West Indian Americans

Caribbean Americans

Distribution of Caribbean Americans
Total population
13 million (about 4% of total U.S. population)
Regions with significant populations
Mainly in the metropolitan area of New York and Miami, to a lesser degree Orlando, Tampa, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington and Atlanta, among others. Majority in the states of New York, Florida, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Maryland and Georgia and the U.S. territories of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Smaller populations in Texas, California, Illinois, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Detroit, Louisiana and Rhode Island.
Languages
American English, English-based creole languages (Jamaican Patois, Guyanese Creole, Trinidadian Creole, Tobagonian Creole, Bajan Creole, Sranan Tongo, Bahamian Creole, Virgin Islands Creole, etc.), French, French-based creole languages (Haitian Creole, Antillean Creole), Caribbean Spanish (Dominican Spanish, Puerto Rican Spanish, Cuban Spanish), Caribbean Hindustani, Chinese
Religion
Predominantly: Christianity, Hinduism, Islam Minority: Rastafari, Traditional African Religion, Afro-American religions, Amerindian Religion, Buddhism, Judaism, Jainism, Baháʼí, East Asian religions

Caribbean Americans or West Indian Americans are Americans who trace their ancestry to the Caribbean. Caribbean Americans are a multi-ethnic and multi-racial group that trace their ancestry further in time mostly to Africa, as well as Asia, the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, and to Europe. As of 2016, about 13 million — about 4% of the total U.S. population — have Caribbean ancestry.^[2]

The Caribbean is the source of the United States' earliest and largest Black immigrant group and the primary source of growth of the Black population in the U.S. The region has exported more of its people than any other region of the world since the abolition of slavery in 1834.^[3]

The largest Caribbean immigrant sources to the U.S. are Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Haiti, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago. U.S. citizens from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands also migrate to the US proper (known as Stateside Puerto Ricans and Stateside Virgin Islands Americans, respectively).