This research guide from the European Reading Room at the Library of Congress recognizes the voices of Americans with Romanian, Moldovan, and Aromanian ancestry. The guide links collection items at the Library of Congress with reference links to complementary local cultural heritage institutions across the United States and in Romania, to bring together information sources about Romanian Americans.

This guide can help people who study aspects of ethnicity, educators who work with minority students, local governments, libraries, information specialists, as well as the business community find information about Romanian Americans.

Who are Romanian Americans?

This guide includes information about Romanian speaking Americans and Americans of Romanian origin who came from the Austro-Hungarian Empire such as Ardeal, Banat, Crișana, and Bucovina; from the Russian Empire, later part of Greater Romania, from what was the Moldovan Socialist Republic and is currently the Republic of Moldova; from the Kingdom of Romania, the People's Republic of Romania, and, of course, from today's Romania. We also included in this guide a few materials about Jewish and Saxon people (German speaking minority from Transylvania), groups that have very few members still living in Romania. Most of their memories are of course kept in Romania, but some of their heritage has been saved in the U.S., while it has been lost elsewhere, so we included them in this guide. Some of the items unique to our collections are Hassidic Jewish music, and Saxon cookbooks in English using American measurements. This guide also has materials related to Aromanians who moved to North America. Aromanians speak a language similar to Romanian, and traditionally lived in semi-nomadic communities tending to animal herds South of Romania, in several countries of the Balkan peninsula.

Romanian Americans have contributed to the overall record of human creativity with works of art, such as literature, music, graphic art, sculpture, radio programs, and films. We collected many examples of these contributions to present in this guide. Romanian Americans have also contributed to universal knowledge in all fields of science, and in engineering. These contributions are less specific to their ethnic heritage, but we included a few examples. In this guide we list a few famous Romanian Americans, and point to information sources about other prominent Romanian Americans as well, for example in the book entitled Who's Who in Romanian America.

Immigration waves

Romanians came to the United States in the same immigration waves as other Eastern Europeans. Many Romanians came to try their luck here: some wanted to make money to buy land at home, yet stayed, while some came to stay but returned, and others sought refuge as political exiles both in the 19th and the 20th centuries. Some of them fought in the Civil War, for example, George Pomutz, who rose to the rank of general in the Union Army. He later became the U.S. ambassador to Russia, and was involved in the acquisition of Alaska. Many fought in the World Wars as American soldiers.

The largest wave of Romanian immigrants came during the last decade of the 19th and the first two decades of the 20th century. During this time, millions of Europeans crossed the ocean to make money in order to acquire land either in America or at home. Traveling was made possible by innovations, such as ocean liners with steam engines instead of the earlier sailboats, railroads were being built on both continents, and factories and mines in the U.S. needed a growing number of workers. On the European side, innovations lead to a population boom at a time when fewer and fewer hands were needed in villages, so more and more people moved to cities within their countries, and millions of Europeans moved abroad too. During this period, most Romanian immigrants to the U.S. came from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, having had yet one more reason compared to Romanians living in the Kingdom of Romania to leave their homeland: the Hungarian state tried to force their assimilation, and offered them unequal chances to do well. Romanians in this wave worked in cities in the North East, or farmed in the Midwestern states.

"... most came, as did other immigrants of the period, in answer to the United States' call for workers in factory, mill, and mine. Farm workers, shopkeepers, and skilled workers came to New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, and New Jersey." The NYPR Archive Collections External Episode 19 Immigrants from Small Countries. Mar 19, 1939

Starting in 1924 the U.S. introduced limits to immigration, putting an end to what became known as the great wave. After that, the much smaller number of people who came tended to be more educated, as education in their homelands made strides in the 20th century, plus there were fewer opportunities to receive land in America, so these immigrants were more likely to work professional jobs. Others came here to escape the political regimes before, during, and after the Second World War, though few had that chance. During those years and especially after the Holocaust, a few Jewish Romanians also found refuge in North America. Later, during the communist reign in Romania a handful of people were able to leave, and those who did tended to be political dissidents, who were mostly professionals. The communist regime fell in spectacular fashion in December 1989. That was the first televised uprising in Eastern Europe at the time (as it later turned out, combined with a coup), and it was watched worldwide. It made Romanians more known, and they also gained the sympathy of other nations. Millions of Romanians have since left Romania for a better life. While most of them now live or temporarily work in other European countries, some of them moved to Canada and to the United States. These college educated people and their children integrate well into the societies of their new homelands.

How many Romanian Americans live in the U.S. today?

Today most people of Romanian origin live in these states: New York, Florida, California, plus in Midwestern states which have traditionally had Romanian American communities since the early 20th century, for example Ohio and Illinois. The most comprehensive data on Romanians in the U.S. come from Census surveys, in which the methodology for measuring race and ethnicity has changed over time. According to the latest data made available that measured country of birth, about 170,000 people in the US were born in Romania: Foreign born population data. That same year, the number of people who spoke Romanian at home was estimated to be somewhat less at 155,000: languages spoken at home. The number of people who claimed Romanian ancestry was higher at 360,000, and some 6,000 claimed Moldovan ancestry in the 2000 Census data on ancestry. Data on the number of people claiming Romanian ancestry was collected in a different way since then. In the 2020 Census, where data on ethnicities within given racial categories are available, of those who reported to be white, ca. 216,000 claimed Romanian ancestry. The total number reporting any combination of race was ca. 417,000. Questions about languages spoken at home or about country of origin were no longer collected. 

Types of materials available

People who came from Romania contributed in many ways to American culture as well as to our universal culture, for example Alma Gluck was a celebrated opera singer who left her manuscripts to the Library of Congress. Romanian Americans also preserved the traditions that they brought with them to these shores. In fact, the only surviving record of some traditions are in the U.S. for example the Chasidic songs and melodies collected in 1938-1939, in Maramureș, a few years before those communities were destroyed, or the sound recordings of the unique Chicago Ethnic Arts Project collection, some of which are also available online. More such materials are listed in the manuscripts and audio materials sections of this guide. Some other materials are special because those who found refuge in the U.S. or in Canada were able to share their experience of life under communism with the rest of the world after they settled here, when such materials would have been censored at home. Perhaps the most famous among them was Ion Mihai Pacepa, who described in great detail how the authorities oppressed people and manipulated public opinion and governments both in Romania and abroad, including attempts to interfere in American politics.

The Library of Congress has hundreds of books written by or about Romanian Americans. In this guide we chose to list a selection of those books organized into various categories. We also have in our collections relevant periodicals published in the U.S. and in Canada. Other types of materials include: music scores, audio materials such as interviews and recorded radio shows, videos, photographs, archived websites, and manuscript collections of famous Romanian Americans. Where available, we provide links to materials that researchers can use without having to come to the Library of Congress, such as digitized print materials, photos, archived websites, links to current websites, and databases.

A search for Romanian Americans in the catalog brings about 600 results that can be narrowed down by type of material, language of the publication, date of publication, and more using the 'Refine Your Search' option on the top of the page. There are also digital materials that can be used only onsite in a system called Stacks.

In terms of books, we are in the process of selecting older books related to Romanian Americans for digitization. They will be made available in the Selected Digitized Books collection: Romanian American publications. As far as newspapers are concerned, America and Românul American are already digitized and made available in Chronicling America.