ABSTRACT
Sri Lankan Americans constitute the smallest of the major South Asian American communities, after, in descending order, Indians, Bangladeshis, and Pakistanis. Arriving in small numbers since the 1970s, most have come seeking better economic circumstances or higher education, though a few have come as war refugees. Sri Lanka, known before 1972 as Ceylon, has been torn by civil war between the Buddhist Sinhalese majority (about 75 percent of the population) and a Tamil Hindu and Muslim minority (about 15 percent) since the early 1980s.
