Belgians in Michigan

Belgian Immigration

3 BelgianImmigration A t the beginning of the twenty-first century there were 360,642 people in the United States who claimed Belgian heritage. Michigan, with 53,135 people who listed Belgium as their place of birth or the country from which their ancestors came, was second only to the state of Wisconsin, which had 57,808.4 The descendants of Belgian immigrants in Michigan are descendants of several waves of Belgian immigration to the United States. Between 1830 and 1975 approximately 200,000 Belgians immigrated to the United States. Sixty-three thousand came before 1900. Following the economic crisis of 1847 to 1849, 6,000 to 7,000 Belgians came to the United States annually.5 The period of heaviest Belgian immigration to the United States was the first two decades of the twentieth century, when 75,000 Belgians left their homeland for America. An additional 62,000 came after 1920. Most of the Belgians who came before 1930 were Flemish, Dutch-speaking Belgians, and most of the immigrants who arrived from Belgium after 1930, and especially after World War II, have been Walloons from the French-speaking sections of Belgium. The great influx of Flemish before 1930 is related to the relative disadvantage of the Flemish in a Belgium, which until after World War II was dominated culturally, economically, and politically by the French-speaking 4 B ernard A. Cook Walloons. When the economic tide switched after World War II in favor of the Dutch-speaking Flemish it was the Walloons who made up the bulk of Belgian immigrants to the United States.6 Distribution of Michigan’s population claiming Belgian ancestry (2000). ...