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No Enclave — Exploring Sri Lankan Los Angeles – Eric Brightwell Source:Eric Brightwell INTRODUCTION As of 2010, there were 45,159 Sri Lankans living in the US. Substantial immigration began in the 1990s when many fled the violence of the Sri Lankan Civil War. The majority of Sri Lankan-Americans live in the vicinity of either New York City (where there’s a Little Sri Lanka on Staten Island), central New Jersey, or Los Angeles. Roughly half of Sri Lankans in America are of the Sinhalese ethnicity although as inter-ethnic violence intensified in the 1980s, many Tamils fled, most of whom settled in the UK, India, or Canada. America’s Sri Lankan population is relatively small, accounting for only 6% of the diaspora. In Los Angeles, there is no real concentration of Sri Lankan businesses, although most Sri Lankan businesses are located around the San Fernando Valley, a highly diverse region where it seems many ethnicities not represented by enclaves settle. Within the San Fernando Valley, that presence is particularly felt in the neighborhoods of Reseda and Tarzana. ...