Kalmyk Americans
Total population
3,000
Regions with significant populations
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and California
Languages
American English, Kalmyk Oirat, Russian, Kyrgyz
Religion
Buddhism, Tengrism, Russian Orthodox Christianity, Islam

Kalmyk Americans are Americans of Kalmyk Mongolian ancestry.

History

American Kalmyks initially established communities in the United States following a mass immigration after World War II. The largest groups of Kalmyks originally settled primarily in the states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey.[1] The majority of today's Kalmyk American population are descended from those Kalmyks who had fled Russia in late 1920 to places such as France, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and, later, Germany.

As a consequence of their decades-long migration through Europe, many original immigrant Kalmyk Americans could speak German, French, and Serbo-Croatian, in addition to Russian and their native Kalmyk language.

Many Kalmyks were stranded in German displaced persons camps for a number of years following the end of World War II. They were originally classified as Asian under U.S. immigration law, and therefore denied entry, but in 1951 they were reclassified as Caucasian.[2] In 1955 many immigrated to the United States after the Tolstoy Foundation sponsored their passage.

There are several Kalmyk Buddhist temples in Monmouth County, New Jersey, (notably Freewood Acres, New Jersey) where the vast majority of American Kalmyks reside, Philadelphia Pennsylvania, as well as a Tibetan Buddhist Learning Center and monastery in Washington Township, New Jersey.

The Mongol Oirat (Kalmyk) Torghut royalty in Dzungaria like Prince Minjur remained loyal to the Republic of China Kuomintang and were against the Soviet backed Second East Turkstan Republic, which took over and occupied his own princely capital, Ussu and he wanted the Kuomintang to evict the Soviets and East Turkestan Republic from Ussu. Prince Minjur was living in exile in Beijing and met with Isa Yusuf Alptekin who carried a message to him from Chiang Kai-shek in 1946 where Chiang proposed to make Prince Minjur the governor of Xinjiang. In 1947 Prince Minjur came to Urumqi via Lanzhou on a plane for an official inspection tour before he would become governor, but he was unable to assume the position because he had to escape when the Communists were about to take over. Chiang Kai-shek also summoned nearly 100 Kazakhs who were exiled in Calcutta, British India after forced to flee Xinjiang in 1938-9 by Soviets and Sheng Shicai to come back to Xinjiang after a decade, under their leader Hamga Haji Wagir to return to Xinjiang in 1947 to serve as Kuomintang loyalists.[3] Prince Minjur, his wife Dechen Minh, and his daughter Dewa Nimbo fled to Taiwan with the Kuomintang and Dewa Nimbo, who was involved with a Tibetan man Lobsang Gyatso and gave birth out of wedlock to Tsem Rinpoche in 24 October 1965 but inmediately split from him when she found out he was already married in Tibet and had children and had deceived her. She later moved to the United States where she pursued a failed doctoral thesis at Indiana University and became part of the Kalymk American community.[4] Prince Minjur's sister Princess Nirgidma was married to Michel Bréal, the French consul-general in Beijing and moved to France with him.[5][6][7]

Notable people


See also

References

  1. ↑ American Kalmyks, narrated documentary, archived from the original on 2021-12-19, retrieved 2020-01-20
  2. ↑ Encyclopedia of New Jersey. Rutgers University Press. 2004. p. 434. ISBN 9780813533254. Retrieved 29 March 2021.
  3. ↑ Lin, Hsiao-ting (2010). Modern China's Ethnic Frontiers: A Journey to the West. Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Asia. Vol. 67 (illustrated ed.). Routledge. p. 109. ISBN 1136923934.
  4. ↑ "Dewa Nimbo in the Herald". Tsem Rinpoche. Nov 14, 2014.
  5. ↑ "Princess Nirgidma (prelude to The Mandate)". Carl Barkman.
  6. ↑ "My Royal Great Aunt". Tsem Rinpoche. Mar 12, 2010.
  7. ↑ "My Great Aunt the Princess". Tsem Rinpoche. Mar 12, 2010.
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