Ethnic Groups

View Media (37)
African-American women in formal dresses with a child sitting in chairs while men in suits stand behind them
African Americans
African Americans constitute 15.1 percent of Arkansas’s population, according to the 2020 census, and they h...
Group of indigenous women in traditional clothing lined in rows some singing as four men hold drum
Caddo Nation
Caddo Indians enter written history in chronicles of the Hernando de Soto expedition, which describe encounter...
Charcoal portrait drawing of Native American man wearing necklaces and a wide antique hat decorated with stars.
Cherokee
The Europeans named the Cherokee as one of the Five Civilized Tribes. (The other four were the Chickasaw, Choc...
Native American man with short gray hair smiling in hat and suit
Chickasaw
Heading east, the ancestral Chickasaw crossed Arkansas looking for a new homeland at some point in prehistory....
Chinese family including girl standing to far left next to four people sitting on wooden chairs in row man holding young girl woman holding infant a teenage boy and a younger boy two other children one boy and one girl seated cross legged on ground in front
Chinese
The introduction of the Chinese to Arkansas can be traced back to their roots as a sojourners’ society—men...
Barbed wire fence post with "Choc." written on it
Choctaw
The Choctaw are of the Western Muskogean language stock, which is also the same stock as the Chickasaw. When f...
Delaware
Members of many tribes displaced from homelands east of the Mississippi River temporarily resided in Arkansas ...
white man in priest's collar and glasses
Germans
German immigrants played a significant role in the development of Arkansas’s economy and in the founding of ...
White man in white clerical robes with two older white women in dresses
Greeks
Though small in number compared to other immigrant groups, Greeks and Greek Americans in Arkansas have had a n...
Group of Hmong men and women in traditional garb
Hmong
The Hmong are an ethnic group from Southeast Asia, and their presence in Arkansas stems from the evacuation of...
Group of people posing with train cars at depot
Immigration
The peopling of Arkansas has taken place since prehistoric times, beginning with the migration of early Native...
White man in bishop's robes wearing a cross necklace
Irish
Irish migration to Arkansas took place throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in three distinct set...
Statue of a man with suitcase in his right hand and hat over his heart on engraved pedestal next to tree with white flowers
Italians
Few people associate Arkansas with Italian immigration to America, assuming immigrants settled only in the urb...
Group of white Jewish children in stage costumes
Jews
Jews have always been a tiny minority of Arkansas’s population, yet their history in the state is long and d...
Koroa
The Koroa are one of many “small tribes” of the southeastern United States that are mentioned briefly in h...
"El Latino" August 2 2007 magazine cover with heading "Cambia Panorama" Latin Americans group photo
Latinos
aka: Hispanics
The Latino population in Arkansas, which began its rapid growth in ...
Marshallese
aka: Marshall Islanders
Marshallese have been migrating from their remote and beautiful Nor...
White man in suit speaking at a lectern with mixed group of men and women behind him
Multiculturalism
The term “multiculturalism” is usually employed to describe the promotion of multiple cultural traditions,...
Three Caddo women in dresses and hair ornamentation photographed from behind
Native Americans
Arkansas was home to Native Americans long before Europeans arrived. The first explorers met Indians whose anc...
Map showing extent of Native American land claims in Arkansas
Osage
The Osage lived in several villages located in southwest Missouri when Europeans began to explore and settle t...
Prehistoric Caddo
aka: Caddo, Prehistoric
Prehistoric Caddo culture developed as a regional variant of the Mi...
Native American men and women standing in clearing surrounded by mound buildings and trees
Quapaw
The Quapaw are members of the Dhegiha Siouan language group, which also includes the Osage, the Omaha, the Pon...
Romani
aka: Gypsy
The Romani, commonly referred to as Gypsies (although this term is,...
mannequin dressed as indigenous person posed with iron pot in front of mural depicting indigenous life
Shawnee
Among the immigrant Native Americans who lived in territorial Arkansas were several Shawnee communities. They ...
"A great work" newspaper clipping
St. Joseph Colony
St. Joseph Colony, covering land throughout Conway, Faulkner, and Pope counties, served Roman Catholics living...
Tunica
aka: Tunican Indians
The Tunica were one of several Native American tribes situated in t...