Lithuania is one of the most pro-United States nations in Europe and the world, with 73% of Lithuanians viewing the U.S. positively in 2011.[1] According to the 2012 U.S. Global Leadership Report, 48% of Lithuanians approve of U.S. leadership, with 20% disapproving and 32% uncertain.[2]
A Lithuanian poster from 1922 celebrating the recognition of Lithuania by the United States.
The United States established diplomatic relations with Lithuania on 28 July 1922. During World War II, Lithuania was at various times occupied by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. The Soviet invasion and occupation forced the closure of the Legation to Lithuania on 5 September 1940. However, Lithuanian Diplomatic Service in the United States continued uninterrupted. American prisoners of war were among Allied POWs held by the Germans in the Stalag Luft VIPOW campinGerman-occupied Lithuania.[3] The United States never recognized the forced incorporation of Lithuania into the USSR and views the present government of Lithuania as a legal continuation of the interwar republic. In 2007, the United States and Lithuania celebrated 85 years of continuous diplomatic relations. Lithuania has enjoyed most-favored-nation treatment with the United States since December 1991. Since 1992, the United States has committed more than $100 million in Lithuania to economic and political transformation and to humanitarian needs. The United States and Lithuania signed an agreement on bilateral trade and intellectual property protection in 1994 and a bilateral investment treaty in 1997. In 1998, the United States signed a "Charter of Partnership" with Lithuania and the other Baltic countries establishing bilateral working groups focusing on improving regional security, defense, and economic issues.[4]
Today, over 650,000 individuals who identify as Lithuanian American live in the United States. Lithuanian immigration began before the United States even became a country, with individuals like Alexander Curtius settling in New Amsterdam (what would later become New York City) in 1659. Lithuania was part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1795, when foreign powers partitioned it and Lithuania was largely incorporated into the Russian Empire. Despite attempts by the Tsarist government in Moscow to prevent residents of the empire from emigrating, many Lithuanians came to the United States throughout the 19th and early 20th Centuries, settling primarily in the Northeast (especially Pennsylvania) and the Midwest. Lithuanian immigration tapered off with the passage of nativist legislation like the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and the Immigration Act of 1924inCongress. Smaller waves of Lithuanian migration to the United States occurred at the end of World War II (thanks to the Displaced Persons Act) and when Lithuania regained its independence in 1990.
In November 2002, George W. Bush became the first US president to visit Lithuania.[5] It was a visit following the NATO invitation to join the alliance.
Anyone who would choose Lithuania as an enemy has also made an enemy of the United States of America.
^Megargee, Geoffrey P.; Overmans, Rüdiger; Vogt, Wolfgang (2022). The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos 1933–1945. Volume IV. Indiana University Press, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. p. 509. ISBN978-0-253-06089-1.
Alilunas, Leo J, ed. (1978). Lithuanians in the United States: selected studies. R & E Research Associates. ISBN9780882474878. OCLC4005548.
Budreckis, Algirdas (1976). The Lithuanians in America, 1651-1975: A Chronology and Fact Book. Oceania Publications. OCLC164038424.
Gedmintas, Aleksandras. “Lithuanians.” In American Immigrant Cultures: Builders of a Nation, Vol. 2, edited by David Levinson and Melvin Ember, (Macmillan, 19970 pp 588–96..
Granquist, Mark A. "Lithuanian Americans." in Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America, edited by Thomas Riggs, (3rd ed., vol. 3, Gale, 2014), pp. 111–127. Online
Kuzmickaitė, Daiva Kristina. Between Two Worlds: Recent Lithuanian Immigrants in Chicago (1998–2000). (Vilnius: Versus Aureus, 2003).
Kelly, Mary E (1996). Born again Lithuanians : ethnic conversions and pilgrimages and the resurgence of Lithuanian-American ethnic identity. University of Kansas. OCLC35004843.
Senn, Alfred Erich; Eidintas, Alfonsas (Spring 1987). "Lithuanian Immigrants in America and the Lithuanian National Movement before 1914". Journal of American Ethnic History. 6 (2): 5–19. JSTOR27500524.
"Lithuanians" in Thernstrom, Stephan, Ann Orlov and Oscar Handlin, eds. Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (1980) Online
This article incorporates public domain material from U.S. Bilateral Relations Fact Sheets. United States Department of State.
