World - AP
Asian Population Surging Across America
By GENARO C. ARMAS, Associated Press Writer
FALLS CHURCH, Va. - Asians are projected to be the fastest-growing major population category over the next half-century, outpacing blacks, whites and Hispanics. Recent Census Bureau projections show the Asian population could grow by a third, to 14 million, by 2010 and more than triple to 33 million in 2050.
AP Photo / Fri Apr 30, 4:05 PM ET / Asian shoppers shop at the Eden Center, a Vietnamese dominated shopping center in Falls Church, Va., Wednesday, April 6, 2004. Asians are projected to be the fastest-growing major population category over the next half-century, outpacing blacks, whites and Hispanics. (AP Photo/Lawrence Jackson)
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U.S. National - AP
Asian Population in U.S. in 2050
Fri Apr 30, 3:50 PM ET
By The Associated Press
The U.S. population on July 1, 2000, and July 1, 2050, by race and ethnicity, according to projections from the Census Bureau (news - web sites). Total population is in millions. Estimates for whites, blacks and Asians refer to those who are of only one race. Percentages for white refer only to those who were not of Hispanic ethnicity.
BY RACE AND ETHNICITY
Group 2000 2050
Total pop. 282.1 419.8
Pct white 69.4 50.1
Pct black 12.7 14.6
Pct Asian 3.8 8.0
All other races 2.5 5.3
Hispanic (of 12.6 24.4
any race)
A breakdown of those Americans who selected only "Asian" as their race in the April 1, 2000 census. The "other Asian" category in 2000 refers to those who identified themselves with a nationality not listed, or with two or more nationalities. The "other Asian" category in 1990 did not count people of two or more nationalities.
Race or nationality 2000 pop. 1990 pop. Pct Chg.
Asian only 10,242,998 6,908,638 48
All nationalities
Asian Indian 1,678,765 815,447 106
Chinese 2,432,585 1,645,472 48
Filipino 1,850,314 1,406,770 32
Japanese 796,700 847,562 -6
Korean 1,076,872 798,849 35
Vietnamese 1,122,528 614,547 83
Other Asian 1,285,234 779,991 65
Immigrants from India and Vietnam contributed to the population surge during the 1990s. That's when the Eden Center strip mall really started growing in Falls Church, Va., about nine miles west of the nation's capital.
On a recent weekday afternoon, shoppers strolled down the corridors and sidewalks of the 120-shop mall with bags and children in hand. A group of older men huddled around a table watching two others play a game of Chinese chess, while some visitors perused videos at a rental store. The yellow-and-red striped flag of the former South Vietnam fluttered high above the parking lot, next to an American flag.
"A good bit of it reminds me of home," Nguyen Ngoc Bich, 67, says as he strolls past the shops. Bich, a former Vietnamese diplomat who settled in the United States as a refugee in 1975 after the Vietnam War, was one of the mall's original investors.
"Just close your eyes and all you hear around is Vietnamese being spoken. It's all the familiar sounds of home," he said.
Like previous immigrant groups, many Asians come to America looking for a better job, more education or to reunite with relatives and friends.
Asians in America still concentrate in urban areas, but as with other minorities, are increasing in number in the suburbs and rural areas. A place like Eden Center serves as a gathering place similar to New York's Chinatown neighborhood, says Min Zhou, chair of the Asian American Studies program at the University of California at Los Angeles.
"It's a cultural hub and some sort of buffer" for those immigrants who live or work in mainly white areas, Zhou said. "You don't need it, but if you have it, it makes your life much more richer."
Asians with a Chinese background are the largest single group, with 2.4 million. But the population of Indian-Americans grew the most during the 1990s — 106 percent to 1.7 million. Vietnamese were next at 83 percent and grew to 1.1 million in 2000.
The technology boom of the 1990s lured many immigrants from India. Large numbers settled in California's Silicon Valley and other high-tech hotbeds like the Dulles Corridor outside Washington.
A catch-all category of "other Asians" had 1.3 million people in 2000. This included groups like the Hmong, whose population nearly doubled to 169,000. The Hmong are an ethnic group from the highlands of Laos who fought the communists alongside the CIA during the Vietnam War.
Many of the Vietnamese and Hmong came to America as political refugees. And a large number are children of U.S. soldiers stationed in southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.
Growth has occurred beyond traditional gateways like New York and California. Towns along the Gulf of Mexico have for years attracted immigrant fishermen from Vietnam and Cambodia, and resettlement programs have created large Hmong refugee communities in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
There are numerous ripple effects. Many localities have created community outreach positions to learn about the needs of these new populations.
More businesses and strip malls like Eden Center are sprouting across the country, as more Asian families settle outside of cities. One such mall in Las Vegas, called Chinatown Plaza, bills itself as the "largest master-planned Chinatown in America."
Varun Nikore heads the Indian American Leadership Initiative, an organization that seeks to entice more Indian Americans into politics, an area that Nikore calls a "last slice of the American pie."
Out of the more than 1.7 million people of Indian descent in the United States, only a handful are in politics and none are higher than state legislative office, Nikore says.
"They're involved in cultural programs, and they are politically aware, but they haven't done the extra hurdle of trying to run for office," Nikore says. "We're basically trying to take the mystery out of the campaign process."
Whether projections about Asian population growth hold true depends largely on any changes to U.S. immigration policy, demographers note. They also suggest that improving economic conditions in Asian countries could reduce the number of people moving to America.
On the Net:
Census Bureau:
http://www.census.gov
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And so it begins -
by: bigbear56 (45/M/Portland, OR)
or continues.. the eroding and destruction from within, of a once-great United States. Immigrants no longer come to be BE Americans, but to milk us for a paycheck to send "home" (they never consider America home) and thus syphon off our wealth to prop up their own failed economy. Sad, to watch the Great Experiment fail.
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USA = United States of Asians
by: josh_casuga
o right!
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I married an Asian b/c white women suck
by: proudx
White american women are too selfish and think everyone owes them something. They would like all the same rights as men but at the same time be treated better than men.
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Immigration must be stopped!
by: kagan
America is getting overcrowded. Soon there will be not enough fresh water for everybody. Sure as hell US cannot aford to accept all the Asians that would want to come here and commit suicide by doing so so just stop emigration and neutralize anti-white judeic based propaganda within US.
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