander Americans living on the U.S. mainland in 2008.

Other

There were also 272,883 West Indian Americans classified simply as 'West Indians', rather than by specified countries of origin.

Further reading

• Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams, by Mary C. Waters