Recently, the co-founder of the diaspora organization of Azerbaijanis Network, Adil Bagirov, became the first Azerbaijani to be elected to an official US structure – the Dayton Education Council. The head of the Azerbaijan Association of New York, Ercan Yerdelenli, told Vestnik Kavkaza about this event and the Azerbaijani diaspora in the US.
- An American citizen of Azerbaijani origin, Adil Bagirov, has been elected to the post of President of the Board of Education of the City of Dayton (Ohio). How significant is this event?
- It's always good when such a competent and experienced person is elected to any public, local or state post. Any minority in the United States, including Azerbaijani, is proud when representatives are elected to important posts. Adil Bagirov is an active member of the Azerbaijani diaspora in the United States. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the US Azeris Network Fund Karabakh in Washington. The Azerbaijan Association of New York has always supported its activities related to the diaspora.
- How many immigrants from Azerbaijan are there in the US? Where do Azerbaijanis come from to the US, except for Azerbaijan?
- America is a country of immigrants. For many decades the United States received millions of migrants from around the world. The first wave of Azerbaijani migrants to the United States was from Iran after the Islamic Revolution in the early 1980's. Most of the Iranian Azerbaijanis settled in California and New York. There are about one million Iranian Azerbaijanis in the US now.
The second wave of Azerbaijani migrants came from Azerbaijan after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990's. It is believed that approximately 20,000-30,000 people moved to the USA then. Today they are the vast majority of Azerbaijanis in the United States.
- How is the Azerbaijani community effective in the US? What problems do they face?
- America is located in the center of the global political arena, so it is extremely important that each minority has the right to vote, so that it can make changes. If we speak specifically about the Azerbaijani diaspora in the US, there are many problems that we are facing because of the activities of the Armenian diaspora.
Armenian immigrants settled in the US in the early 1900's, many of them achieved power and wealth. Azerbaijani immigrants arrived many decades later, and they are just beginning to take root here. Because of the complex history of relations between the two countries there are many obstacles to the Azerbaijani communities in the United States. The Azerbaijani diaspora is working with the Turkish community, which allows it to get more influence in the public sphere in order to overcome these obstacles. Azerbaijanis are a relatively new immigration population in the United States, and we are still facing difficulties, as we haven't reached promising positions in public institutions, or received US citizenship widely yet. We believe in a good future and we look forward to the second and third generations of immigrants.
