BASSETERRE, ST. KITTS – Over 12,000 Kittitians and Nevisians lived on the mainland of the United States of America in 2010 and nearly 6,000 nationals in the United States Virgin Islands also in 2010.
This information was disclosed by Sandy Point-born Professor Dr. Frank L. Mills at the Annual Sandy Point Benevolent Society Banquet in the Bronx, New York.
“Even though you, like yours truly, live abroad and are part of the Kittitian-Nevisian Diaspora, it would seem useful to tell you some facts about which you may not be aware. The United States Census Bureau tells us that in 2010, there were 12,728 of you living in the states. Eighty-two percent of Kittitians-Nevisians lived in five states, and as you already know, New York had the most, or 5, 785,” said Dr. Mills, Interim Vice Provost of Research and Professor of Social Sciences at the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI), St. Thomas.
Dr. Mill, who has served as Director of the Caribbean Research Institute, Director of the Eastern Caribbean Center, Director of the VI Data Centre and Manager of the federal Census of Population and Housing, 1990, 200 and 2010, pointed out that Kittitians and Nevisians living in New York and New Jersey together made up 48 percent or just about half of all immigrants from the Federation.
“However, Florida had the second largest concentration of Kittitian-Nevisian nationals (3,130), followed by Georgia (660) and then by Virginia (487),” he told an attentive audience that included Kittitian-born U.S. Councillor, Hon. Kenrick Clifton and Mrs. Clifton and the Federation’s Ambassador to the United States, Her Excellency Mrs. Jacinth Henry-martin.
Dr. Mills said that in the United States Virgin Islands, nationals of St. Kitts and Nevis comprised the largest foreign-born group in that Territory in 2010.
“In 2000 there were 7,055 Kittitians-Nevisians there, but this dropped to 5,910 in 2010. It is quite likely that most of the missing immigrants re-migrated to the mainland states,” said Dr. Mills, who served as first Chairman of the Board of the Clarence Fitzroy Bryant College (CFBC) in St. Kitts.
