Asian Americans Show Large Population Growth

The nation’s Asian American population grew at about five times the national rate from 1990 to 2000, with California remaining home to more Asian Americans than any state, according to a census report released today.

Asian Americans now comprise 4.2% of the U.S. population, according to the 2000 census, up from 2.8% in 1990. The Asian American population grew 72%, to 11.9 million, while the total population grew 13%, to 281 million.

New York and Los Angeles, the nation’s two largest cities, had the most Asian Americans. The highest proportions of Asian Americans in places with populations more than 100,000, however, were in Honolulu and nine California cities.

Honolulu’s Asian American population stood at 68% of the total. Daly City, with a 54% Asian American population, was second, followed by Fremont (40%) and Sunnyvale (34%); all three cities are in the Bay Area and ranked ahead of San Francisco (32.6%). Irvine, in sixth place, had the highest proportion of Asian Americans among Southern California cities, with 32.3%.

Garden Grove (32.2%) and Torrance (31%) were the other Southern California cities among the 10 communities with the highest percentage of Asian Americans. Also on the list were Santa Clara (31.4%) and San Jose (28.8%).

The 1990 and 2000 national Asian American population figures are not strictly comparable, the Census Bureau cautioned. In the 2000 census, respondents could identify themselves by more than one race, whereas in 1990 only one race could be chosen.

While growing dramatically, many characteristics of the Asian American population were consistent with trends identified in 1990. Asian Americans continued to be concentrated in the West and in cities and suburbs, for instance.

As in 1990, Chinese was the largest Asian American ethnic group identified in the census, followed by Filipino.

Asian Indian was the third-ranking ethnicity. Japanese, which had been the third-largest Asian ethnicity in 1990, was sixth in 2000. Korean rose from fifth in 1990 to fourth in 2000, and Vietnamese was the fifth-largest ethnicity in 2000, rising from sixth in 1990.

UCLA demographer Paul Ong said the slower growth rate for Japanese Americans is due to low birth and immigration rates, combined with high out-marriage rates.

More than half the Asian American population in 2000 lived in just three states. California had by far the largest Asian population (4.2 million), followed by New York (1.2 million) and Hawaii (700,000).

Three-fourths of Asian Americans live in 10 states: California, New York, Hawaii, Texas, New Jersey, Illinois, Washington, Florida, Virginia and Massachusetts. Those states also had the largest Asian populations in 1990.