Stateside Virgin Islands Americans are West Indian Americans who hold US citizenship and who have migrated from the U.S. Virgin Islands to the continental United States and Hawaii, and their descendants.
Persons born in the U.S. Virgin Islands are United States citizens, and as a result do not go through the legal immigration procedures a typical West Indies immigrant would. Virgin Islanders in the U.S. are considered part of the Caribbean American community.
It is difficult to determine how many Virgin Islanders reside in the United States proper. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, there are 15,014 people of U.S. Virgin Islands ancestry residing in the continental United States and Hawaii. However, a count of American residents with "U.S. Virgin Islands ancestry" excludes most U.S. Virgin Islands-born migrants in the United States proper. Because of a high incidence of inter-Caribbean migration throughout the 1960s and 1970s, most native-born Virgin Islanders today are one or two generations removed from other Caribbean islands and would not necessarily define themselves as having "U.S. Virgin Islands ancestry." For example, Tim Duncan is a St. Croix native with Anguillian ancestry.
Demographics
Virgin Island Americans includes Americans with ancestry from both the US Virgin Islands and British Virgin Islands, together numbering about 25,000. A majority of Virgin Islands Americans are of black Afro-Caribbean descent, many of whom descend from enslaved Africans brought to the islands by Europeans in the colonial era. A large portion descends from black or mixed race migrants who came from other parts of the Caribbean including Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and many smaller countries in the Lesser Antilles.
Many Virgin Islands Americans concentrate in areas with a large overall Caribbean population, including areas like New York, Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
Notable people
Actors
Wayne Brady (born 1972), actor; born in Georgia
Lisa Canning (born 1966), television actress; born on St. Thomas
Kelsey Grammer (born 1955), actor; born on St. Thomas
Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs (born 1953), actor; born in New York City
Jasmin St. Claire (born 1972), adult film actress; born in Christiansted, St. Croix Karrine Steffans (born 1978), New York Times bestselling author, former hip hop music video performer, actress; born on St. Thomas
Artists
Fraser Kershaw, philanthropist, film artist
Athletes
Christian Lloyd Joseph born 1972, Professional Boxer and former I.B.C Intercontinental Middleweight Champion Raja Bell (born 1976), basketball player; born on St. Croix Tombi Bell (born 1979), basketball player, who last played for the Minnesota Lynx of the WNBA; born on St. Croix Joe Christopher (born 1935), the first Virgin Islander to play in Major League Baseball; born in Frederiksted, St. Croix Midre Cummings (born 1971), baseball player; born on St. Croix Tim Duncan (born 1976), professional basketball player (San Antonio Spurs); born in Christiansted, St. Croix Emile Griffith (1938–2013), boxer; born on St. Thomas Elrod Hendricks (1940–2005), Major League Baseball player and coach; born in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas Julian Jackson (born 1960), boxer; born on St. Thomas Calvin Pickering (born 1976), baseball player; born on St. Thomas Sugar Ray Seales (born 1952), 1972 Olympic Gold Medalist (139 lbs.) boxer; born on St. Croix.
Musicians
Alton Adams (1889–1987), musician, first black bandmaster in the United States Navy; born in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas Bennie Benjamin (1907–1989), composer, songwriter, philanthropist; born in Christiansted, St. Croix Jon Lucien, jazz musician; born on Tortola, raised on St. Thomas Rock City, a musical duo of composed brothers Timothy and Theron Thomas, born on St. Thomas Sonny Rollins, jazz musician; born in New York, of St. Thomas (mother) and St. Croix (father) descent