Although most Latvians settled in cities, in most of these (with the exception of the Roxbury district of Boston) they lived dispersed and did not form ethnic neighborhoods.

The first Lutheran church built by Latvians in the United States was erected in 1906 in Lincoln County, Wisconsin, where an agricultural colony had been established in 1897.

Most of the Latvian revolutionaries were more politically radical than the earlier immigrants to the United States, which increased social friction within a number of communities.

[5]After World War I, the promise of economic improvements in the newly independent nation, immigration quotas established in 1924 by the United States, and the Great Depression all contributed to reduced emigration from Latvia to the US.

[6] Toward the end of World War II, tens of thousands Latvians fled their country to Western Europe to escape advancing Soviet troops.

[5] Within a few years, Latvian organizations created schools, credit unions, choirs, dance groups, theater troupes, publishers and book sellers, churches, veterans' groups (e.g. the Daugavas vanagi, Hawks of the Daugava), and political organizations to help continue their culture and language.

Many Latvian Americans (about 9,000) have dual citizenship, which the country made available to emigrants after becoming independent of the Soviet Union.