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Immigrants to Norway have a lot in common with Norwegian emigrants to the USA
After three generations, ties to the grandparents’ homeland have weakened.
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Over the course of a few decades, 900,000 Norwegian immigrants poured into the United States.
2025 marked 200 years since the first boat left – packed with people who had sold everything they owned to seek fortune in a new country. The large waves of Norwegian immigration ended around 1930.
Are the experiences of Norwegian immigrants to the USA similar to what immigrants to Norway experience today?
We asked two of them.
Masud Gharahkhani came to Norway as a five-year-old with his Iranian parents. Today he is the President of the Norwegian Parliament, called Storting.
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Okafor Ugochukwu was 29 when he came to Norway from England. He had immigrated there from Nigeria to study.
Norwegians lived together
The Norwegian immigrants to the United States settled close together in their own neighbourhoods in the cities or small communities in the Midwest.
At the Norwegian asylum reception centre, Gharahkhani's parents were advised to settle in a small community. They chose Skotselv, a small village in Eastern Norway. There were not many Iranians there.
Today, Gharahkhani is happy with the choice his parents made.
“I wasn’t Masud from Iran, but Masud from the neighbourhood Kopperud. It happened very quickly," he says.
Ugochukwu lives in Bergen. He does not live in the same neighbourhood or community with other Nigerians.
"That's not really a thing for us," he says.
He is more Igbo than Nigerian. The Igbo are an ethnic group of 44 out of the 240 million who live in Nigeria.
“We Igbos have a strong bond, but it is not so important where we live, whether it is in the same city or far away from each other,” he says.
Spoke Norwegian at home
Language was a big challenge for the Norwegian immigrants to the United States. Many kept speaking Norwegian all their lives; others learned English quickly. Their children learned Norwegian but did not pass it on to their own children.
In Gharahkhani's home, they spoke Farsi, the language of Iran.
“I speak Farsi very well, but I can’t write or read it. I don’t remember learning Norwegian, it came naturally,” he says.
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Gharahkhani's wife also has an Iranian background.
“She speaks Farsi with our son, while I use a mix of both. He now speaks Farsi well, but with a Norwegian accent,” he says.
Ugochukwu speaks Igbo and English, which is the official language of Nigeria.
“I also speak simple Norwegian. My biggest problem is that I translate word for word and use English grammar. In my work at Foodora, I use both Norwegian and English,” he says.
His wife is Romanian-Hungarian, and the two of them speak English together and with the children.
“But sometimes I mix in Igbo words and sentences,” says Ugochukwu.
Lutefisk and lefse
The first generation of Norwegian immigrants made food from their homeland. Today, several generations later, lutefisk (fish cured in lye) and lefse (soft and sweet flatbread) are what remain of Norwegian food tradition.
Gharahkhani's family ate both Iranian and Norwegian food, even though the local grocery store had few Persian ingredients in the 1980s.
“My father and I ate sausage and pork belly, but my mother didn't like pork,” he says.
Gharahkhani has continued with a good mix of food traditions.
“Today it’s easier to get hold of spices and various foods. I like to cook, especially Persian grilled food with marinades. We eat a mix of Iranian and Norwegian food,” he says.
“I’ll never give up Nigerian food,” says Okafor Ugochukwu.
In Nigeria, it's rice that counts. They eat it in different varieties, but jollof rice is the most well-known. It's spiced rice, tomatoes, onions, and peppers served with meat or fish.
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“Jollof rice is what we eat most often at home, since my wife and kids like it,” he says.
The family is less enthusiastic about dishes with plantain and fufu, a firm semolina porridge served with soup. But Ugochukwu hopes the children will get used to them.
Otherwise, they eat a lot of Norwegian food. The family follows the Norwegian tradition of tacos on Fridays.
May 17 parade and Norwegian Christmas
Norwegian immigrants to the USA continued to celebrate May 17, Norway's Constitution Day, and Norwegian Christmas. Their descendants maintain the Norwegian holidays, even though numbers are declining.
Both Gharahkhani and Ugochukwu mention May 17 first when asked about holidays.
Gharahkhani also celebrates Nowruz, the Persian New Year, on March 21.
“It’s a spring festival. We gather family and friends and eat Persian food. There’s a lot of fish, which fits well when you live in Norway,” he says.
Gharahkhani’s Christmas is Norwegian with pork belly, but also Persian stew.
Ugochukwu celebrates Nigerian Christmas.
“We have the biggest and best Christmas celebration in the world from December 21 to January 10. It’s called Detty December, and Nigerians from all over the world travel home to join the festivities. I’m travelling this year too,” says Ugochukwu.
He doesn’t celebrate the new yam festival in August or the Nigerian National Day on October 1.
“We’re not so nationalistic in Nigeria. We’re more sceptical about how the authorities have messed things up. There’s a celebration in Oslo, but I don't mark the day in any way,” says Ugochukwu.
School and church in Norwegian
The Norwegian immigrants built and ran their own schools and churches with services in Norwegian and imported priests from Norway.
Gharahkhani went to a Norwegian school. Even though his family was Muslim, he attended the Mission Church in Skotselv.
“There I learned about the Bible and Jesus, but it was just as much an after-school activity. I also took part in the confirmation classes. My parents were totally fine with it. I was even on my way into the church on the big day, but the priest stopped me and said ‘this far, but no further',” he says.
The mosques in Norway are like the churches in the USA. They are organised according to the immigrants’ country of origin.
“But Iranians are not the ones who frequent mosques the most. For me, as a Muslim, it feels completely natural to go into a church. There I find peace and can pray. That’s how I grew up,” says Gharahkhani.
Ugochukwu comes from a strict Christian background, but does not practice it in Norway.
“My parents were deeply Christian. I thought I would end up in hell if I didn't go to church every Sunday. But people in wealthy and safe Norway don't need religion in the same way as people in poor countries,” he says.
Homemade and different
Norwegian immigrants had suitcases full of home-sewn wool clothes. It clashed with both the climate and fashion in the United States. But with little money, it was not easy to buy new clothes.
Ugochukwu recognises himself in that. When he came to England, he brought clothes that were trendy in Nigeria.
“I showed up at university with super-tight jeans and my T-shirt tucked in. It was not at all fashionable in England. People were polite, but I could see their looks,” says Ugochukwu.
As a student, he couldn't afford to buy new clothes.
“So I went to thrift stores and sales. Within a couple of years I had replaced my entire wardrobe," he says.
Gharahkhani came from a Tehran that was Western and modern . The clothes fit in well in Norway.
“But we landed in minus 20 degrees, so we weren't fully prepared," he says.
Held on to Norwegian culture
Some Norwegian immigrants embraced American culture. Others resisted integration and wanted to continue as they had in their homeland.
“I’ll never forget my culture, but it’s very different from the Norwegian one,” says Ugochukwu.
He learns something new about Norwegian culture every day from friends and colleagues. He shares it on social media as Baba update.
"I’m a person who wants to learn. But sometimes the Nigerian comes out in me. Then I sit down next to someone on the bus and start talking to them. If I talk about the weather, it goes well. Other times I think it's lovely to sit inside the Norwegian bubble and not be disturbed," says Ugochukwu.
The same thing happens in Nigeria, where everyone talks to everyone.
“Then I feel that the Norwegian in me kicks in and that I need distance. Now I feel both Nigerian and Norwegian,” he says.
For five-year-old Gharahkhani and his family, integration happened quickly. His parents quickly got jobs and bought a home. The son got a bonus grandmother in the neighbourhood, played football, and had Norwegian friends.
“Norway is my country and my heart. This is where I grew up. But I’m proud of my Iranian background. The good values I’ve learned, I want to pass on to my son,” says Gharahkhani.
Ugochukwu's children are also Norwegian. Still, he wants them to understand their whole background.
“When my son was five, I started saying that yes, you are Norwegian, but you are also Nigerian, Romanian, and Hungarian. I want to give them an identity that isn't only Norwegian. That’s why we travel to Nigeria and Romania,” says Ugochukwu.
He knows that one day his children will be asked where they are really from and he wants to prepare them for it.
“I get that question all the time, but it’s a common question, even among Norwegians. I’m not offended by it,” says Ugochukwu.
It may be different if you stand out from the majority
“On a very general basis, this is a classic description of the long-term process that unfolds over generations."
That is what Arnfinn Midtbøen, sociology professor at the University of Oslo, says about how the Norwegian immigrants became part of American society, little by little.
“Norwegian researchers are studying whether that process will repeat itself for groups whose skin colour or religion is further removed from the dominant culture in the majority society,” says Midtbøen.
A lot remains to be studied on this topic.
Because while Norwegian descendants in the USA may have many generations behind them, Norway’s immigration history is relatively young. So there’s a lot we still don’t know, especially about third-generation immigrants.
It's also uncertain how experiences vary between different immigrant groups in Norway.
Less research on Europeans
“Research in Norway is predominantly focused on descendants of immigrants who have parents from Asia, Africa, and Latin America,” says Midtbøen.
Research on Polish and Western European immigrants shows that they do not differ much from the majority population in education, income, and occupation.
The assumption is that the integration process will flow more naturally for them.
"A symbolic ethnicity"
The fact that Americans with Norwegian ancestry still celebrate their Norwegian heritage does not necessarily mean that it defines them, says Midtbøen.
"It becomes a kind of symbolic ethnicity – something that doesn’t really affect people’s opportunities in life or make them see themselves as minorities. Instead, it’s more like traditions and memories people hold onto, and a story they share with others," he says.
He believes that the narrative of having an immigrant background may be stronger in the United States.
But there are also other places. Midtbøen mentions the Finnforestdays in Norway, a celebration of Forest Finns' culture. The majority of Finnish immigrants arrived in the mid-1600s.
“I imagine there's something deeply human in preserving family history – where you come from, memories, and stories,” he says.
The first generation goes through the 'critical phase'
Midtbøen points out that a lot is different in the America of the past and in today’s Norway.
“But I think a lot of things are universal, especially for first-generation immigrants,” he says.
In a lot of ways, you have to find yourself again and gradually recognise that the choice to emigrate was more permanent than you might have thought beforehand.
What happens over time and across generations also depends on what status you have in the new society and whether you’re accepted, says Midtbøen.
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Translated by Ingrid P. Nuse
Read the Norwegian version of this article on forskning.no
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