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Asian Americans

Americans of Asian ancestry / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants).[9] Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous peoples of the continent of Asia, the usage of the term "Asian" by the United States Census Bureau only includes people with origins or ancestry from the Far East, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent[10] and excludes people with ethnic origins in certain parts of Asia, including West Asia who are now categorized as Middle Eastern Americans.[11][12] The "Asian" census category includes people who indicate their race(s) on the census as "Asian" or reported entries such as "Chinese, Indian, Bangladeshi, Filipino, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Korean, Japanese, Pakistani, Malaysian, and Other Asian".[13] In 2020, Americans who identified as Asian alone (19,886,049) or in combination with other races (4,114,949) made up 7.2% of the U.S. population.[14]

Quick facts: Total population, Regions with significant po...
Asian Americans
Asian_Americans_by_county.png
Distribution of Asian Americans by county
Total population
Increase 24,009,902 (alone and in combination)
7.2% of the population (2020)[1]
Chinese Americans: 5,143,982
Indian Americans: 4,506,308
Filipino Americans: 4,089,570
Vietnamese Americans: 2,162,610
Korean Americans: 1,894,131
Japanese Americans: 1,542,195
Taiwanese Americans: 900,595[2]
Pakistani Americans: 526,956
Thai Americans: 329,343
Hmong Americans: 320,164
Cambodian Americans: 300,360
Laotian Americans: 262,229
Hong Kong Americans: 248,024[3]
Indo-Caribbean Americans: 232,817[4]
Bangladeshi Americans: 213,372
Burmese Americans:
189,250
Nepalese Americans: 175,005
Indonesian Americans: 116,869
Karen Americans: 64,759
Sri Lankan Americans: 61,416
Iu Mien Americans: 50,000[5]
Malaysian Americans: 38,277
Indo-Fijian Americans: 30,890
Tibetan Americans: 26,700
Bhutanese Americans: 23,316[6]
Mongolian Americans: 19,170
Kalmyk Americans: 3,000[7]
Regions with significant populations
California7,045,163
New York2,173,719
Texas1,849,226
New Jersey1,046,732
Washington939,846
Illinois875,488
Florida843,005
Hawaii824,143
Virginia757,282
Pennsylvania603,726
Massachusetts582,484
Languages
Religion
Christian (42%)
Unaffiliated (26%)
Buddhist (14%)
Hindu (10%)
Muslim (4%)
Sikh (1%)
Other (2%) including Jain, Zoroastrian, Tengrism, Shinto, and Chinese folk religion (Taoist and Confucian), Vietnamese folk religion[8]
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Chinese, Indian, and Filipino Americans make up the largest share of the Asian American population with 5 million, 4.3 million, and 4 million people respectively. These numbers equal 23%, 20%, and 18% of the total Asian American population, or 1.5% and 1.2% of the total U.S. population.[15]

Although migrants from Asia have been in parts of the contemporary United States since the 17th century, large-scale immigration did not begin until the mid-19th century. Nativist immigration laws during the 1880s–1920s excluded various Asian groups, eventually prohibiting almost all Asian immigration to the continental United States. After immigration laws were reformed during the 1940s–1960s, abolishing national origins quotas, Asian immigration increased rapidly. Analyses of the 2010 census have shown that Asian Americans are the fastest-growing racial group in the United States.[16]