gaddam@remus.rutgers.edu (Surekha Reddy Gaddam) (06/13/91)
From: RBDMG@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu(Sekhar@RutVM1.Rutgers.Edu Ramakrishnan)
Approved: gaddam@remus.rutgers.edu
Re-post, as author name was deleted earlier. Error regretted.
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BREAKDOWN OF ASIAN-AMERICAN POPULATION IN THE U.S.
The US Census Bureau has released detailed figures for the different
Asian-American and Pacific Island nationalities. The primary data
are as follows (% columns for 1980/1990 and total A-A populations
from NY Times; rest with a pocket calculator).
1980 1990 Change
# % of # % of # % of % of
A-A A-A A-A 1980
total total total
Chinese 805 21.6 1644 22.6 839 23.7 104.2
Filipino 775 20.8 1404 19.3 629 17.7 81.2
Japanese 701 18.8 851 11.7 150 4.2 21.4
Indian 361 9.7 815 11.2 454 12.8 125.8
Korean 365 9.8 800 11.0 435 12.3 119.2
Vietnamese 261 7.0 611 8.4 350 9.9 134.0
Hawaiian 168 4.5 211 2.9 43 1.2 25.6
Samoan 41 1.1 65 0.9 24 0.7 58.5
Guamian 34 0.9 51 0.7 17 0.5 50.0
Other 216 5.8 822 11.3 606 17.1 280.6
A-A Total 3726 100 7273 100 3547 100 95.2
All numbers are in thousands; thus, the Indian population was 361,000
in 1980 and 815,000 in 1990.
The Asian-American population increased from 1 million in 1965 to
7.3 million in 1990; 54% of the increase was from immigration.
Some breakdown of "Other" is provided for 1990: Pakistanis 81,000;
Hmong 90,000; Thais 91,000; Cambodians 147,000; Laotians 149,000.
The Times article does not say whether the population figures include
permanent residents.
Almost 40% of all Asian-Americans, or 2.4 million people, live in
California, while New York and Hawaii each have about 9%.
"These immigrants are different from earlier ones because of their
enormous diversity," said Lawrence H. Fuchs, a professor of American
Civilization and Politics at Brandeis University. "We had Japanese,
Chinese and Filipinos. The variety now is just enormous. You have
variety within variety - more variety of class, more variety of skill,
more variety in origins."
Ronald Takaki, professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of
California at Berkeley, and Dr. Fuchs said Asian-Americans had become
a more economically stratified group, with a highly visible and
successful layer of professionals (doctors, engineers and
scientists), a strong commercial middle-class that includes grocers,
nurses and government workers, and a less-visible group of
immigrants, many still on welfare.
"The Indians are a more integrated group," Dr. Takaki said. "They
are betwixt and between - Asians, but English-speaking. They come
here with a certain degree of Westernization and language proficiency."
As a result, he said, they are less likely to congregate in easily
identifiable ethnic enclaves. "This is true for Filipinos too," he
said. "Filipinos also represent a critical mass, but you don't often
find the establishment of 'Manila-towns'. Filipinos and Indians tend
to be much more in the mainstream economy than other immigrants."
"You can't get the percentage growth for Filipinos any more," said
Dr. Fuchs. "In the case of Indians and Koreans, you have a large
percentage of people who are fairly well-educated and have a perception
of the opportunity here, a vision of the future. They have friends,
connections and relatives already here. The base isn't as large as
the Filipinos', so they're in a growth spurt. Once their population
base is larger, their growth rate will fall back like the Filipinos' did."
Dr. Fuchs and Dr. Takaki predicted that the 1990's would see an Asian
immigration as large as that of the 1980's, thanks, in part, to the
revised Federal immigration laws.
End of article