# austrailian aborigines in the US **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 30, 2004, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/austrailian-aborigines-in-the-us/226702 "2004-01-30T04:07:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![captainQwark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e68b1a/32.png) [@captainQwark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/captainQwark)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/austrailian-aborigines-in-the-us/226702/1 "2004-01-30T04:07:54Z")
are there any Austrailian aborigines in the US? I know it’s a stupid question but I’m curious. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/austrailian-aborigines-in-the-us/226702/2 "2004-01-30T04:21:42Z")
I’m sure there must me some somewhere. It’s not as if they’re unable to leave Australia. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/austrailian-aborigines-in-the-us/226702/3 "2004-01-30T04:49:03Z")
James Savage is an Aboriginal man who’s currently serving a life sentence for murder in a prison in Florida, USA. There have, over the years been moves to bring him back to Australia on the grounds of culture and because he was adopted by an American family as a member of the “stolen generations”. ---
**Author:** ![captainQwark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e68b1a/32.png) [@captainQwark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/captainQwark)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/austrailian-aborigines-in-the-us/226702/4 "2004-01-30T04:52:46Z")
whoops, sorry about leaving “Austrailian” in the title uncapitalized. And thanks for the answer don’t ask. ---
**Author:** ![Jervoise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d2c977/32.png) [@Jervoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jervoise)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/austrailian-aborigines-in-the-us/226702/5 "2004-01-30T05:59:29Z")
> [@captainQwark](#): > > whoops, sorry about leaving “Austrailian” in the title uncapitalized. And thanks for the answer don’t ask. While you’re making corrections, (i) it’s "Aust **ra** lian; and (ii) “Aboriginal” has a capital A, in this context. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/austrailian-aborigines-in-the-us/226702/6 "2004-01-30T13:03:47Z")
Let me do some really rough estimates: A table I’ve checked says that about 5,000 people emigrate to the U.S. from Oceania (Australia, New Zealand, and a bunch of Pacific Islands) every year. Let me guess then that there are about 100,000 people living in the U.S. who are immigrants from Oceania. Say that half of them, about 50,000, are from Australia. 2% of the population of Australia is aboriginal. Say that the same proportion holds for the Australian immigrants to the U.S. (Actually it’s probably less.) That means there are about 1000 Australian aborigines living in the U.S. It’s unlikely that there are many second-generation-immigrant Australian aborigines living in the U.S. I think that 1000 is probably an overestimate, in fact. 1000 people is not just a tiny amount compared with the 290,000,000 people in the U.S., it’s a tiny amount compared with the 35,000,000 Americans of African ancestry. (And, after all, most Americans, on seeing an Australian aborigine in the U.S., will probably assume that this person is of African ancestry, despite the fact that Australian aborigines and Africans are not particularly closely related.) So while there are probably a few hundred and maybe more than a thousand Americans of Australian aboriginal descent, it’s a tiny amount compared to the total American population, and it’s likely that any given American could go their whole life without ever meeting one.