Lithuanian-American
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
who are of Lithuanian
Lithuanians
Lithuanians are the Baltic ethnic group native to Lithuania, where they number around 2,765,600 people. Another million or more make up the Lithuanian diaspora, largely found in countries such as the United States, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Russia, United Kingdom and Ireland. Their native language...
ancestry. According to the United States Census
United States Census
The United States Census is a decennial census mandated by the United States Constitution. The population is enumerated every 10 years and the results are used to allocate Congressional seats , electoral votes, and government program funding. The United States Census Bureau The United States Census...
, there are 712,165 Americans of full or partial Lithuanian descent.
New Philadelphia
New Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
New Philadelphia is a borough in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 1,149 at the 2000 census.-Geography:New Philadelphia is located at , approximately northwest of the city of Philadelphia....
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
has the largest percentage of Lithuanian Americans (20.8%) in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
History
Large numbers of Lithuanians first came to the United States in 1867-1868 after a famine in Lithuania.(Lithuania at that time still formed part of the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
: Saint Petersburg had annexed the Lithuanian lands piece by piece between 1772 and 1795 in the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth between Prussia, (later part of Germany), the Austrian-based Habsburg Monarchy
Habsburg Monarchy
The Habsburg Monarchy covered the territories ruled by the junior Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg , and then by the successor House of Habsburg-Lorraine , between 1526 and 1867/1918. The Imperial capital was Vienna, except from 1583 to 1611, when it was moved to Prague...
and Czarist Russia, which ceased to exist in 1917-1918. Lithuania became independent again in 1918.) The beginnings of industrialization and commercial agriculture in the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
as well as a population boom that exhausted available land transformed Lithuanian peasant-farmers, once considered an immovable fixture of the land, into migrant-laborers. The pressures of industrialization drove numerous Lithuanian peasants to emigrate to the United States continuing until the outbreak of the First World War. This first wave of Lithuanian immigrants to the United States ceased when the US Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act
Emergency Quota Act
The Emergency Quota Act, also known as the Emergency Immigration Act of 1921, the Immigration Restriction Act of 1921, the Per Centum Law, and the Johnson Quota Act restricted immigration into the United States...
in 1921, followed by the Immigration Act of 1924
Immigration Act of 1924
The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the National Origins Act, and Asian Exclusion Act , was a United States federal law that limited the annual number of immigrants who could be admitted from any country to 2% of the number of people from that country who were already...
driven by xenophobic anti-immigrant attitudes against the newcomers from Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
. The Immigration Act of 1924 was aimed at restricting the Eastern and Southern Europeans who had begun to enter the country in large numbers beginning in the 1890s.
A second wave of Lithuanians emigrated to the United States as a result of the Soviet occupation of Lithuania during and after the Second World War. After the war's end and the subsequent reoccupation of Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
by the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, these Displaced Persons were allowed to immigrate to the United States and to apply for American citizenship thanks to a special act of Congress which bypassed the quota system that was still in place until 1967.
Immigration of Lithuanians into the US resumed after Lithuania regained its independence after the dissolution of the Soviet Union
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
The dissolution of the Soviet Union was the disintegration of the federal political structures and central government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , resulting in the independence of all fifteen republics of the Soviet Union between March 11, 1990 and December 25, 1991...
in 1990. This wave of immigration has tapered off recently as the decline of the dollar and the entry of Lithuania into the EU have made countries such as Ireland and the United Kingdom a more attractive option for potential Lithuanian emigrants.
Occupations
Lithuanians differed from most immigrant groups in the United States in several ways. First, they did not plan to remain permanently and become "Americanized." Instead their intent was to live in the US temporarily to earn money, invest in property, and wait for the right opportunity to return to Lithuania. Official estimates were that 30% of the emigrants from the Russian provinces of Poland-Lithuania returned home. When adjusted to include only non-Jews the number is closer to 50-60%. Lithuanian immigrants who mostly came to the United States from Imperial Russia lived in a social environment akin to early European feudal society, where classless Jews performed the essential middle roles of artisans, merchants and moneylenders.American employers considered Lithuanian immigrants, like the Poles
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
as better suited for arduous manual labor in coal-mines, slaughterhouses, and steel mills, particularly in the primary stages of steel manufacture. Consequently, Lithuanian migrants were recruited for work in the coal mines of Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
and the heavy industries (steel mills, iron foundries, slaughterhouses, oil and sugar refineries) of the Northeastern United States
Northeastern United States
The Northeastern United States is a region of the United States as defined by the United States Census Bureau.-Composition:The region comprises nine states: the New England states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont; and the Mid-Atlantic states of New...
as well the Great Lakes
Great Lakes region (North America)
The Great Lakes region of North America, occasionally known as the Third Coast or the Fresh Coast , includes the eight U.S. states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as well as the Canadian province of Ontario...
cities of Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Buffalo
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
, Milwaukee, and Cleveland.
Contribution
Many famous people in the United States are or have been aware of their Lithuanian ancestry, including famous anarchist Emma GoldmanEmma Goldman
Emma Goldman was an anarchist known for her political activism, writing and speeches. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century....
, movie directors Robert Zemeckis
Robert Zemeckis
Robert Lee Zemeckis is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Zemeckis first came to public attention in the 1980s as the director of the comedic time-travel Back to the Future film series, as well as the Academy Award-winning live-action/animation epic Who Framed Roger Rabbit ,...
and John Milius
John Milius
John Frederick Milius is an American screenwriter, director, and producer of motion pictures.-Early life:Milius was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Elizabeth and William Styx Milius, who was a shoe manufacturer. Milius attempted to join the Marine Corps in the late 1960s, but was rejected...
, actors Ruta Lee
Ruta Lee
Ruta Lee is a Canadian actress and dancer who appeared as one of the brides in the film Seven Brides for Seven Brothers...
, Blackie Dammett
Blackie Dammett
Blackie Dammett or "Spider" is an American actor and father of Anthony Kiedis, lead singer of Red Hot Chili Peppers.-Name:He legally changed his name to Blackie Dammett as a tribute to his favorite writer Dashiell Hammett...
, John C. Reilly
John C. Reilly
John Christopher Reilly, Jr. is an American film and theater actor, singer, and comedian. Debuting in Casualties of War in 1989, he is one of several actors whose careers were launched by Brian De Palma. To date, he has appeared in more than fifty films, including three separate films in 2002...
, Charles Bronson
Charles Bronson
Charles Bronson , born Charles Dennis Buchinsky was an American actor, best-known for such films as Once Upon a Time in the West, The Magnificent Seven, The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, Rider on the Rain, The Mechanic, and the popular Death Wish series...
, Brendon Small
Brendon Small
Brendon Small is an American sitcom writer/producer, actor, comedian, voice actor, composer, and musician...
and Daniel Jason Sudeikis
Jason Sudeikis
Daniel Jason Sudeikis is an American actor and comedian currently starring as a cast member on Saturday Night Live.-Early life:Sudeikis was born Daniel Jason Sudeikis in Fairfax, Virginia, the son of Kathryn , a travel agent who was president of the American Society of Travel Agents, and Dan...
, rock stars Anthony Kiedis
Anthony Kiedis
Anthony Kiedis is an American vocalist/lyricist, and occasional actor best known as the lead vocalist of the Grammy-winning American rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers. Kiedis spent his youth in Grand Rapids, Michigan with his mother before moving, shortly before his 12th birthday, to Hollywood,...
, Brandon Flowers
Brandon Flowers
Brandon Richard Flowers is an American musician, best known as the frontman of the Las Vegas-based rock band The Killers. He has also released a solo album titled Flamingo.-Early life:...
, Michael Gira
Michael Gira
Michael Rolfe Gira is an American musician, author, and artist. He is the main force behind the recently reformed New York City musical group Swans and fronts the Angels of Light...
and Thalia Zedek
Thalia Zedek
Thalia Zedek is an American singer and guitarist. Active since the early 1980s, she has been a member of several notable alternative rock groups, including Live Skull and Come...
, model Jurgita Valts, notorious criminal Alvin Karpis
Alvin Karpis
Alvin Francis Karpis , nicknamed "Creepy" for his sinister smile, was an American criminal known for his alliance with the Barker gang in the 1930s. He was the last "public enemy" to be taken.-Early life:Karpis was born to Lithuanian immigrants in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and was raised in Topeka,...
, radio host Tom Leykis
Tom Leykis
Thomas Joseph Leykis is an American radio personality. He currently hosts The Tasting Room with Tom Leykis, a weekly lifestyle program dealing with fine food and drink, airing weekends mainly in West Coast markets...
, scientist Marija Gimbutas
Marija Gimbutas
Marija Gimbutas , was a Lithuanian-American archeologist known for her research into the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of "Old Europe", a term she introduced. Her works published between 1946 and 1971 introduced new views by combining traditional spadework with linguistics and mythological...
, and Bishop Louis Vezelis
Louis Vezelis
Bishop Louis Vezelis, OFM was born in 1930 to Lithuanian immigrants in Rochester, New York. Originally a Franciscan, Vezelis became a sedevacantist, believing that the mainstream Catholic Church was illegitimate due to the reforms of Vatican II, and that the papacy was therefore vacant...
, OFM. Current Senate Majority Whip
Assistant party leaders of the United States Senate
The Assistant Majority and Minority Leaders of the United States Senate are the second-ranking members of the party leadership of the United States Senate....
Richard Durbin is half-Lithuanian. Famous skateboarder Natas Kaupas
Natas Kaupas
Natas Kaupas is a semi-retired American professional skateboarder. He grew up in South Santa Monica, California in the area known as Dogtown and is of Lithuanian descent. He attended Santa Monica High School. He is often referred to as one of the first true professional street skateboarders.Kaupas...
, one of the innovators of street skating in the late 1980s and early 1990s, is of Lithuanian heritage. Others, such as J. D. Salinger
J. D. Salinger
Jerome David Salinger was an American author, best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, as well as his reclusive nature. His last original published work was in 1965; he gave his last interview in 1980....
, Sean Penn
Sean Penn
Sean Justin Penn is an American actor, screenwriter and film director, also known for his political and social activism...
and Pink, had their Jewish ancestors come from Lithuanian lands.
Many American sport celebrities have Lithuanian heritage: Eleanor Dapkus
Eleanor Dapkus
Eleanor Dapkus [Wolf] was a center fielder and pitcher who played from through in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Listed at 5' 6", 160 lb., she batted and threw right-handed.-Women in baseball:...
, Johnny Unitas
Johnny Unitas
John Constantine Unitas , known as Johnny Unitas or "Johnny U", and nicknamed "The Golden Arm", was a professional American football player in the 1950s through the 1970s, spending the majority of his career with the Baltimore Colts. He was a record-setting quarterback, and the National Football...
, Vitas Gerulaitis
Vitas Gerulaitis
Vytautas Kevin Gerulaitis was a Lithuanian–American professional tennis player. He is known for winning the men's singles title at one of the two Australian Open tournaments held in 1977. Gerulaitis won the tournament held in December, while Roscoe Tanner won the earlier January tournament...
, Frank Lubin
Frank Lubin
Frank John Lubin was an American-Lithuanian basketball player.Lubin was born on the east side of Los Angeles, California to a family of Lithuanian immigrants and died in Glendale, California....
, Dick Butkus
Dick Butkus
Richard Marvin "Dick" Butkus is a former American football player for the Chicago Bears. He was drafted in 1965 and he is also widely regarded as one of the best and most durable linebackers of all time. Butkus starred as a football player for the University of Illinois and the Chicago Bears. He...
, Joe Jurevicius
Joe Jurevicius
Joseph Michael Jurevicius is a retired American football wide receiver. He was drafted by the New York Giants in the second round of the 1998 NFL Draft. He played college football at Penn State....
, Jack Sharkey
Jack Sharkey
Jack Sharkey was an American heavyweight boxing champion. He was born Joseph Paul Zukauskas , the son of Lithuanian immigrants, in Binghamton, New York but moved to Boston, Massachusetts as a young man...
and James Laurinaitis
James Laurinaitis
-St. Louis Rams:Laurinaitis was drafted in the 2nd round 35th overall by the St. Louis Rams. On July 29, 2009, he signed a four-year, $5.1 million contract. The deal contained $3.3 million guaranteed...
to mention a few. Lithuanian Americans have also distinguished themselves in the arts such as stained glass
Stained glass
The term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works produced from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings...
artist and painter Adolfas Valeška
Adolfas Valeška
Adolfas Valeška was a Lithuanian stained glass artist, painter, stage designer, and museum director who worked in Lithuania and in Chicago, Illinois....
as well as modern artists such as Jonas Mekas
Jonas Mekas
Jonas Mekas is a Lithuanian-born American filmmaker, writer, and curator who has often been called "the godfather of American avant-garde cinema." His work has been exhibited in museums and festivals across Europe and America.-Biography:...
, the avant-garde filmmaker and George Maciunas
George Maciunas
George Maciunas was a Lithuanian-born American artist. He was a founding member of Fluxus, an international community of artists, architects, composers, and designers...
, founder of the Fluxus
Fluxus
Fluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning,...
movement.
Two fictional characters of Lithuanian birth who immigrated to the United States have prominently captured the American imagination. The first is Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant around whom Upton Sinclair
Upton Sinclair
Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. , was an American author who wrote close to one hundred books in many genres. He achieved popularity in the first half of the twentieth century, acquiring particular fame for his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle . It exposed conditions in the U.S...
's 1906
1906 in literature
The year 1906 in literature involved some significant new books.-Events:* December 24 - Reginald Fessenden transmits the first radio program, a poetry reading, a violin solo, and a speech, broadcasts....
novel chronicles the life of the Lithuanian community in Chicago and the treatment of workers in the Chicago Stockyards
Union Stock Yards
The Union Stock Yard & Transit Co., or The Yards, was the meat packing district in Chicago for over a century starting in 1865. The district was operated by a group of railroad companies that acquired swampland, and turned it to a centralized processing area...
. The second, Hannibal Lecter
Hannibal Lecter
Hannibal Lecter M.D. is a fictional character in a series of horror novels by Thomas Harris and in the films adapted from them.Lecter was introduced in the 1981 thriller novel Red Dragon as a brilliant psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer...
, is the fictional villain from The Silence of the Lambs
The Silence of the Lambs (novel)
The Silence of the Lambs is a novel by Thomas Harris. First published in 1988, it is the sequel to Harris' 1981 novel Red Dragon. Both novels feature the cannibalistic serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter, this time pitted against FBI Special Agent Clarice Starling.- Plot summary :The novel takes...
and Hannibal
Hannibal (film)
Hannibal is a 2001 psychological thriller film directed by Ridley Scott, adapted from the Thomas Harris novel of the same name. It is a sequel to the 1991 Academy Award-winning film The Silence of the Lambs that returns Anthony Hopkins to his iconic role as serial killer Hannibal Lecter...
was born in Lithuania but later moved to the United States and took US citizenship. Marko Ramius, the Soviet submarine captain in The Hunt for Red October
The Hunt for Red October
The Hunt for Red October is a 1984 novel by Tom Clancy. The story follows the intertwined adventures of Soviet submarine captain Marko Aleksandrovich Ramius and CIA analyst Jack Ryan.The novel was originally published by the U.S...
, is also described as "Lithuanian by birth" and as the "Vilnius Schoolmaster".
Distribution
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, is home to the second largest population of Lithuanians in the world, and the old "Lithuanian Downtown" in Bridgeport
Bridgeport, Chicago
Bridgeport, one of 77 community areas of Chicago, is a neighborhood located on the city's South Side. It is bounded, generally, on the west and north by the Chicago River, on the east by Canal Street, and on the south by Pershing Road.-History:...
was once the center of Lithuanian political activity for the whole United States. Another large Lithuanian community can be found in the Coal Region
Coal Region
The Coal Region is a term used to refer to an area of Northeastern Pennsylvania in the central Appalachian Mountains comprising Lackawanna, Luzerne, Columbia, Carbon, Schuylkill, Northumberland, and the extreme northeast corner of Dauphin counties....
of northeastern Pennsylvania
Northeastern Pennsylvania
Northeastern Pennsylvania is a geographic region of Pennsylvania that includes the Pocono Mountains, the Endless Mountains and the industrial cities of Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Pittston, Hazleton and Carbondale....
, particularly in Schuylkill County where the small borough
Borough
A borough is an administrative division in various countries. In principle, the term borough designates a self-governing township although, in practice, official use of the term varies widely....
of New Philadelphia
New Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
New Philadelphia is a borough in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 1,149 at the 2000 census.-Geography:New Philadelphia is located at , approximately northwest of the city of Philadelphia....
has the largest percentage of Lithuanian Americans (20.8%) in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. There is also a large community of Lithuanian descent in the coal mining regions of Western Pennsylvania, northern West Virginia Panhandle and Eastern Ohio tri-state area. Grand County, Colorado
Grand County, Colorado
Grand County is the 21st largest of the 64 counties of the State of Colorado of the United States. The county population was 12,442 at U.S. Census 2000...
's Lithuanian-American community has the unusual distinction in that it is the only sizable immigrant population in an otherwise fairly homogeneous population in a rural, mountainous community. There is also a small but vibrant Lithuanian community in Presque Isle, Maine
Presque Isle, Maine
Presque Isle is the commercial center and largest city in the sparsely populated Aroostook County, Maine, United States. The population was 9,692 at the 2010 census...
. Many Lithuanian refugees settled in Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
after World War II; they constitute a community in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
.
The states with the largest Lithuanian-American populations today are:
| Illinois Illinois Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,... |
87,294 | Pennsylvania Pennsylvania The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to... |
78,330 | California California California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area... |
51,406 | Massachusetts Massachusetts The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010... |
51,054 | New York New York New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east... |
49,083 |
Prominent persons
- Liūtas MockūnasLiutas MockunasLiūtas Mockūnas was an Lithuanian-American journalist, editor, writer, cultural critic, and engineer and notable Lithuanian World Community activist....
- Aleksandras ŠtromasAleksandras ŠtromasAleksandras Štromas was a prominent Lithuanian political scientist, dissident, professor.-Biography:...
- Jonas MekasJonas MekasJonas Mekas is a Lithuanian-born American filmmaker, writer, and curator who has often been called "the godfather of American avant-garde cinema." His work has been exhibited in museums and festivals across Europe and America.-Biography:...
- Vitas GerulaitisVitas GerulaitisVytautas Kevin Gerulaitis was a Lithuanian–American professional tennis player. He is known for winning the men's singles title at one of the two Australian Open tournaments held in 1977. Gerulaitis won the tournament held in December, while Roscoe Tanner won the earlier January tournament...
Lithuanians in Canada
There also were and are a significant number of Lithuanians and their descendents in CanadaCanada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. Many are in Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
particularly around the Hamilton-Missisauga-Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
area near the coast of Lake Ontario
Lake Ontario
Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south by the American state of New York. Ontario, Canada's most populous province, was named for the lake. In the Wyandot language, ontarío means...
. In 2011, a huge increase in Lithuanians in Victoria, BC was noticed. Some have moved to the United States.
Famous Lithuanian Canadians
- Kevin BieksaKevin BieksaKevin Christopher Bieksa is a Canadian professional ice hockey defenceman who currently plays for the Vancouver Canucks of the National Hockey League , serving as an alternate captain for the Canucks during away games...
- current NHL player with the Vancouver CanucksVancouver CanucksThe Vancouver Canucks are a professional ice hockey team based in Vancouver, :British Columbia, Canada. They are members of the Northwest Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League . The Canucks play their home games at Rogers Arena, formerly known as General Motors Place,...
. - Annis StukusAnnis StukusAnnis Paul Stukus was a Canadian football player, coach and general manager, and ice hockey general manager....
- former Canadian footballCanadian footballCanadian football is a form of gridiron football played exclusively in Canada in which two teams of 12 players each compete for territorial control of a field of play long and wide attempting to advance a pointed prolate spheroid ball into the opposing team's scoring area...
player, coach and general manager, and ice hockey general manager. - Leo RautinsLeo RautinsLeo R. Rautins is a former professional basketball player, the former head coach of the Canadian national men's basketball team, and an NBA analyst for the Toronto Raptors.Rautins was a star in high school for St...
- is a former professional basketballBasketballBasketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
player, the current head coach of the Canadian national men's basketball teamCanadian national men's basketball teamThe Canadian national men's basketball team represents Canada in international basketball competitions. The team is currently ranked 24th by FIBA. Athletes for this team are selected by Canada Basketball...
, and an NBA analyst for the Toronto RaptorsToronto RaptorsThe Toronto Raptors are a professional basketball team based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. They are part of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference in the National Basketball Association . The team was established in 1995, along with the Vancouver Grizzlies, as part of the NBA's re-expansion...
. Rautins' son Andy having been drafted by the New York Knicks in 2010. - Andy RautinsAndy RautinsAndrew Jay "Andy" Rautins is a , 205 lbs. guard for the New York Knicks of the NBA. He was born in Syracuse, New York. He is a Canadian citizen and played for the Syracuse Orange and Canadian Men's National Basketball team...
- is a guard for the New York KnicksNew York KnicksThe New York Knickerbockers, prominently known as the Knicks, are a professional basketball team based in New York City. They are part of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference in the National Basketball Association...
of the NBA. He is one of four sons of retired NBA player Leo RautinsLeo RautinsLeo R. Rautins is a former professional basketball player, the former head coach of the Canadian national men's basketball team, and an NBA analyst for the Toronto Raptors.Rautins was a star in high school for St...
. - Ruta LeeRuta LeeRuta Lee is a Canadian actress and dancer who appeared as one of the brides in the film Seven Brides for Seven Brothers...
- is a Canadian actress and dancer who appeared as one of the brides in the film Seven Brides for Seven BrothersSeven Brides for Seven BrothersSeven Brides for Seven Brothers is a 1954 musical film directed by Stanley Donen, with music by Saul Chaplin and Gene de Paul, and lyrics by Johnny Mercer....
. - Leonard CohenLeonard CohenLeonard Norman Cohen, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963. His work often explores religion, isolation, sexuality and interpersonal relationships...
- singer-songwriter, musician, poet and novelist.
See also
- European AmericanEuropean AmericanA European American is a citizen or resident of the United States who has origins in any of the original peoples of Europe...
- Hyphenated AmericanHyphenated AmericanIn the United States, the term hyphenated American is an epithet commonly used from 1890 to 1920 to disparage Americans who were of foreign birth or origin, and who displayed an allegiance to a foreign country. It was most commonly used to disparage German Americans or Irish Americans who called...
- Lithuanians in the Chicago area
- Our Lady of Vilnius Church (New York City)