Various ethnic groups in Omaha, Nebraska have lived in the city since its organization by Anglo-Americans in 1854. Native Americans of various nations lived in the Omaha territory for centuries before European arrival, and some stayed in the area. The city was founded by white Anglo-Saxon Protestants from neighboring Council Bluffs, Iowa. However, since the first settlement, substantial immigration from all of Europe, migration by African Americans from the Deep South and various ethnic groups from the Eastern United States, and new waves of more recent immigrants from Mexico and Africa have added layers of complexity to the workforce, culture, religious and social fabric of the city.

In From Sea to Sea - Letters of Travel, published in 1899, Rudyard Kipling wrote of Omaha, "the city to casual investigation seemed to be populated entirely by Germans, Poles, Slavs, Hungarians, Croats, Magyars, and all the scum of the Eastern European States..."Kipling, R. (1899) The Works of Rudyard Kipling: From Sea to Sea - Letters of Travel. The Century Company. p 136. In the 1920s Omaha "reached the zenith of its ethnic diversity", when more than 50 percent of the city's population were new immigrants or the children of immigrants.Larsen and Cotrell. (1997) The Gate City: A history of Omaha. University of Nebraska Press. p 158.

Background The first Nebraska Territory census was taken in 1854 and included parts or all of present-day North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. It counted 2,732 residents in the entire territory, not including American Indians. The first official census after Nebraska achieved statehood in 1867 was the 1870 census, which counted 122,993 people.(2007) Nebraska's Population Today. Nebraska Legislature. Retrieved 5/13/08. After the founding of Omaha in 1854 many European immigrants came seeking employment in the city's burgeoning railroads, stockyards, and meatpacking industry. Others came after moving to the state to homestead and giving up, while still others were headed through Omaha to other western States beyond Nebraska, and simply ended up staying.

20th century population In 1900 Omaha had a total population of 102,555, with 23,255 immigrants accounting for 23 percent of the population. Omaha's black population doubled between 1910 and 1920. By 1910 the city's population was 124,096 people, with 27,179 immigrants included. After 1910 the city's ethnic groups began to stabilize. In 1920 only 19 percent of the population was foreign-born. By 1930, when Omaha's population was 214,066, the federal government had curtailed European immigration. In that year's census the city's immigrant population comprised 14 percent of the total.

What the United States Census did not show were estimates of 10,000 persons with Danish heritage and 7,000 Bohemians. There was a large community of Russian Jews who had come to the US to escape religious persecution and, like other immigrants, to Omaha for jobs. Also attracted by word of available jobs, the majority of Italians in Omaha came directly to the city after arrival in port cities from Southern Italy and Sicily.

In 1907 the Dillingham Commission of the U.S. Senate examined the meatpacking industry in Omaha and the high percentage of immigrant workers in the occupations at the plants. Their findings illustrated the prevalence of foreign-born laborers, with only 17.4 percent of all workers having been born in the United States with fathers who were born in the United States. The remaining 82.6 percent were either foreign-born or had fathers who were foreign-born. The Commission found that the Omaha Stockyards, slaughtering and meatpacking plants were second only to the Chicago Stockyards for the percentage total of foreign and foreign-born workers.Dillingham, W.P. (1918) Reports of the Dillingham Commission: Immigrants in the Industries, p. 14. The same report stated that, "The only obstacle to immigration applies to but one race and is not general in its nature. Strong racial prejudice has existed for a great many years against the Greeks. It reached its climax in a race riot a few years ago, when the entire Greek settlement was driven from the community by a mob. Immigrants of other races meet with no general obstacles."Dillingham, W.P. (1918) p 344. The Greek Town Riot drove out the entirety of that population. Some people of Greek heritage later returned to the city, but the community might have been larger without the early troubles.

As with other industrial cities, Omaha's percentage of foreign-born residents was significantly higher than the national average from 1900 to 1930. It was also much higher than the rest of the Missouri River Valley or Nebraska. Omaha qualified as an "immigrant city" as did Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee and New York City.Larsen and Cotrell. (1997) p 157.

Ethnic group 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 Total population </tr> African Americans </tr> Native Americans </tr> Austrian-Hungarians </tr> Bohemians </tr> Danes </tr> Germans </tr> Irish </tr> Italians </tr> Mexicans </tr> Poles </tr> Russians </tr> Scandinavians </tr> Swedes </tr>

Native Americans Omaha was within the territory of several tribes whose residence preceded that of any Europeans or Americans. Since the 17th century, the Pawnee, Otoe, Sioux, and Ioway all variously occupied the land that became the city of Omaha. During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, when the Omaha nation were the most powerful Indians along the Missouri River north of the Platte, they moved on to the western edge of present-day Bellevue, Nebraska.

Living on outlying lands through the 1870s, the Pawnee were forcibly removed by the federal government to Oklahoma that decade. The Pawnees' chief Sitting Bear brought the band back to the Omaha area to fight for their lands. Native Americans have lived in the city since its foundation.

Native American and Alaska Native Tribal Grouping Number Percentage of Omaha Population (2016 Est) Total 2,450 0.6% Cherokee 153 0.0% Chippewa 31 0.0% Navajo 43 0.0% Sioux 459 0.1%

African Americans

The first recorded instance of a black person in the Omaha area occurred in 1804, when York came to the area as a slave belonging to William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.Multiethnic Guide. Greater Omaha Economic Partnership. Retrieved 10/28/07. The presence of several black people, probably enslaved, was recorded in the area comprising North Omaha today when Major Stephen H. Long's expedition arrived at Fort Lisa in September 1819. They reportedly lived at the post and in neighboring farmsteads.Federal Writers' Project. (1939) "The Negro comes to Nebraska" , Negroes in Nebraska. Retrieved 5/13/08. The first free black person in Nebraska was Sally Bayne, who moved to Omaha in 1854. A clause in the original proposed Nebraska State Constitution from 1854 limited voting rights in the state to "free white males". This language prevented Nebraska from entering the Union for almost a year. In the 1860s, the U.S. Census showed 81 "Negroes" in Nebraska, ten of whom were accounted for as slaves.(1938) Authur Goodlett. American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940. Retrieved 10/29/07. At that time, the majority of the population lived in Omaha and Nebraska City. By the early 1880s, the city had approximately 500 black residents.(1936) Henry Black: Life Histories from the Folklore Project, WPA Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940; American Memory. U.S. Library of Congress . A neighborhood on the Near North Side grew up in North Omaha, including businesses, churches and many homes.

In 1910 Omaha's African-American population of 4,426 residents was the third-largest in the Western United States.Taylor, Q. (1999) In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West. W. W. Norton & Company. p 204. The growing meatpacking industry recruited African American and immigrant workers. From the 1920s-50s, North Omaha was a destination for African Americans during the Great Migration from the South.

The African-American Renaissance in Omaha flourished, part of a larger boom time in the Prohibition era. A documentary reports that, "On the surface the black community appeared quite stable. Its center was a several-block district north of the downtown. There were over a hundred black-owned businesses, and there were a number of black physicians, dentists, and attorneys. Over twenty fraternal organizations and clubs flourished. Church life was diverse. Of more than forty denominations, Methodists and Baptists predominated."History 313: The History of African Americans in the West Manual - Chapter 7: The Black Urban West, 1880-1940. University of Washington. Retrieved 10/29/07.

Asians

The first Asians in Omaha were Chinese immigrants who worked as laborers on construction of the First transcontinental railroad. The first Japanese people in Omaha arrived in the 20th century to work at the stockyards.Dillingham, W.P. (1918) p 341. Throughout the years, there were varying numbers of people who identified as Chinese, especially Cantonese. Omaha's Chinatown was located at 12th and Dodge Streets in present-day downtown Omaha.Roenfeld, R. (2019) "A History of Omaha's Chinatown, NorthOmahaHistory.com. Retrieved March 5, 2019.

One notable Omahan is former City Councilman Lormong Lo.

Group Number Percentage of Population of Omaha (2016 Est) Total Asian 14,411 3.30% Asian Indian 3,081 0.70% Chinese 1,934 0.40% Filipino 696 0.20% Japanese 393 0.10% Korean 849 0.20% Vietnamese 1,224 0.30% Other Asian 6,234 1.40%

Czechs

In the 1860s many Czechs, primarily from Bohemia and Moravia, immigrated to Nebraska. Edward Rosewater and John Rosicky, early Omaha newspaper editors originally from Bohemia, encouraged countrymen to come by extolling promises of free land in frontier Nebraska.Mead & Hunt, Inc. (2006) p. 6. By 1880 Czechs were the most concentrated ethnic group in the city.Omaha City Planning Department (nd) A Comprehensive Program for Historic Preservation in Omaha. p. 38. Their major neighborhood was called Little Bohemia, and it stands with several historic businesses today. Czechs had a strong political and cultural voice in Omaha,Capek, T. (August 27, 1898) "Bohemia past and present." Omaha Bee. and were involved in a variety of trades and businesses, including banks, wholesale houses, and funeral homes. The Notre Dame Academy and Convent and Czechoslovak Museum as legacies of their initial impact on the city.Sisson, R., Zacher, C.K. and Cayton, A.R.L. (2007) The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia. Indiana University Press, p 235. Many Czechs lived in Omaha's Little Bohemia.

Danes

According to the definitive 1882 History of the State of Nebraska, the first Danes in Nebraska arrived at Florence with the Mormons in the 1840s.Andreas, A. (1882) History of the State of Nebraska. Retrieved 10/7/10. According to one definitive history, the Danes in Omaha were a predominant ethnic group in the city in the 1920s, and were notable for that compared to other cities across the United States.Barkan, E.R. (1999)A Nation of Peoples: A sourcebook on America's multicultural heritage. Greenwood Publishing Group. p 470.

Germans