Demography - Asian-americans

The term "Asian-American" is a catch-all term that did not gain currency until the late 1960s and early 1970s. It was not until 1980 that the Census Bureau created the "Asian and Pacific Islander" category, a departure from the previous practice of counting several Asian groups separately. Although seemingly a geographic description, "Asian and Pacific Islander" contains racial overtones, given that natives of Australia and New Zealand are not included, nor are whites born in the Asian region of the former Soviet Union. According to Census 2000, the Asian-American population was 10.2 million, making up 3.6 percent of the country's population. Native Hawaiian

TABLE 1.11
Profile of general demographic characteristics in the midwestern United States, 2000

Subject	Number	Percent	Subject	Number	Percent
Total population	64,392,776	100.0	Hispanic or Latino and race Total population	64,392,776	100.0
Sex and age			Hispanic or Latino (of any race)	3,124,532	4.9
Male	31,555,438	49.0	Mexican	2,200,196	3.4
Female	32,837,338	51.0	Puerto Rican	325,363	0.5
			Cuban	45,305	0.1
Under 5 years	4,353,169	6.8	Other Hispanic or Latino	553,668	0.9
5 to 9 years	4,688,024	7.3	Not Hispanic or Latino	61,268,244	95.1
10 to 14 years	4,763,911	7.4	White alone	52,386,131	81.4
15 to 19 years	4,766,600	7.4
20 to 24 years	4,316,080	6.7	Relationship
25 to 34 years	8,745,989	13.6	Total population	64,392,776	100.0
35 to 44 years	10,278,309	16.0	In households	62,600,946	97.2
45 to 54 years	8,674,202	13.5	Householder	24,734,532	38.4
55 to 59 years	3,070,475	4.8	Spouse	12,963,564	20.1
60 to 64 years	2,476,942	3.8	Child	19,250,310	29.9
65 to 74 years	4,247,710	6.6	Own child under 18 years	15,177,885	23.6
75 to 84 years	2,947,070	4.6	Other relatives	2,619,519	4.1
85 years and over	1,064,295	1.7	Under 18 years	1,072,322	1.7
Median age (years)	35.6	(X)	Nonrelatives	3,033,021	4.7
			Unmarried partner	1,258,969	2.0
18 years and over	47,745,110	74.1	In group quarters	1,791,830	2.8
Male	23,022,220	35.8	Institutionalized population	942,411	1.5
Female	24,722,890	38.4	Noninstitutionalized population	849,419	1.3
21 years and over	44,874,124	69.7
62 years and over	9,696,390	15.1	Household by type
65 years and over	8,259,075	12.8	Total households	24,734,532	100.0
Male	3,364,156	5.2	Family households (families)	16,670,330	67.4
Female	4,894,919	7.6	With own children under 18 years	8,019,844	32.4
			Married-couple family	12,963,564	52.4
Race			With own children under 18 years	5,841,512	23.6
One race	63,370,308	98.4	Female householder, no husband present	2,758,239	11.2
White	53,833,651	83.6	With own children under 18 years	1,678,108	6.8
Black or African American	6,499,733	10.1	Nonfamily households	8,064,202	32.6
American Indian and Alaska Native	399,490	0.6	Householder living alone	6,644,087	26,9
Asian	1,197,554	1.9	Householder 65 years and over	2,441,025	9.9
Asian Indian	293,012	0.5
Chinese	212,081	0.3	Households with individuals under 18 years	8,673,899	35.1
Filipino	151,057	0.2	Households with individuals 65 years and over	5,745,728	23.2
Japanese	63,012	0.1	Average household size	2.53	(X)
Korean	132,378	0.2	Average family size	3.09	(X)
Vietnamese	106,938	0.2
Other Asian1	239,076	0.4	Housing occupancy
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander	22,492	–	Total housing units	26,963,635	100.0
Native Hawaiian	5,812	–	Occupied housing units	24,734,532	91.7
Guamanian or Chamorro	4,587	–	Vacant housing units	2,229,103	8.3
Samoan	5,089	–	For seasonal, recreational, or
Other Pacific Islander2	7,004	–	occasional use	714,853	2.7
Some other race	1,417,388	2.2
Two or more races	1,022,468	1.6	Homeowner vacancy rate (percent)	1.6	(X)
			Rental vacancy rate (percent)	7.2	(X)
Race alone or in combination with one or more other races:3			Housing tenure
White	54,709,407	85.0	Occupied housing units	24,734,532	100.0
Black or African American	6,838,669	10.6	Owner-occupied housing units	17,373,745	70.2
American Indian and Alaska Native	714,792	1.1	Renter-occupied housing units	7,360,787	29.8
Asian	1,392,938	2.2
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander	55,364	0.1	Average household size of owner-occupied units	2.66	(X)
Some other race	1,769,970	2.7	Average household size of renter-occupied units	2.23	(X)
–Represents zero or rounds to zero. (X) Not applicable.
1Other Asian alone, or two or more Asian categories.
2Other Pacific Islander alone, or two or more Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander categories.
3In combination with one or more of the other races listed. The six numbers may add to more than the total population and the six percentages may add to more than 100 percent because individuals may report more than one race.
SOURCE: "Table DP-1. Profile of General Demographic Characteristics: 2000, Geographic Area: Midwest Region," in Profiles of General Demographic Characteristics 2000, U.S. Census Bureau, Washington, DC, May 2001

and other Pacific Islanders had a population of 398,835, making up 0.1 percent of the total U.S. population. An additional 475,579 claimed in Census 2000 to be Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander in combination with one or more other races, bringing the total to 874,414. (See Table 1.1.)

Chinese Immigration in 1800s

The first major immigration of people from Asia to the United States involved the Chinese. From the time of the California gold rush of 1849 until the early 1880s, it is estimated that as many as 250,000 Chinese immigrated to America, with the vast majority coming from the Pearl River delta of Guangdong Province. Most hoped to strike it rich in California, the "Golden Mountain," and then return home. A few fulfilled that dream, but the vast majority stayed in America, two-thirds in California, where they faced intense discrimination. They became the object of political posturing that portrayed "cheap Chinese labor" as a threat to American workers.

While most African-Americans were able to gain citizenship with the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, an exception was carved out for Asian immigrants. They were designated "aliens ineligible to citizenship." The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 (22 Stat. 58) then stopped the entry of Chinese into the country, with the exception of a few merchants and students. As a result, China became the source of America's first illegal aliens. In addition to jumping ship or illegally crossing borders, many took advantage of the 1906 earthquake and devastating fires in San Francisco, which destroyed the city's vital statistics records, to gain legal status by forging birth certificates. By law, any male of Chinese heritage born in America had the right to return to China for any children they fathered (although they could not bring back the alien mother), so that many of these fraudulent U.S. citizens escorted to America a host of "paper sons." Despite this traffic and other means of illegal entry, the Chinese American population actually declined from the 1880s to the 1920s. Laws regarding Chinese immigration to the United States did not change until World War II, when China became an ally and President Roosevelt persuaded Congress to repeal the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Other nationalities that comprise the Asian-American category also immigrated to the United States prior to World War II. The Japanese first came to the United States in significant numbers during the 1890s, although many laborers had previously settled in Hawaii. Like the Chinese, the Japanese lived for the most part in the western United States. There was some call for a "Japanese Exclusion Act," but because Japan was an emerging Pacific power such legislation was never passed. Overall, Japanese immigrants fared better than their Chinese counterparts and soon outpaced them in population. Nevertheless, when Japan and the United States went to war in 1941, approximately 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent were removed from their homes and confined in detention camps. Although the United States was also at war with Germany and Italy, citizens of German and Italian descent or birth were not subject to incarceration without cause.

Before World War II, Filipinos, Asian Indians, and Koreans represented a negligible share of the Asian-American population, at less than 0.2 percent. In 1940 there were an estimated 250,000 Asian-Americans, of which 120,000 were Japanese, 78,000 Chinese, and 46,000 Filipinos. Asian Indians totaled some 5,000, and Koreans numbered even fewer. As was the case with Puerto Ricans, Filipinos began to immigrate to the United States in the years following the Spanish-American War, when their country was annexed and eventually granted commonwealth status. Designated "American nationals," Filipinos held a unique position: They were not eligible for citizenship, but they also could not be prevented from entering the United States. Many Filipinos immigrated during the 1920s looking for work, but the Great Depression of the 1930s stemmed this flow. Asian Indians had come to the United States in small numbers, generally settling in New York City and other eastern ports, but it was not until the early years of the twentieth century that they began immigrating to the West Coast, generally entering through western Canada. Koreans came to the United States from Hawaii, where several thousand had immigrated between 1903 and 1905. Both Asian Indians and Koreans, however, would lose their eligibility to enter the United States following the Immigration Act of 1917 (39 Stat. 874), accounting for their small populations prior to World War II. Once the Chinese Exclusion act was repealed, however, the door was also open for Filipinos and Asian Indians to gain entry to the United States as well as to earn citizenship during the postwar years. The Korean War in the early 1950s led to a long-term U.S. military presence in the country, resulting in a number of Korean-born wives of military personnel relocating to the United States. In addition, many Korean children were adopted and brought to America. A larger influx of Koreans, a family migration, took place in the mid-1960s.

Sharp Rise in Immigration

The growth of the Asian-American population during the 1980s continued a trend that had begun during the 1960s, when their population rose by more than 55 percent. During the 1970s the Asian and Pacific Islander (API) population increased 141 percent. Between 1980 and 1991 almost half (46.2 percent) of all immigrants admitted to the United States arrived from Asia. API immigration during the 1980s can be divided into two "streams." The first stream came from Asian countries that already had large populations in the United States (such as the People's Republic of China, Korea, and the Philippines). These immigrants, many of whom were highly educated, came primarily for family reunification and through employment provisions of the immigration laws. The second stream consisted primarily of immigrants and refugees from the war-torn countries of Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia). They were admitted under U.S. policies that supported admitting political refugees after the Vietnam War, as well as those escaping unstable economic and political conditions in neighboring countries. Between 1975 and 1994 more than 1.2 million refugees arrived in the United States from Southeast Asia and China.

TABLE 1.12
Asian population by detailed group, 2000

	Asian alone		Asian in combination with one or more other races
Detailed group	One Asian group reported	Two or more Asian groups reported1	One Asian group reported	Two or more Asian groups reported1	Asian detailed group alone or in any combination
Total	10,019,405	223,593	1,516,841	138,989	11,898,828
Asian Indian	1,678,765	40,013	165,437	15,384	1,899,599
Bangladeshi	41,280	5,625	9,655	852	57,412
Bhutanese	183	9	17	3	212
Burmese	13,159	1,461	1,837	263	16,720
Cambodian	171,937	11,832	20,830	1,453	206,052
Chinese, except Taiwanese	2,314,537	130,826	201,688	87,790	2,734,841
Filipino	1,850,314	57,811	385,236	71,454	2,364,815
Hmong	169,428	5,284	11,153	445	186,310
Indo Chinese	113	55	23	8	199
Indonesian	39,757	4,429	17,256	1,631	63,073
Iwo Jiman	15	3	60	-	78
Japanese	796,700	55,537	241,209	55,486	1,148,932
Korean	1,076,872	22,550	114,211	14,794	1,228,427
Laotian	168,707	10,396	17,914	1,186	198,203
Malaysian	10,690	4,339	2,837	700	18,566
Maldivian	27	2	22	-	51
Nepalese	7,858	351	1,128	62	9,399
Okinawan	3,513	2,625	2,816	1,645	10,599
Pakistani	153,533	11,095	37,587	2,094	204,309
Singaporean	1,437	580	307	70	2,394
Sri Lankan	20,145	1,219	2,966	257	24,587
Taiwanese	118,048	14,096	11,394	1,257	144,795
Thai	112,989	7,929	27,170	2,195	150,283
Vietnamese	1,122,528	47,144	48,639	5,425	1,223,736
Other Asian, not specified2	146,870	19,576	195,449	7,535	369,430
-Represents zero.
1The numbers by detailed Asian group do not add to the total population. This is because the detailed Asian groups are tallies of the number of Asian responses rather than the number of Asian respondents. Respondents reporting several Asian groups are counted several times. For example, a respondent reporting "Korean and Filipino" would be included in the Korean as well as the Filipino numbers.
2Includes respondents who checked the "Other Asian" response category on the census questionnaire or wrote in a generic term such as "Asian" or "Asiatic."
SOURCE: Jessica S. Barnes and Claudette E. Bennett, "Table 4. Asian Population by Detailed Group: 2000," in The Asian Population: 2000, U.S. Census Bureau, Washington, DC, 2000

China and the Philippines were the leading Asian countries of origin for U.S. immigrants between 1981 and 1996, with 20 percent each. Vietnam had the second-highest percentage (17 percent) of immigrants moving to the United States, followed by India (12 percent), and Korea (11 percent). Other Asian immigrants comprised 19 percent of newcomers from that part of the world.

According to Census 2000, China was the top Asian country of origin for Asian-Americans, with 2.4 million residents tracing their roots to China. (See Table 1.1.) The Philippines was next with 1.9 million, and India rounded out the top three with 1.7 million reported residents. Approximately 1.1 million Asian-Americans had ancestry origins in Korea, and the same number had origins in Vietnam. (See Table 1.12.) Among Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, Native Hawaiians had the highest population according to Census 2000. (See Table 1.13.)

Geographic Distribution

The majority of Asians live in the West, which boasted a total of 5 million according to Census 2000. (See Table 1.6.) This accounted for nearly half of the Asian population in the United States. (See Figure 1.5.) The three cities with the largest populations of Asians were New York City, Los Angeles, and San Jose, California, but places such as Honolulu, Hawaii, where 67.7 percent of the total population was Asian (alone or in combination), had large percentages of Asians. (See Table 1.14.) Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders are most concentrated in the West, which was home to 76.3 percent of the group's population. (See Figure 1.6.) Most Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders live in Hawaii. (See Table 1.15.)

According to Census 2000, minorities of Asian origin were more likely to live in metropolitan areas than outside metropolitan areas. Asian-Americans made up 4.3 percent of the population of metropolitan areas. Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders are also more likely to live in metropolitan areas than they are outside metropolitan areas. (See Table 1.10 and Table 1.16.)

Median Age and Fertility

The median age of the Asian-origin population in the United States was 32.7 years, according to Census 2000. The median age for Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders was 27.5 years. Approximately 24.1 percent of Asian-Americans and 31.9 percent of Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders were under eighteen years of age, compared to 22.6 percent of non-Hispanic whites. Only 7.8 percent of

TABLE 1.13
Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander population by detailed group, 2000

	Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone		Native Hawaiian Other Pacific Islander in combination with one or more other races
Detailed group	One Pacific Islander group reported	Two or more Pacific Islander groups reported1	One Pacific Islander group reported	Two or more Pacific Islander groups reported1	Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander detailed group alone or in any combination1
Total	389,612	9,223	447,113	28,466	874,414
Polynesian
Native Hawaiian	140,652	5,157	241,510	13,843	401,162
Samoan	91,029	5,727	28,287	8,238	133,281
Tongan	27,713	2,227	5,675	1,225	36,840
Tahitian	800	199	1,137	1,177	3,313
Tokelauan	129	142	134	169	574
Polynesian, not specified	3,497	1,547	3,005	747	8,796
Micronesian
Guamanian or Chamorro	58,240	1,247	30,241	2,883	92,611
Mariana Islander	60	11	60	10	141
Saipanese	195	122	120	38	475
Palauan	2,228	102	1,004	135	3,469
Carolinian	91	40	30	12	173
Kosraean	157	11	51	7	226
Pohnpeian	486	77	116	21	700
Chuukese	367	50	220	17	654
Yapese	236	13	111	8	368
Marshallese	5,479	183	849	139	6,650
I-Kiribati	90	17	47	21	175
Micronesian, not specified	7,509	411	1,768	252	9,940
Melanesian
Fijian	9,796	169	3,461	155	13,581
Papua New Guinean	135	3	83	3	224
Solomon Islander	12	3	10	-	25
Ni-Vanuatu	6	1	7	4	18
Melanesian, not specified	147	15	149	4	315
Other Pacific Islander2	40,558	1,309	129,038	4,007	174,912
-Represents zero.
1The numbers by detailed Pacific Islander groups do not add to the total population. This is because the detailed Pacific Islander groups are tallies of the number of Pacific Islander responses rather than the number of Pacific Islander respondents. Respondents reporting several Pacific Islander groups are counted several times. For example, a respondent reporting "Samoan and Tongan" would be included in the Samoan as well as the Tongan numbers.
2Includes respondents who checked the "Other Pacific Islander" response category on the census questionnaire or wrote in the generic term "Pacific Islander."
SOURCE: Elizabeth M. Grieco, "Table 4. Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander Population by Detailed Group: 2000," in The Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander Population: 2000, U.S. Census Bureau, Washington, DC, 2000

Asians and 5.2 percent of Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders were sixty-five years and older. (See Table 1.5.)

Asian-Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders tend to have their children at later ages than other groups. In 2000 they were most likely to have their children between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-four years old. They were more likely than any other group to have children between the ages of thirty and thirty-four. The fertility rate for Asian, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander women between the ages of thirty and thirty-four was 120.8 births per 1,000 women in 2000, compared to 97.4 births per 1,000 white women in that age group and 67.5 births per 1,000 African-American women in that age group. (See Table 1.17.)