Esperanto-USA is the largest organization for speakers and supporters of Esperanto in the United States. It was founded in 1952 as the Esperanto League for North America in Sacramento, California. Headquartered in Emeryville, California, Esperanto-USA is a 5013 nonprofit organization and the U.S. affiliate of the Universal Esperanto Association. Phil Dorcas is President of E-USA, and Ben Speakmon is Vice-President. The organization administers the largest Esperanto-language book service in the Americas. It publishes a bimonthly bulletin Usona Esperantisto. It also publishes reference works about Esperanto. The organization's leadership consists of a president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer, and nine directors; it also has many commissioners responsible for Esperanto-USA's activity in various connections Membership is about 650. The youth section of E-USA is USEJ.
History
During the first half of the 20th century, the chief Esperanto organization for the U.S. was the Esperanto Association of North America. In the early 1950s, the early days of the Cold War, EANA's president, George Allen Connor, a fierce anti-Communist, had begun his own McCarthyist attacks against leaders of the Esperanto movement in Europe and Asia. The Universal Esperanto Association began debating whether to expel Connor, who also held a position in UEA's leadership, and also to break off relations with EANA, which was UEA's US national association. In protest against EANA, American Esperantists founded the Esperanto League for North America. Three years later, UEA recognized ELNA as its American section, and subsequently severed ties with EANA. By then, most EANA members had gone over to ELNA. EANA was quickly rendered insignificant, and had disappeared by the 1970s. In 2007, the members of the organization voted to adopt the name Esperanto-USA as an alias, while retaining the formal, official name Esperanto League for North America. Among other reasons, the change was made because the organization's scope is limited to the U.S., despite the North America in its original title. E-USA still uses its original acronym, ELNA, but only occasionally. E-USA has held an annual convention every year since 1953, usually in the United States but occasionally in Canada or Mexico. The 2010 conference of E-USA took place in Bethesda, Maryland. The 2011 conference was in Emeryville, California, the 2012 conference in Dallas, Texas, the 2015 conference in Detroit, Michigan, the 2016 conference in Miami, Florida, and the 2013 and 2017 conferences in Raleigh, North Carolina. The 2018 conference occurred in Seattle, Washington, with the 2019 conference scheduled to occur in Boston, Massachusetts. Notable speakers have included Humphrey Tonkin, Katalin Kovats, and Duncan Charters.
