Armenian Americans (,
amerikahayer) are citizens or residents of the United States who have total or partial
Armenian ancestry. They form the second largest community in the
Armenian diaspora after
Armenians in Russia. The first major wave of Armenian immigration to the US took place in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Thousands of Armenians settled in the US following the
Hamidian massacres of the mid-1890s and the
Armenian Genocide of 1915 in the
Ottoman Empire. Between the 1960s and 1980s Armenians from the
Turkey,
Iran,
Lebanon and
Syria migrated to America as a result of political instability in those countries. At around the same time immigration from the
Soviet Union began. It accelerated in the late 1980s and has continued after the
breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 due to socio-economic and political reasons.