USAN List of Notable and Famous Azerbaijani-Americans
Azerbaijanis have traditionally not been known for travelling far from their homeland and establishing diaspora's, but all started to change in the 20th century, with the two World Wars, Sovietization, major disturbances and regime changes in Iran and Iraq. Although, some of the well-known Azerbaijani Turks in world history include such names as the famous 17th century nobleman Don Juan in Spain (whose real name was Oruj bey Bayat, a descendant of the powerful Turkic tribe of Bayat, which along with Qajars, Afshar, Safavids, Shahsevans, and others, ruled large areas stretching from Caucasus to the Persian Gulf, and from Central Asia to Iraq and Anatolia), who is better known for his adventures of love, despite being a senior diplomat and leaving behind a major book about his people and ancestral homeland of Azerbaijan. Today, the number of Azerbaijanis worldwide is estimated at about 35-40 million people, only 8 million of which are in Azerbaijan, and another 25 million in Iran. There are also millions of Azerbaijanis in Turkey and Russia, as well as significant numbers in Central Asia, Ukraine, Georgia, Iraq, and elsewhere.
The number of Azerbaijani-Americans is currently estimated at about 400,000, although there are larger estimates as well. Azerbaijanis started to immigrate to the United States in the middle of the 20th century, and by 1957 have registered their first official community organization (in New Jersey). However, the largest waves of immigration came in then 1978-1980s (from Iran) and 1988-2000s (from then USSR and Azerbaijan). The typical population profile of Azerbaijani-Americans is at least one university diploma, speaking several languages, often doctors, engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs by profession. For all to have a better idea about the Azerbaijanis, we have compiled a list of notable Azerbaijani-Americans:
Prof. Ali Javan, physicist, inventor of gas laser, Professor Emeritus of Physics at MIT (Read more...)
Prof. Lotfi Asker Zadeh, mathematician and computer scientist, Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley; father of Fuzzy Logic (Read more...)
Shiva Rose (Shiva Gharib-Afshar), actress (Read more...)
Dr. Anousheh Ansari, first female space tourist, leading telecommunication entrepreneur, and namesake of the X Prize (Read more...)
Sona Babai, one of the oldest women to naturalize and become a U.S. citizen at age 105 (Read more...)
Rustam Ibragimbekov, Oscar winning screenwriter and director (Read more...)
Dr. John C. Vafai, a Delegate to the GOP Convention in 2008 (Read more...)
Prof. Firuz Kazemzadeh, Professor Emeritus of Yale University, author of the 1951 "Struggle for Transcaucasia" (Read more...)
The "Baku brothers" (Rufat and Emil), professional boxers (Read more...)
Dr. Shireen Hunter, distinguished scholar at Georgetown University and Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) (Read more...)
Sara Racey Tabrizi, model and actress (Read more...)
Paul Murad, realtor and TV personality (Read more...)
Prof. S. Rob Sobhani, professor at Georgetown University, frequent contributor to The Washington Times, and other publications (Read more...)
Reza Pahlavi, son of the late shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and Queen Farrah (Read more...)
The ancestral homeland of Azerbaijani-Americans, the land of Azerbaijan, has some noteworthy achievements, boasting the following "first's" in the region (Caucasus, Central Asia, Middle East and the Turkic and Muslim World):
First parliamentary republic in the entire Greater Middle East (ADR, the democratic nation-state
founded in May 1918)
First Greater Middle East
nation to give women the right to vote (1919)
First opera
First balet
First cinematography in the Muslim world (1897)
First Latin-based alphabet among Turkic nations (1920s)
First women's college
First Christian Church in the Caucasus (Kish village, near Sheki)
First cosmonaut
First in the world:
First Space General (see Lt-Gen. Kerim Kerimov)
First oil well drilled (1848, in Bibi-Heybat)
First kerosene plant (1863)
First offshore oil field developed (1923)
First monotheism (the worship of one God, as in Zoroastrianism/Zoroastrian religion)
First Christian nation in Caucasus and one of the first in the world (313 A.D. under King Urnayir)
U.S. Azeris Network (USAN) is a registered non-profit, non-partisan,
non-sectarian genuine grassroots advocacy and voter education network
that is facilitating political activism and efforts by the
Azerbaijani-Americans and other Turkic-Americans and their associations,
organizations, councils, conferences, and other formal, semi-formal and
informal groups, on federal, state and local levels. USAN is the first
nationwide grassroots organization uniting Azerbaijani-Americans, being
created by the grassroots, for the grassroots. Website: http://www.USAzeris.org
