*any race
Source: Education Week, 6/23/06 Dallas Morning News

Source: US Census Bureau, 2002 data      http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/education/ppl-169/tab01.xls

5/23/05 Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF): 
Multilingual Exit Polls Show How Asian Americans Voted in 2004
    In the 2004 national election, Asian American voters, despite diverse 
backgrounds and languages, voiced common concerns across ethnic lines, 
citing the economy /jobs as the most important factor in their vote for President 
and civil liberties as the most important civil rights issue. More than one-third 
(38%) of those polled were first-time voters, and almost one-half (46%) needed 
language assistance in order to vote.
    Many exit poll respondents in the poll encountered serious voting barriers, with 
hundreds of voters directed to the wrong poll site and hostile or poorly trained poll 
workers making racist remarks to Asian American voters.
    The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) released 
these findings from its national multilingual exit poll of almost 11,000 Asian 
American voters in the November 2004 Election, the largest nonpartisan survey of 
its kind in the nation.
    In a prepared statement to the press, AALDEF Executive Director Margaret 
Fung said, Multilingual exit polls reveal vital information about Asian American 
voting patterns that are regularly overlooked in mainstream voter surveys. This 
report demonstrates that Asian American voters are increasingly cohesive across 
ethnic lines. And because so many Asian Americans are first-time voters, language assistance at the polls should be expanded under the Voting Rights Act, to promote 
greater civic participation.
    The organization's publication, "The Asian American Vote 2004: A Report on 
the Multilingual Exit Poll in the 2004 Presidential Election," provides a snapshot of 
the voter preferences of Asian Americans in 20 cities in 8 states: New York , New 
Jersey , Massachusetts , Rhode Island , Michigan , Illinois , Pennsylvania , and Virginia . 
The five largest Asian groups surveyed in 2004 were Chinese (46%), South Asian 
(25%), Korean (14%), Southeast Asian (6%), and Filipino (5%). Of this group, 82% 
were foreign born and 29% had no formal US education. More than a third (38%) 
were first-time voters. The report contains numerous tables and charts that describe 
the party enrollment, English proficiency and issue preferences of first-time voters, foreign-born voters, women voters, and young voters.
    Specific highlights of the report include:
    Economy/jobs was the most important issue to Asian Americans in voting 
for President. Overall, the most important issues for voters were Economy/Jobs 
(26%), followed by the War in Iraq (16%), Terrorism/Security (16%) and Health Care 
(14%). Asian Americans who voted for Kerry were most influenced by the Economy/
Jobs (29%), followed by the War in Iraq (18%) and Health Care (15%). Among Bush supporters, the most important factors influencing their vote for President were Terrorism/Security (33%), Economy/Jobs (18%), and the War in Iraq (11%).
    Asian Americans shared common political interests, even across ethnic 
lines. Regardless of ethnicity, almost all Asian ethnic groups voted as a bloc for the 
same candidates and identified common reasons for their vote. Civil Liberties was 
the top choice for each ethnic group, when voters were asked to select the most 
important civil rights/immigrants rights issue from the following choices: Affirmative 
Action, Civil Liberties, Deportation/Detention, Hate Crimes, Immigration Backlogs, Language Barriers to Services, Legalization of Immigrants, Racial Profiling, Voting/
Political Representation, and Workers Rights.
    Asian Americans turned to ethnic media outlets for their main source of 
news. More than half (51%) of all respondents got their news about politics and 
community issues from the ethnic press, rather than from mainstream media outlets. 
The ethnic newspaper was the most common source among those using ethnic media. 
Over one-third (36%) of voters got their news from ethnic media sources in Asian 
languages.
    Language assistance and bilingual ballots are needed to preserve access 
to the vote. 41% of Asian Americans expressed that they were limited-English-
proficient. Just 14% identified English as their native language. A number of poll sites 
were mandated to provide bilingual ballots and interpreters under the federal Voting 
Rights Act; other jurisdictions voluntarily provided language assistance. In the 2004 
elections, almost a third of all respondents needed some form of language assistance 
to vote. The greatest beneficiaries of language assistance (46%) were first-time voters.
    AALDEF Staff Attorney Glenn Magpantay noted that many exit poll respondents encountered serious voting barriers, with hundreds of voters directed to the wrong poll 
site and hostile or poorly trained poll workers making racist remarks to Asian American voters. AALDEF received more than 600 complaints of voting problems, including 
numerous instances of Asian American voters being improperly required to show identification. Magpantay said, It is critical that civil rights laws are vigorously enforced, 
so that Asian Americans are not denied their fundamental right to vote.
    AALDEF has conducted exit polls of Asian American voters in every major election 
since 1988. Over 5,000 Asian New Yorkers and 3,000 Asian voters in 4 states (NY, NJ, 
MA, MI) were surveyed in AALDEFs 2000 and 2002 exit polls, respectively.
    Based on findings from the 2004 exit poll and AALDEFs election monitoring efforts 
over the past decade, AALDEF will be advocating for the reauthorization of the Voting 
Rights Act in 2007, including expanded provisions for language assistance under 
section 203; more voluntary assistance in jurisdictions with growing Asian American populations that are limited-English-proficient; and the removal of barriers that deter 
new citizen voters from exercising their right to vote, including the discriminatory 
application of ID requirements under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).
    The 2004 multilingual exit poll was conducted in 23 Asian languages and dialects.
    AALDEF worked with the following co-sponsors to mobilize 1,200 attorneys, law 
students, and volunteers to conduct the multilingual exit poll and to monitor polling 
places for incidents of voter discrimination: Asian American Bar Association of New 
York, Asian Pacific American Agenda Coalition, Asian Pacific American Legal 
Resource Center, Boston Asian Students Alliance, Chinatown Voter Education 
Alliance, Chinese Progressive Association, Harry H. Dow Memorial Legal Assistance 
Fund, Korean American Resource and Cultural Center, Korean American Voters 
Council of NY/NJ, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights-Boston, National Asian 
American Student Convention, National Korean American Service and Education Consortium, Providence Youth and Student Movement, Organization of Chinese Americans-Detroit Chapter, South Asian American Voting Youth, South Asian 
American Leaders for Tomorrow, Vietnamese American Initiative for Development, 
and Young Korean American Service and Education Center.
    Copies of the report can be obtained online at aaldef.org or by calling the Asian 
American Legal Defense and Education Fund at 212.966.5932.

5/6/905 High Plains Journal: Census Reveals Asian-American Farmers Sold 
Over $2 Billion in Ag Products,
    Omaha (DTN) -- According to the 2002 Census of Agriculture, U.S. farms and 
ranches with operators reporting their race as Asian sold a total of $2.26 billion 
in agricultural products. Released in June 2004, the Census reported sales of 
$2 billion in crops and $254 million in livestock and poultry for Asian farmers.
    The average value of products sold per farm was $270,000. Conducted every 
five years by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics 
Service (NASS), the Census of Agriculture is the only source of consistent, 
comparable and detailed agricultural data for every county in America .
    "We recognize the importance of providing more detailed data on minority 
farm operators and operations in the U.S. , and are pleased to provide 
information specifically on Asian farmers for the first time," announced Ron 
Bosecker, Administrator of NASS.
    As reflected in the reported amount of agricultural sales, the primary source 
of revenue for Asian farmers in the U.S. comes from crop operations. Almost 
75 percent of all Asian farms produce crops in three commodity categories: fruit, 
tree and nut farming (3,422 farms); greenhouse, nursery and floriculture (1,589 
farms); and vegetable and melon farming (1,203 farms). 
    While 10,300 Asian farms were reported nationwide, the Census indicated 
that most Asian farms are located in the following five states: California with 
4,022 farms; Hawaii with 2,969 farms; Florida with 557 farms; Texas with 440 
farms; and Washington with 385 farms.
    In terms of acreage, the top five states were: California with 529,162 acres;
Hawaii with 157,235 acres; Texas with 130,153 acres; Montana with 83,107 
acres; and Oregon with 70,068 acres. The total acreage of farmland operated 
by Asian farmers was 1,448,061 acres. On average, an Asian farmer operated 
118 acres of land.
    In 2002, it was reported that 8,375 farms and ranches had an Asian principal 
operator; of these farms 1,283 reported an Asian woman as principal operator.
    The average age of an Asian principal operator in the U.S. is 55.2 years-old, 
almost identical to the U.S. average age of 55.3 years-old for all operators. Of 
all Asian principal operators, 64 percent listed farming as their primary 
occupation, compared to only 58 percent of all U.S. principal operators who 
listed their primary occupation as farming.
    Most Asian operated farms and ranches, 77.6 percent, were family or 
individually owned, rather than partnership or corporation. This is less than the 
reported 89.7 percent of all farms in the U.S. that are family or individually owned.  

5/2/05
    The UCLA Asian American Studies Center, as an official U.S. Census 
Information Center (as a co-partner with National Coalition for Asian Pacific 
Community Development), is pleased to provide this 2005 statistical portrait of 
the Asian American and Pacific Islander populations produced by the US Census 
Bureau for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in May. The portrait provides 
current census data, population projections, and internet links that should be 
useful for research, planning, writing and general educational purposes. Please 
see the "Editor's note" at the end of this announcement for more information. The 
first section provides information on "Asians," while the second part highlights 
"Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders".

I. Asians

Education
50%
The percentage of Asians, age 25 and over, who have a bachelor's degree or 
higher level of education.  Asians have the highest proportion of college graduates 
of any race or ethnic group in the country. The corresponding rate for all adults in 
this age group is 27 percent.
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/education/001 863..html>

88%
The percentage of Asians, age 25 and over, who are high school graduates. The 
corresponding rate for all adults in this age group is 85 percent.
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/education/001863..html>

19%
The percentage of Asians, age 25 and over, who have an advanced degree (e.g., 
master's, Ph.D., M.D. or J.D.). The corresponding rate for all adults in the age group 
is 9 percent.
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/education/001863..html>

Languages
2.2 million
The number of people who speak Chinese at home. Next to Spanish, Chinese is the 
most widely spoken non-English language in the country. Also among the top 10 most 
frequently spoken languages are: Tagalog (1.3 million); Vietnamese (1.1 million); 
and Korean (966,959).
http://factfinder.census.gov/> (Table: P034, 2003 ACS)

Coming to America

8.7 million
The number of U.S. residents who were born in Asia . Asian-born residents comprise 
one-fourth of the nation's total foreign-born population.
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/foreignborn_population03969.html>

52%
The percentage of the foreign-born from Asia who are naturalized U.S. citizens. 
The corresponding rate for the foreign-born population as a whole is 38 percent.
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/foreignborn_plation/003969.html>

1.7 million
The estimated number of foreign-born people from China . Next to Mexico , China is the 
leading country of birth for the nation's foreign-born. Also among the top 10 countries of 
birth for the foreign-born population are the Philippines , India , Vietnam and Korea .
http://factfinder.census.gov/> (Table: PCT027, 2003 ACS)

Serving Our Nation

276,000
The number of Asian-American military veterans.
http://factfinder.census.gov/> (Table: P056D, 2003 ACS)

Counties
1.3 million
The number of Asians in Los Angeles County , Calif. , which tops the nation's counties.  
This county also experienced the largest numerical increase of Asians (76,700) from 
2000 to 2003.
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/population/002897.html>

Age Distribution
Twenty-six percent of people identifying themselves as either Asian or Asian in 
combination with one or more other races are under 18; 8 percent are 65 or over.

II. Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders  

959,603
The estimated number of U.S. residents who say they are native Hawaiian and other 
Pacific islander or native Hawaiian and other Pacific islander in combination with 
one or more other races. This group comprises 0.3 percent of the total population. 
There are 282,500 native Hawaiians or other Pacific islanders in Hawaii , which leads 
all states. Hawaii is also where native Hawaiians and other Pacific islanders make up 
the largest proportion (23 percent) of the total population. California had the largest 
numerical increase of native Hawaiians and other Pacific islanders (12,700) since 
April 2000.
http://www.census.gov/Press-Releases/www/releases/archives/population/002897.html>

Education
16%
The percentage of native Hawaiians and other Pacific islanders, age 25 and older, 
who have at least a bachelor's degree.
http://factfinder.census.gov/> (Table: PCT035E, 2003 ACS)

82%
The percentage of native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders, age 25 and older, 
who are high school graduates.
http://factfinder.census.gov/> (Table: PCT035E, 2003 ACS)

4%
The percentage of native Hawaiians and other Pacific islanders, age 25 and older, 
who have obtained a graduate degree.
http://factfinder.census.gov/ (Table: PCT035E, 2003 ACS)

Languages
27,160
The number of people who speak Hawaiian at home.
http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/lang_use.html>

Serving Our Nation
There are 25,000 veterans who are of native Hawaiian and other Pacific
Islander heritage. 
http://factfinder.census.gov/> (Table: P056E, 2003 ACS)

Counties
186,200
The number of native Hawaiians and other Pacific islanders who live in Honolulu 
County , Hawaii , which has the largest population of this race of any county in the 
nation.  Bronx County , N.Y. , registered the largest numerical increase of native 
Hawaiians and other Pacific islanders (4,100) between 2000 and 2003.
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/population/002897.html>

Age Distribution
33%
The percentage of the native Hawaiian and other Pacific islander population that is 
under 18; 5 percent are 65 or over.
http://www.census.gov/popest/national/asrh/NC-EST2003/NC-EST2003-04-10.pdf>

Note: Whenever possible, data are provided separately for Asians and for native 
Hawaiians and other Pacific islanders.

Editor's note: Some of the preceding data were collected in surveys and, therefore, 
are subject to sampling error. Questions or comments should be directed to the 
Census Bureau's Public Information Office at (301) 763-3030; fax (301) 457-3670; 
or e-mail pio@census.gov

Don T. Nakanishi, Ph.D.
Director and Professor
UCLA Asian American Studies Center
3230 Campbell Hall
Los Angeles , CA 90095-1546
310.825.2974
fax:310.206.9844
e-mail:dtn@ucla.edu
web site for Center: www.sscnet.ucla.edu/aasc

1/7/05 The Boston Globe: Asian Americans Slow to Embrace Politics,
By Yvonne Abraham
   Sam Yoon, the first Asian-American to run for Boston City Council, can tick off Asian-Americans who have ventured onto the political stage in Massachusetts on just one hand: a Newton alderman, a Lowell city councilor, a Randolph selectman, a couple of others who took a stab at office and didn't succeed.
   Though Asian-American communities across the state are growing, they are not making themselves heard in the political arena. Voter registration levels among Asian-Americans lag, and relatively few Asian-Americans run for office, which further depresses political participation, Yoon and others said.
    "There's a kind of chicken-vs.-egg problem," said Yoon, director of housing at the Asian Community Development Corporation, in Boston 's Chinatown . "A lot of Asians don't participate in politics because they don't see themselves reflected in political or governmental institutions."
   A report released this week suggests the extent of the problem. In the 11 largest Massachusetts cities and towns with sizable Asian populations, only 25.5 percent of Asian-Americans are registered to vote, compared with 62 percent of the total adult populations in those communities.
   That is in part because so few Asian-Americans in those cities and towns are citizens, said Paul Watanabe, director of the Institute for Asian American Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Boston and one of the authors of the study. Fully 71.8 of the Asian-Americans in the communities studied were born outside the United States , the highest rate of any immigrant group in the state.
   "A major explanation for the lower registration rates is that a significant number of [Asian-Americans in Massachusetts ] are foreign born, and thus a significant proportion have to go through the naturalization hurdle," he said.
   But even among Asian-Americans who are citizens, "there remains a considerable disparity between their registration rates and those of the general population," the report read. Eligible Asian-Americans are registered to vote at a rate of 51 percent, Watanabe said, compared to 74 percent of the eligible population as a whole.
   The rate of registration is not consistent among the cities and towns, however. In Lowell , which has a large and well-established Cambodian population and a popular Asian-American city councilor in Rithy Uong, better than three out of four Asian-American citizens are registered, a rate that is slightly higher than the eligible population as a whole. In Quincy , home to Chinese and Vietnamese communities, 45 percent of eligible Asian-Americans are registered to vote, compared to 76 percent of the eligible population as a whole.
   Although the study did not compare Asian-Americans' participation to that of other immigrant communities, Watanabe said their voter participation runs at about the same rate as that of Latino immigrants in Massachusetts .
   According to the report, Asian-Americans comprise about 10 percent of the overall population of the 11 cities and towns surveyed: Boston , Brookline , Cambridge , Lowell , Lynn , Malden , Newton , Quincy , Somerville , Waltham , and Worcester . In cities with large Asian-American populations -- Quincy , with 18.4 percent, Malden , with 18 percent -- the gap between presence and political participation is particularly wide.
    "I know a number of [Asian-American] people who would like to be active and who are not eligible for citizenship," said Amy Mah Sangiolo, who has been an alderman in Newton for eight years. "It's not a matter of Asian-Americans not wanting to become citizens. Citizenship is so hard to get these days, given 9/11 and the state of our country."
   One of Sangiolo's fellow aldermen has sponsored an initiative to give noncitizens the right to vote in local elections. In some other major cities, including Chicago and New York , immigrants are allowed to vote in school board contests.
   "It's a great way to get people involved in politics," she said. "You don't have to be a citizen for the government to take your taxes, and our country was founded on [the principle of] no taxation without representation."
   Politically active Asian-Americans say there may be more that is keeping Asian-American residents from political participation than the onerous burdens of naturalization.
   "Asians don't go into politics as much as others do, maybe because politics is not embedded in their culture," said Yoon, whose parents were born in Korea .
   On the West Coast, Yoon and Sangiolo said, there are larger Asian-American communities of longer standing in the United States than in the Northeast. Third and fourth generations there have embraced politics, just as, they say, future generations will eventually embrace politics in greater numbers here.
   Others may feel bound by their backgrounds, Yoon said.
   "A lot of Asian countries have been autocratic societies, and there could be, for the first generation of Asians, a feeling that authority is something to be feared more than respected," he said. "Asian culture is more centered around community, and the stereotype of politicians [in America ] is one that is egocentric and self-promotional, and maybe that runs across the grain."
   But both Yoon and Sangiolo are optimistic about the future.
   "It's a matter of time for some folks like myself to jump out of that cycle, to do something for which there is no precedent or expectation from the community," Yoon said.

12/16/04 Los Angeles Times: Stark Contrasts Found Among Asian Americans: 
The group's average family income tops the overall U.S. figure. But while Indians 
prosper, Cambodians, Laotians and Hmong struggle,  
By Teresa Watanabe and Nancy Wride, Times Staff Writers
    Indian Americans have surged forward as the most successful Asian minority in 
the United States, reporting top levels of income, education, professional job status 
and English-language ability, even though three-fourths were foreign-born, 
according to U.S. census data released Wednesday.
    The striking success of Asian Americans who trace their heritage to India  
contrasted with data showing struggles among Cambodian, Laotian and Hmong 
immigrants.  Those three groups reported continued significant poverty rates, low 
job skills and limited English-language ability since their flight from war and political 
turmoil.
    The report, "We the People: Asians in the United States," was based on 2000 
census data and underscored the enormous socioeconomic diversity among the 
nation's 10 million Asian Americans, more than one third of whom live in California, 
the state with their largest population.
    Asian Americans increased from 6.9 million, or 2.8% of the U.S. population, in 
1990 to 10.2 million, or 3.6%, in 2000. Including mixed-race Asian Americans, 
counted by the census for the first time in 2000, the population was 11.9 million, or 
4.2%.
    "It is a community of contrasts," said Kimiko Kelly, research analyst with the Asian  
Pacific American Legal Center in Los Angeles . "Asian Americans are seen as a 
model minority who are not suffering from barriers to education or progress. But if 
you look closely, you see a community that covers the whole spectrum, from wealthy 
to very poor."
    She said the growing diversity of the community, which was mainly Chinese, 
Japanese and Filipinos until 1965 immigration reforms were instituted, has multiplied 
the challenges facing service organizations such as hers. Translators for health clinics 
and courts are among the pressing needs, she said. 
    The contrasts are detailed in the report, which provides data on such items as age, 
marital status, citizenship, language, education, earnings, poverty rates, occupation 
and home ownership among 11 Asian American groups.
    Median family income, for instance, ranged from $70,849 for Japanese and 
$70,708 for Asian Indians to about half that for Cambodians and Hmong. Indian men 
showed the highest full-time earnings, $51,900, about double the figure for Hmong 
men.
    About 64% of Asian Indians held a bachelor's degree or more, the highest rate, 
compared with 7.7% for Laotians and 7.5% for Hmong, the lowest. More than three-
fourths of Indians and Filipinos spoke fluent English, twice the rate for Vietnamese. 
    Max Niedzwiecki, executive director of the Southeast Asia Resource Action  
Center in Washington , D.C. , said the differences stemmed in part from different 
histories. Many Southeast Asian Americans came here as refugees with less formal education and with memories of traumatic experiences stemming from the Vietnam 
War and the murderous Khmer Rouge reign in Cambodia , he said. 
    In contrast, many Asians Indians emigrated voluntarily from a relatively peaceful 
homeland and were equipped with strong English skills to pursue higher academic 
degrees or business opportunities. Between 1990 and 2000, they doubled their 
population to 1.6 million and now rank as the third-largest Asian American group 
after Chinese and Filipinos.
    Take, for instance, Venkatesh Koka, a 36-year-old real estate investor in Artesia. 
The son of a civil engineer, Koka left a comfortable life with servants in southern 
India to earn a master's degree in business administration at Ohio University . As in 
other upper-middle-class families, he had attended schools with instruction in English 
since his childhood, rendering him fluent even though he has always spoken Telugu, 
an Indian language, at home.
    He says he came to the United States in 1986 after a friend studying here lured 
him with wide-eyed stories of freeways, an easy life and good money.
    Koka worked at a bank and initially lost $1.5 million in real estate deals, filing for bankruptcy in the mid-1990s. Since then, he said, he has bounced back as manager 
of his family investments and has increased their value from $3 million to $15 million. 
This year, his family created the Little India Village shopping plaza on Pioneer 
Boulevard in Artesia.
    "You never learn life unless you come to America ," Koka said. "In India , you have 
servants and money from your parents. Here, you learn independence and how to 
lose, how to gain."
    Vinay Lal, an associate professor of history at UCLA who specializes in the Indian diaspora, said Indian Americans had made their strongest contributions in the 
medical and high-technology industries. He said more than half of all graduates from 
India 's prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology come to the United States , and 
currently number at least 25,000. He estimated that Indian Americans constituted 
20% or more of Silicon Valley employees. 
    He believes, however, that the Census Bureau significantly undercounted lower-
income Indian Americans. Other scholarly studies have found both high rates of 
wealth and high rates of poverty in the community.
    The new report found that Southeast Asian communities continued to struggle 
the most, which Niedzwiecki attributed in part to lingering traumas of strife in that 
region.
    The nation's Hmongs originally hailed from Laos but largely migrated here from 
refugee camps in Thailand . Many of them have settled in California 's Central Valley .
    Pang Houa Moua, a program manager for the Hmong National Development 
advocacy group in Washington , D.C. , said traditional Hmong society was agrarian 
and isolated, with no running water or electricity. A written language was not 
developed until 1950, and formal education was limited: Her own parents, she said, 
did not learn that the world was round until they were teenagers.
    "When you throw a population like that into the middle of the most technologically advanced society in the world, people are going to be confused," she said. "They're 
going to struggle." 
    Still, experts say they find a striking divide among Southeast Asians between 
adult refugees and their children, who are more assimilated and successful here.
    For instance, 17-year-old Prumsodun Ok of Long Beach is a promising filmmaker 
who just won an award and recognition from the YMCA's Youth Institute, where he 
works after school. Prum, as he is known among friends, also is a late-blooming accomplished classical Cambodian dancer at the Khmer Arts Academy in Long 
Beach .
    He is the third-youngest of 10 children whose parents speak no English and have 
never gotten off welfare here. They have their hearts in the homeland and are "stuck 
in place," the teenager said Wednesday.
    He said his parents' financial dependence on public assistance stemmed from 
their failure to learn English, from advancing age and from isolation.
    "I think they've just been so unable to adapt to life here," he said of his parents. 
"It's always, ' Cambodia ! Cambodia !' They always look inward and are scared and 
isolated."
    Prum was born in Long Beach , the first of the siblings to be a U.S. citizen. His 
older siblings were born in prewar Cambodia , postwar Thai refugee camps or 
elsewhere before the family settled in Long Beach , home to the largest population 
of Cambodian refugees outside Cambodia .
    His eldest siblings, now approaching middle age, have been schooled and 
employed, and some have their own businesses. One owns a florist shop in Eagle 
Rock. Another works in the after-school program at Whittier Elementary School in 
Long Beach . All are off welfare, which is Prum's aspiration.
    A senior in Long Beach Polytechnic High School 's magnet program, Prum 
dreams of becoming a filmmaker and is applying to the California Institute of the 
Arts in Valencia .
    "I want to be independent," he insisted, "and I don't want anything to hold me 
back." 
    Asians in America  
    The median annual income of Asian families exceeded that of all U.S. families, 
and the percentage of Asians with at least a bachelor's degree was almost double 
that of the total population, according to the 2000 census

12/9/04 Harvard News Office: "Undermining the myth of the model minority,"
by Beth Potier
2004 Harvard University
    Vivian Shuh Ming Louie, assistant professor at the Harvard Graduate School of 
Education (GSE), doesn't have to look far to see how the myth of Asian Americans as a "model minority" has gained such traction in the American imagination. After all, she embodies it. The daughter of Chinese immigrants who worked in New York City 's 
restaurant and garment industries, she boasts a resume dotted with the education world's most coveted brand names: Andover Phillips Academy , Harvard, Stanford, and Yale.
    Yet even as she was marching proudly through academia, earning a Ph.D. in sociology from Yale and a fellowship and ultimately assistant professorship at Harvard, Louie saw family members and friends from her former Chinatown neighborhood struggling to stay in, 
or get into, college. Turning a scholarly lens on this experience, Louie has produced "Compelled to Excel: Immigration, Education, and Opportunity Among Chinese Americans" (Stanford University Press, 2004).
    "The model minority thesis is used to make the argument that race doesn't matter, that class doesn't matter, because look at all these Asian Americans. Look how well they're doing," says Louie. "But in fact, I find that class matters and race matters as well."
    For "Compelled to Excel," which grew out of Louie's dissertation, she conducted qualitative research on Chinese American students in two distinct higher education environments in her native New York : Hunter College , a commuter college that is part of the City University of New York, and the Ivy League Columbia University. In all, she interviewed 68 second-generation Chinese American college students and the parents and adult 
siblings of eight students to learn how their socioeconomic class and, surprisingly to her, 
race affected their educational opportunities.
    Her findings complicate the myth of the model minority that has captured the American imagination for more than a century, from Jewish immigrants at the turn of the 20th century 
to black West Indians today.
    'Is it culture or structure?'
    Louie set out to explore socioeconomic class as it relates to immigrants and education because, she says, it's particularly under-examined among Asian Americans. According to U.S. Census classifications, "Asian American" comprises 25 different groups. "When you lump all those groups together a lot gets leavened out. One of those is the class dimension," she says.
    Further, within the broad classification of Asian Americans, Chinese Americans are an especially bifurcated group. While some respondents in her study (most likely the Columbia students) came from solidly white, middle-class suburbs where their parents worked as professionals, others grew up in Chinatown, the sons and daughters of immigrants with relatively low levels of formal schooling who worked in what she calls "the twin engines of 
the enclave economy," the garment and restaurant industries.
    "I want to complicate the idea of, is it culture or is it structure?" Louie says. "Is it these values and beliefs that people have that shape their behaviors? Or is it structure, a matter 
of selective migration, a matter of economic and social resources that different groups have?"
    It's both, Louie found. Regardless of class, Chinese Americans shared what she calls "immigrant optimism."
    "Chinese immigrant parents have a lot of optimism about their kids' outcomes that they shared with their children," she says, noting that such optimism extends to other immigrant groups, as well. "The optimism is based on what the parents perceive to be the relatively open opportunity structure in the United States as compared to their countries of origin."            Education, particularly free, accessible public education, is the backbone to such opportunities. Yet Louie found that structure - economic resources as well as parents' own levels of education, language, and networking - created different educational outcomes among Chinese Americans.
    Growing up in more affluent, suburban families, immigrant children accessed many of 
the same opportunities their nonimmigrant peers did: good public schools (and 
occasionally private schools), summer enrichment programs, strong college guidance.
    In Chinatown and other urban enclaves, Louie saw that immigrant parents relied on 
ethnic networks to scout out the best public schools for their children. Yet subtle economic distinctions continued to influence their children's educational path. Wealthier immigrant parents - those who managed restaurants or owned shops - often sent their children to "cram" schools in the enclaves, private institutions owned by fellow Chinese that prepare students for the SAT or for tests to gain entrance into the public exam or magnet schools. Parents on lower rungs of the economic ladder often could not access such opportunities.
    Common to the children of urban enclaves, no matter what their parents' incomes, was 
the sense that they had to take sole ownership of their K-12 education. Their parents, with 
limited education, English language skills, and contacts outside the ethnic network, were often at a loss to help.
    "They don't know what schools do here," says Louie. "They know school's important, 
but they don't know what they do."
    While she suspected that class had an impact on the education of second-generation Chinese Americans, Louie was surprised to find that race did, too.
    "I found that there was what I called 'immigrant pessimism,' which is across class. It's not 
all a rosy picture," she says. Immigrant parents of all classes conveyed to their children that the United States is a racially and ethnically stratified country and that being Chinese could hurt them as they sought opportunities.
    One solution to facing racial discrimination, says Louie, is college. "Higher education becomes especially important as a way to mitigate the potential effects of discrimination," she says.
    Telling another side to the story
    Louie, now in her second year on the GSE faculty after spending two years as a Harvard Post-Doctoral Fellow on Education, has extended her research to explore the educational paths of second-generation Dominican- and Colombian-American immigrants.
    Despite the scholarly aims of "Compelled to Excel" - "It wasn't my goal in the book to lay out policy implications," she says - Louie is eagerly taking the message of the research to practitioners and policy-makers. She recently spoke about her work at a conference of English-language-learning educators, and at last night's (Dec. 8) Askwith Education Forum 
at the GSE, she was joined on a panel by educators and administrators who work with Boston 's Chinese American K-12 students, as well as several students.
    "I think it should be of interest to people who want to learn about immigration and education," she says. Confounding the myth of the model minority with her research, she says, will help provide better services to immigrant students.
    "I don't mean to suggest that people like me don't exist. I exist. ... but there's another 
side of the story that's not often told," says Louie. "I think it's important to tell it so that we 
can understand the fuller range of educational experiences and what we can do to get immigrant parents more connected to public schools, or to meet the needs of immigrant children, to help them learn about college."

11/3/04 cnn.com
Of 13,660 respondents in exit polls, Asian Americans were 2% of the electorate. 
44% voted for Bush and 56% for Kerry.  Survey conducted for the Associated
Press and television networks by Edison Media Research/Mitofsky International. 
The margin of error is plus or minus 1 percentage point for overall sample,
larger for subgroups.

10/12/04 Sacramento Bee: Elections still province of white voters,
    The outcome of several races and measures on the Nov. 2 California ballot 
is uncertain, but experts say one thing is sure: Three in four likely voters are white.          When the Census Bureau announced in 2000 that white residents had slipped 
below half the state's population, many people assumed a political power shift 
was imminent.
    But white voters will dominate the electoral process for decades because 
voting is highly correlated with education and income, according to the 
nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California.
    In "The Ties that Bind: Changing Demographics and Civic Engagement in  
California ," PPIC researchers warn that the imbalance between the populace 
and policy decision-makers could aggravate the chasm between the haves 
and have-nots in the state.
    " California is headed into unchartered waters - the most diverse population 
in American history, voting rates lower than those in the rest of the nation and disproportionately low rates of voting," PPIC President David Lyon wrote, 
summarizing the findings of authors S. Karthick Ramakrishnan and Mark 
Baldassare.
    Using data from numerous statewide surveys, the PPIC found only 13 percent 
of likely voters are Latino, 7 percent African American and 5 percent Asian. White 
residents make up three-quarters of likely voters.
    A list of counties with the highest and lowest voter turnout in the 2000 general 
election and 2004 primary election is telling.
    At the upper end, affluent counties such as Marin and Placer are clustered with overwhelmingly rural, white counties such as Amador, Alpine, Plumas and Sierra.
   Holding down the rear are largely agricultural counties with high percentage of 
Latinos and low personal incomes - places such as Imperial, Merced and 
Stanislaus counties.
   A third of the state is Latino, the lowest per-capita income group in  
California . Many Latinos are too young to vote, not citizens or illegal 
immigrants. Others who can vote don't; Latinos account for a majority (57 
percent) of adults who are not registered to vote, according to the PPIC.
   Marin and Imperial counties represent the polar extremes of wealth and 
political participation in California .
   A whopping 84 percent of registered voters cast ballots in Marin County in 
the last presidential election; little more than half did in Imperial County .
   Statewide, turnout was more than 70 percent. First and last among California  
counties in participation, Marin and Imperial are sums of their parts.
   Marin is largely white (84 percent) with a median household income of 
$71,306, according to the 2000 U.S. census. Only one in five residents is 
below the voting age.
   "Folks here pay attention to what's on the ballot, the connection between 
candidates and measures, and what that means not only to their community 
but their household," said Registrar Michael Smith.
   Imperial is agricultural and poor, with a median household income of 
$31,870. Abutting the U.S.-Mexico border, it is predominantly Latino (72 
percent) - nearly a third of whom are too young to vote.
   "Because of our agricultural community, a lot of people work hours that 
exceed the hours the polls are open," said Registrar Dolores Provencio.
   California counties have been receiving record numbers of applications for 
absentee ballots because of a 2002 law that allows anyone - not just the 
elderly and the homebound - to permanently vote absentee.
   But only 13 percent of registered voters in Imperial County have 
requested absentee ballots compared to 40 percent in Marin County .
   Counties depend largely on local funding to operate their elections office 
and conduct registration drives. A recent infusion of federal and state money 
is mostly earmarked for replacing voting machines.
   "We don't have a person go out and promote voter registration drives 
because we're so limited here," said Provencio, who has only three full-time 
employees.
   Marin County , by comparison, has a full-time staff of 10 people to serve 
a larger population - 246,000 to 149,000 - and far more eligible voters.
   "While the office does not have a lot of people in it, there's a community 
that we call on at election time," including 20 part-time workers and 700 
volunteers, Smith said. "They get engaged, involved and, as such, get the 
vote out."
   Voter registration is largely the responsibility of political parties. 
Democrats have a big edge on Republicans in registration in California :
 44 percent to 37 percent, according to the PPIC.
   But lack of political engagement has made recruiting minority voters a 
low priority.
   Ramakrishnan said money that could have been spent in California  
this presidential year by the parties was diverted to more competitive states. 
"Another thing that's happened to discourage spending is a large increase 
in independent voters," Ramakrishnan said. "The parties like to know who 
they're targeting."
   In the past decade, the number of "decline to state" or independent voters 
in California has increased from 1.5 million to 2.5 million even as turnout 
has declined.
   In the 2002 primary, California slipped below the national voter turnout 
average for the first time in a decade.
   Some analysts blamed the record low 34 percent participation of registered 
voters on lackluster support for Democratic Gov. Gray Davis and his 
Republican challengers.
   Turnout jumped to 61 percent in the historic 2003 recall that swept Republican 
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger into office - but receded to 39 percent in this 
year's primary.
   In an effort to bolster voter participation, Schwarzenegger recently signed 
legislation ending California 's experiment with March primaries and returning 
the elections to June.
   Davis ' election in 1998, which ended 16 years of GOP governors, was 
widely attributed to a rapid increase in minority voters, especially Latinos.
   They were said to have become permanently politically energized by anger 
at Republican Gov. Pete Wilson's endorsement in 1994 of Proposition 187. 
The voter-approved measure to deny public benefits to illegal immigrants 
was overturned by the courts in 1994.
   But the minority share of the California electorate dropped from 36 
percent in 1998 to 24 percent in 2002, according to exit polls. The white 
share rose from 64 percent to 76 percent.
   The margin continued in this year's primary. In Los Angeles County,
 where 40 percent of the state's Latino voters reside, only 37 percent of 
registered voters turned out.
   Turnout has been above the state average in recent years in Sacramento 
County - 72 percent in the 2000 presidential election, 66 percent for the 
gubernatorial recall and 50 percent in this year's primary.
   The county has a lower Latino voting population than other urban areas in 
the state. It did not pass the 5 percent federal threshold requiring the printing of Spanish-language ballots until after the 2000 census.
   Fewer than 2,000 Spanish-language ballots have been requested this year.
   "We still don't have the numbers some other counties have," said Registrar 
Jill LaVine. "This is something we're going to have to build on."
   Smith, the Marin County registrar, laments other residents of the state 
are not as politically engaged as the people he serves.
   "People who don't vote, don't have a political voice," he said. "If they want 
to be heard, they darn well better get involved."

The Latino and Asian Vote
by Jeffrey S. Passel
Published: July 27, 2004
Citation URL: http://www.urban.org/url.cfm?ID=900723
The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.
Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).
    As election 2004 approaches, impact at the voting booth of the nation's two largest immigrant-dominated populationsLatinos and Asiansis increasing. But, Urban Institute analysis underscores that voting levels among Latinos and Asians lag well behind the groups' population growth, largely because many new immigrants are not yet citizens and their children are still too young to vote. As a result, the full political force of ongoing demographic change will be felt over decades, not years.
    DEMOGRAPHICS
    Latino and Asian vote is rising. While the number of votes cast by whites in the presidential election rose by only 4.3 percent between 1996 and 2000,¹ the number of Asian votes rose by 22 percent. Hispanic votes increased by 19 percent.
    The Asian and Latino populations are heavily dominated by immigrants: 64 percent of Asians are foreign-born as are 40 percent of Latinos. In contrast, only 3 percent of whites are immigrants. 
    Latino and Asian vote is not proportional to population. Latinos represented 12.6 percent of the total U.S. population in 2000, but only 5.3 percent of the votes cast. Asians were 4.2 percent of the population versus 1.9 percent of votes. In contrast, whites accounted for 70 percent of the population, but over 81 percent of all votes.
    In 2004, the Latino share of votes could increase to 6.1 percent solely because of population growth (i.e., with no changes in registration or turnout). For Asians, population growth could increase their share to 2.4 percent.
    Demographic factors dilute Latino and Asian vote. About 62 percent of Latinos could not register to vote in 2000 because they were either too young or not U.S. citizens; 59 percent of Asians could not register. In contrast, only 35 percent of blacks and 25 percent of whites could not register to vote for demographic reasons.
    POLITICAL FACTORS
    Naturalization remains a key factor. Legal Latino immigrants are much less likely to become U.S. citizens than other immigrants; only 38 percent had done so by 2000 versus almost 60 percent of other immigrants. If Latinos had naturalized at the same rate as other immigrants, approximately 700,000 additional Latino votes would have been cast in 2000. Another one million Latino votes could be added in 2004, if the naturalization rate were on par with other immigrants.
    Voter registration lags at every age. Latino and Asian citizens are considerably less likely to register to vote than whites and blacks, at every age. If Latinos had registered at the same rate as white citizens, the result would have been approximately one million more Latino votes cast in 2000. Asians would have 500,000 additional voters if they had registered at the same rate as white citizens.
    Lower turnout also translates into loss of potential votes. Latino citizens who register are less likely to vote than whites. If Latinos had turned out to vote at the same rate as white citizens, the result would have been almost 700,000 more Latino votes cast in 2000. Asian turnout levels are higher, but turnout as high as whites would still have added about 200,000 new Asian voters.
    Targeting implications. For Hispanics, large and roughly equal payoffs can be expected from expanding naturalization, increasing voter registration, and increasing turnout. For Asians, the main strategic opportunity to increase their presence in the electorate is increasing relatively low registration levels.
    FUTURE TRENDS
    Geographic distribution of Latino and Asian voters will play a role in 2004. Latinos account for about 7.8 percent of potential voters nationwide, but more than 5 percent of potential voters in only 15 states.² The most heavily Hispanic state, New Mexico (40 percent) was extraordinarily close in 2000. In Texas (25 percent) and California (19 percent), Latinos are unlikely to make a difference since Bush and Kerry, respectively, are prohibitive favorites. However, in potential swing states, such as Ohio or Wisconsin , even the 1-2 percent of potential voters who are Latino could play a critical role.
    Asians are an even smaller share of potential voters-3.1 percent. Asians are two-thirds of the electorate in Hawaii , but are more than 5 percent only in California (11 percent), Nevada (6 percent), and Washington (5 percent).
    Latino and Asian voters will play a much larger role in future elections. Both Latino and Asian populations are projected to grow rapidly in the future, reaching about 25 percent and 10 percent of the population, respectively, in 2050. The aging of these groups and the increasing share of natives among them will strengthen the presence of Latinos and Asians in the pool of potential voters. Currently, only 40 percent of each group is eligible to vote. By about 2025, about 50 percent of each will be eligible to vote. This date could be speeded up through increased rates of naturalization.
    Methodological note: The data on registration and voting come from the November 2000 Current Population Survey (CPS). These data identify naturalized citizens but do make the distinctions among non-citizens as legal permanent, legal temporary, and unauthorized residents necessary to compute naturalization rates and other figures used in this brief. Naturalization rates and the like are obtained using techniques developed by the Urban Institute to assign legal status to foreign-born individuals in the March Supplements to the CPS. Data from the March 2000 and November 2000 CPS are then combined to compute turnout, participation, and naturalization rates.
    NOTES
    1. Throughout, all racial designations refer only to non-Hispanics.
    2. Based on 2003 data.
    Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).

8/3/04: Democrats Wrap Up Convention & Asian Americans Applaud Kerry / 
Edwards Ticket
By Sam Chu Lin
    Representative Bob Matsui (D-Sacramento, CA) sees more API political involvement, 
and he predicts that will impact the polls this November. "There were 211 API delegates at this convention, the highest number we have ever had," Matsui noted. "That's 4% of the delegates, which is larger than the overall population. " He concluded, "The Asian Pacific American community is more politically active, and the activists are more involved. In the year 2000, 62% of the Asian Americans voted, and in 1996, 43% voted, and in 1992, 31% voted. In a period of eight years, we've doubled our number of people that went out and voted. I expect even a bigger ratio this year."

[webmaster note: Asian Americans make substantial campaign contributions.  Substitute 
Jews for Asian Americans in this article to determine whether the reporter is 
a Bigot for the Left]
7/19/04 Associated Press: Asian Population Lacks Political Clout,
By Genaro C. Armas
    Washington - Asian Americans are the country's second fastest-growing minority 
behind Hispanics. But unlike Latinos, they have virtually no national political clout.
    Eager to change that, activists and political leaders are relying on tried-and-true 
methods like voter registration drives and educational efforts to get more people to 
the polls.
    Yet when it comes to courting Asian voters, political parties appear to be more 
influenced by some simple math, courtesy of the Census Bureau.
   There were more than 9 million Asians in the United States of voting age in July 
2003, up 1 million from three years earlier. Among minorities though, Asians lag 
behind the 26.3 million Hispanics and 25.7 million blacks of voting age.
   - People of Asian-Pacific Islander background comprised just 2 percent of voters 
in the 2000 election, compared with 10 percent for blacks and 5 percent for Hispanics.
   - Nationally, Asians represent just 4 percent of the U.S. population, and there is a large immigrant segment in the United States who aren't citizens and therefore can't vote.
   "Asian votes should be courted, not taken for granted," pleads Cao K. O, executive 
director of the Asian American Federation in New York .
   "At the same time, politicians and the political parties don't know how to court the 
Asian vote and many in the community do not know enough about the political process," 
he says. "There's no easy answer."
   David Lee of the Chinese American Voters Education Committee in San Francisco  
calls it a cycle that "feeds into itself." Parties historically haven't sought Asians' vote and spend little money to get them registered.
   Census data shows the nation's Asian population rose 12.6 percent between 2000 
and 2003, behind only the 13 percent increase among Latinos. Hispanics tend to lean Democratic though their votes are increasingly being targeted by Republicans.
   But deciphering how Asians vote can be tricky given the lack of detailed study in the 
area, says political scientist Paul Watanabe at the University of Massachusetts . Exit polling in 2000 found 55 percent of Asians backing Democrat Al Gore and 44 percent 
for President Bush. Watanabe cautions against reading too much into such figures 
because data on Asians are often based on interviews with a small number of voters.
   Drawing on rough estimates, Lee, O and others say there appear to be a roughly 
equal number of Asians registered as Democrat or Republican, plus a large contingent 
of independents. In theory, that means Asians could be pivotal in deciding a tight 
presidential campaign.
   Yet another factor that may be affecting the influence of Asians is that the states in 
which they constitute the largest shares of the population, such as Hawaii , California  
and New York , aren't considered toss-ups for the election.
   Of those states generally considered battlegrounds, Oregon , Nevada and
 Washington have the largest Asian population, though they still make up no more than 
6 percent of the state's total population in each case.
   Several nonpartisan groups have targeted those battleground states to get more 
Asians registered to vote.
    But the efforts can also be stunted by the large number of different languages among 
those Asians who speak something other than English. That means more money to pay 
for education efforts or registration drives because ads and materials have to be printed 
in many languages.
   "It can be very costly, very quickly," Lee says.
    S.B. Woo, a former Democratic lieutenant governor of Delaware, heads a group called 
the "80-20 Initiative" that hopes to garner 80 percent of the Asian vote nationally this fall behind one presidential candidate, regardless of the party.
   Woo says that would transform Asians into a critical national voting bloc.
    Watanabe is critical of the strategy. Efforts should "principally be concentrated at the 
local level than attempting to influence politics at the presidential level, where Asian Americans because of their numbers have the least decisive impact."
   Counters Woo, who is now an independent: "You play the hand you are dealt with."
    "To have one minority ignored by the political establishment is not healthy."


6/15/04 San Francisco Chronicle: "Asian Americans, Latinos setting pace in 
population growth,"
    As the nation's white population ages, it is being replaced, increasingly rapidly, 
by U.S.-born Asian and Latino children and young immigrants from Asia and Latin 
America, according to new estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau released Monday.
    The country's Latino population grew 13 percent between April 2000 and July 
2003, while the Asian American population increased 12.5 percent, the bureau 
reported. Both groups far surpassed the 3 percent growth rate for the country as a 
whole.
    "Hispanic growth is really a youth growth at this point," Frey said. "But maybe by 
the next presidential election in 2008, they'll be a much bigger force among voters in 
many of these battleground states like Arizona and Nevada ."
The report may be found online at http://eire.census.gov/popest/data/ national/asro.php

6/1/04 e-mail from http://www.80-20initiative.net
    In 2000, there were 12 million Asian Americans, but only 2.04 million voted.   Why?
    (1) Of the 12 million, only 68% are 18 or older.  (The overall percentage is 72%.)
    (2) Of those only 58% are citizens.
    (3) Of the citizens who are old enough to vote, only 52% had registered to vote.  (The national average is 69%.  The low percentage of registered Asian Americans on the East Coast produces the 52% figure.)
    (4) Of registered Asian Americans, 83% actually voted.  (The national average is 86%.
Again East Coast Asian Americans pull down the average.)
    (12 million x 0.68 x 0.58 x 0.52 x 0.83) = 2.04 million votes.
    *Source:  US Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, Amie Jamieson,
Hyon B. Smith & Jennifer Day, issued Feb., 2002

4/30/04  Associated Press: Asian Population Surging Across America,
    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 (news - web sites) projections show the Asian population could grow 
by a third, to 14 million, by 2010 and more than triple to 33 million in 2050.
    Immigrants from India and Vietnam contributed to the population surge during 
the 1990s.
    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. 
    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 .
    More businesses and strip malls 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 ." 
   

9/26/03 Associated Press: "Asians, Hispanics Massachusetts' Fastest Growing Minority Populations,"
    Boston -- The state's minority communities continued to grow quickly in the first years of the decade, as Massachusetts showed a slight increase in population, according to new data released Thursday by the U.S Census Bureau.
    Immigration and higher birth rates helped the Asian and Hispanic population grow by 10.2 percent and 8.2 percent, respectively, between 2000 and 2002. Meanwhile the white population, still a large majority, decreased 0.3 percent over the same period, the estimates show.
    In all, Massachusetts grew by 1 percent, to 6,427,801, the lowest population growth in New England. New Hampshire grew fastest among the six states with a 2.8 percent increase.
    The strongest growth continued to be in the southeastern section of the state, especially Cape Cod and the islands, although Worcester County also grew by a similar rate of 2.2 percent.
    Berkshire County, which lost about 1 percent of its population, was the only county to post a decrease, although Suffolk County, which includes Boston, showed no growth at all. Data was not available for individual cities and towns.
    And the state continued to slowly age, with the average age nearing 38, up slightly from two years ago. 
    The state's Asian population continued to experience the dynamic growth it enjoyed in the previous decade, when it grew by nearly 70 percent, to over a quarter of a million.
    ``The principal engine that drives the growth of Asians is immigration,'' said Paul Watanabe, of the Institute for Asian-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts-Boston. Family reunification, as well the influx of highly trained workers, continues to bring Asians to the state from India, Vietnam, China and elsewhere.
    While the Asian population continued to grow rapidly in Middlesex, Worcester, Essex and Norfolk counties, Suffolk County, home to Boston's large Chinese and Vietnamese communities, saw a growth of just over 3 percent.
    ``What you're seeing is the expansion of the Asian-American communities from the urban Boston base,'' Watanabe said.
    

9/26/03 Associated Press: "Asians Fastest-Growing Minority Population in New Mexico: New Census Figures Show Asians Leading Growth in Unexpected Places Nationwide,"
    Albuquerque (AP) - Asians make up only 1 percent of New Mexico's population, but they were the fastest-growing minority group in the state over the past two years, according to estimates released this week by the U.S. Census Bureau.
    The white population dropped by three-tenths of a percent to 817,610 in 2002. Whites make up about 44 percent of the state's population.

6/19/03 Los Angeles Times: "Latinos Now Top Minority: Census Bureau estimates group's U.S. population at 38.8 million, ahead of blacks for the first time. Demographers see even more,"
    Washington According to Census Bureau estimates, Asian Americans now number 11.6 million, or 4% of the U.S. total. The Asian population grew at almost as rapid a rate as Latinos.
    According to U.S. Census Bureau figures, in California, in 1990 Asian Americans were 9.2% of the state's population, Latinos 25.4%; and African Americans 7.1%. By 2000, Asian Americans had increased to 10.9% of the state population, Latinos had grown to 32.4%; while African Americans declined to 6.7%.
    The Census Bureau on Wednesday formally declared Latinos to be the nation's largest minority group. Figures placed the Latino population at 38.8 million in July 2002, an increase of nearly 10% from the 2000 census. The bureau estimated the African American population at 38.3 million. Each group accounts for a little more than 13% of the overall U.S. population.
    In an indication of strong growth, Latinos accounted for half the increase of 6.9 million in total U.S. population since April 2000.
    The Census Bureau considers Latinos an ethnic group whose members can be of any race or skin color. The racial identification issue created confusion this year when the Census Bureau released population estimates for 2001 that some said showed Latinos had numerically surpassed blacks. But when people who claimed more than one racial ancestry were counted, the number of African Americans was larger.

6/2/03 Associated Press: "Census: Divorce and People Never Married Up Among Asian Americans,"
    Washington -- More Asian Americans are divorcing, census figures indicate, suggesting this segment of the population may gradually be shedding cultural taboos against the practice.
    According to Census Bureau data released Wednesday, an estimated 488,000 Asians or Pacific Islanders age 15 and older in March 2002 were divorced, about 5% of that population. That was up from roughly 205,000, or less than 4% of Asians in 1994.
    Demographers also said Asians may be less likely to marry at younger ages in America than in their native country, where early marriage tends to be more culturally acceptable.
    The latest figures come from a nationwide survey of 70,000 homes in March 2002 on a range of socioeconomic characteristics, from income to homeownership to education. Among other findings:
    --About 19% of families had five or more members, compared with 14% of all families.
    --In 2001, 40% of Asian and Pacific Islander families had incomes of $75,000 or more, compared with 31% of all families. 17% of Asian families had incomes of less than $25,000, slightly lower than the 20% for all families.
    The percentage of Asians who were married and living with their spouse declined from 57% in 1994 to 53% in 2002. The percentage for the entire U.S. population fell from 54% to 52% over that period.
    Immigration and the search for jobs continued to boost the Asian population outside of the West. 51% of Asians lived in the West in 2002, down from 58% in 1994. The share of the Asian population in all other regions grew.
    The percentage of Asians age 25 and older with a bachelor's degree was 47%, nearly twice that of the U.S. population, which was 27%. About 7% of Asians had less than a ninth-grade education, on par with the national average.

5/703 Los Angeles Times: "Study Finds Continuing Race Disparity 
in Wages,"
    The wage gap between whites and Asians in California has been steady since the 1970s. However, in this case, Asians earn more. 
Asian men earn $1.04 for every dollar earned by white men. Asian women earned a relative wage of $1.15. The study was released 
today by the Public Policy Institute of California, a private nonprofit 
group which does research on economic, social and political issues.

2/28/03 Asian American Government Executives Network (AAGEN)  AAGEN Announcement
GAO Report on Diversity in the Senior Executive Service
    The U.S. General Accounting Office released a report titled 
"Senior Executive Service: Enhanced Agency Efforts Needed to 
Improve Diversity As The Senior Corps Turns Over." (Hotlink: http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-03-34)
    According to the report, "[more] than half of the 6,100 career 
SES members employed on October 1, 2000, will have left service 
by October 1, 2007. Using current SES appointment trends, the 
only significant changes in diversity will be an increase in the 
number of white women and an essentially equal decrease in 
white men."
    In addition, "[a]bout 46 percent of GS-15s and 34 percent of 
GS-14s on board in October 2000 will leave by October 2007, 
but the number of minorities still in the GS-15 and GS-14 workforce 
will provide agencies the opportunities to select minority members 
for the SES."
    The SES is the highest ranking corps of executives who have 
the strongest influence in the daily decision and operation of the 
Federal government, and the GS-15s and GS-14s are top managers that form the major pipeline to the SES. There are about 100 Asian Pacific Americans (APA) serving in the SES, representing only about 1.7 percent of the SES, which is less than half of the representation of APAs in the U.S. population (about 4 percent). In total, about 82,000 APAs work in the civilian segment of the Federal government, and another 54,000 serve in active military forces.
    The Asian American Government Executives Network (AAGEN) 
firmly believes in promoting, expanding, and supporting APA 
leadership in the Federal, state and local governments. The alarming findings of the GAO report again confirms the concerns of under-represerntation that AAGEN has expressed for many years, 
but they also identify the opportunities that will be open to those in 
the pipeline who aspire to contribute and serve our Nation.
    AAGEN invites your comments to the GAO report as it prepares 
a response. Please send your views and thoughts to aagen@earthlink.net.
    To learn more about AAGEN, visit www.aagen.org.

10/21/02 Associated Press: "Most immigrants already educated 
before they arrive,"
by Mike Snyder
    Asian-Americans, as members of Harris County's fastest-growing ethnic community, are enjoying economic success largely because 
most arrived in this country as well-educated adults, the 2002 Houston Area Survey shows.
    The findings raise questions about the stereotype of Asian-
Americans as a "model minority" who succeed solely because of 
hard work, high intelligence and strong family values, said Stephen 
Klineberg, the Rice University sociology professor who directs the survey.
    This misconception of Asians as a homogenous community of 
affluent overachievers, fueled in part by the many Asian surnames among spelling bee winners and National Merit Scholars, may 
impede the availability of social services to Asians who need them, Klineberg said.
    It also contributes, he said, to unfair attitudes about other minority groups, since Asians' successes create the notion that "by 
implication, Houston's blacks and Latinos have only themselves to 
blame if they have not achieved equal success."
    Klineberg will release the survey findings with City Councilman 
Gordon Quan, a Chinese-American, at 5:30 p.m. today at the 
Southern Chinese News Building, 11122 Bellaire Blvd.
    The data on Asians are a supplement to Klineberg's annual survey, conducted since 1982, of county residents' demographic 
characteristics and attitudes on a wide range of issues. Results of 
the basic survey were reported in May.
    This year's Asian survey, along with one conducted in 1995, represents the most extensive analysis of Asian populations in any 
U.S. city, Klineberg said.
    "It is much more difficult to obtain representative samples from Houston's increasingly important Asian communities because they 
still constitute a relatively small proportion of the Houston population 
as a whole," -- about 6%, Klineberg said.
    U.S. census figures show that the county's Asian population grew 
from 109,878 in 1990 to 193,059 in 2000, a 75.7% rise, surpassing even the 73.5% increase in the number of Hispanics.
    Within the city's diverse Asian-American community, the survey shows, Vietnamese and Indians recorded the fastest growth in the 1990s, followed by Filipinos, Chinese and Koreans.
    The survey findings regarding distribution of nationalities among Asians here correspond closely to census figures, strengthening confidence in the survey data's reliability, Klineberg said.
    The survey shows that the county's Asian community is newer to 
this country than other immigrant groups and far better-educated 
than even Anglos.
    For example, 68.8% of the Asians surveyed arrived in this country 
as adults, compared with 52.5% of Hispanics and 6% of blacks. 
Only 3.2% of Asians reported that one or both parents were born in 
the United States, compared with 27.5% of Hispanics and 93.6% of blacks.
    Among Asian immigrants, 59.1% have a bachelor's or graduate degree, compared with 44.4% of U.S.-born Anglos, 23% of U.S.-
born blacks, 15.4% of U.S.-born Hispanics and 8.5% of Hispanic immigrants.
    Asked their father's occupation when they were 16 years old, 
48% of Asian respondents said their fathers were doctors, lawyers, professors, engineers, corporate executives or other professionals. 
This was true of just 39% of Anglos and 17% of blacks and Latinos.
    "Asians have been relatively successful in Houston primarily 
because they come from families in their countries of origin whose educational and occupational attainments far exceed the average 
for native-born Americans," Klineberg said.
    This pattern, he said, reflects an Asian "brain drain" based on immigration policies that grant priority to people with "needed professional skills."
    The survey shows, however, that incomes of the county's Asian-Americans are not keeping pace with their impressive educational and professional backgrounds.
    Only 42.5% of Asians reported annual household incomes of 
more than $50,000, compared with 55.2% of Anglos. Klineberg 
said a probable reason is Asians' difficulty in transferring their educational credentials into a new society, combined with discrimination.
    The diversity of Harris County's Asian community, Klineberg 
said, is reflected in the different reasons for emigrating reported 
by Asians of various nationalities.
    Among Vietnamese, for example, 72.4% said they left their 
homeland because of "war, politics or (a desire for) freedom." Educational opportunities were the most common reason cited 
by Chinese and Taiwanese immigrants, while Indians, Pakistanis 
and Filipinos most often cited employment opportunities.
    This diversity also is reflected in the levels of educational 
attainment among Asians of different nationalities, Klineberg said.
    The highest educational levels were reported by Filipinos, with 
77.6% holding a college degree, followed by Indians and Pakistanis (68.9%), Chinese/Taiwanese (66.2%) and Vietnamese (37.7%).
    Vietnamese immigrants, who arrived as refugees from the war 
in their homeland, "are generally facing more difficult challenges 
than other Asians in Houston," Klineberg wrote in a report on the 
survey findings. "Houston's Southeast Asians are also significantly 
less likely than other Asians to have health insurance and more 
likely to report problems buying groceries to feed their families.
    "Clearly, many Vietnamese are having a hard time in this city, 
and they may be less likely to receive the help they need, in a 
language they can understand, from a wider community that 
continues to believe that all Asians are doing fine."


8/29/02 Orange County Register: "Asian Lead Latinos for 
Citizenship: Huge discrepancy stems from whether people entered 
U.S. legally."
    Asian immigrants are far more likely to become citizens than Mexicans are.
    In Orange County, 58% of Asian immigrants are citizens compared with 18% of Mexicans, according to figures from the 2000 census released this week.
    Census numbers also show that the longer immigrants remain in the United States, the more likely they are to become citizens, enabling 
them to get higher-paying jobs and control the destiny of their communities by voting.    
    But because so many Mexicans enter the United States illegally, the percentage of all Mexicans who become citizens is small, even among Mexicans who have lived here for decades.
    Asian and Mexican immigrants who enter the country legally become citizens at roughly the same rate, said Belinda Reyes, a fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California who recently co-authored a study of naturalization rates in the state.
    But lacking the money, education and advice from other citizens so crucial to becoming naturalized, most illegal Mexican immigrants struggle for years before becoming Americans, Reyes said.
    By contrast, many Asian immigrants arrive legally with more money and education and are quickly folded into well-established communities of other naturalized citizens, Reyes said.
    About 89% of Asian immigrants who entered the United States 
before 1980 have become citizens compared with 27% of those who entered in the 1990s.
    Among Mexicans, 47% who entered before 1980 are citizens, compared with 4% in the 1990s.
    Nationwide in 1999, 646,568 immigrants were granted permanent legal residency -- a green card -- according to the most recent figures available from the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Green cards, a first step toward citizenship, are only given to legal immigrants.
    Of that total, the largest number -- 147,573 -- were born in Mexico. Some 113,760 more were born in one of four Asian countries: China, 
the Philippines, India and Vietnam.
    Asian immigrants are far more likely to have family members or employers who can sponsor their application and money to pay for paperwork.
    Applicants for citizenship must have a green card. To get a green card, immigrants must show that they entered the country legally.
    The wait for a green card can take up to a decade and cost up to $3,000 in fees to the INS, lawyers who fill out paperwork and a shadowy network of hustlers who get immigrants last-minute documents they can't get on their own. After they receive a green card, immigrants must wait five years to apply for citizenship.

8/8/02 Associated Press: "Mass. Asians Among Least Likely to Register To Vote,"
    Asians may be the fastest growing racial group in Massachusetts, 
but they are among the least likely to register to vote -- much less 
likely than blacks and Hispanics, according to a new report.
    The study, which examined populations in 10 Bay State cities and towns, found that only 25% of adult Asians registered to vote, 
compared to statewide figures of 41% of Hispanics and 56% of 
blacks.
    Paul Watanabe is a University of Massachusetts at Boston 
professor and co-author of the report. 
    One reason Asians are less likely to be registered to vote, the 
report found, is that many are immigrants who are either new arrivals, 
or are residents but have not become citizens. In fact, the state's Asian community grew by 68% in the 1990s, according to Census figures, 
the fastest growth of any large racial group.
    ``That's a voter pool that's ripe to be gotten,'' said Amy Sangiolo, 
who in 1997 became the first Asian-American woman elected to Newton's Board of Aldermen.
    Sangiolo, a child of Chinese and Japanese parents, said she tried 
to rally support among Newton's 6,000 or so Asians when she first ran for office, with little success.
    Many were ineligible to vote because they were not yet citizens, Sangiolo said, but many others felt disconnected from the system.
    About 240,600 Massachusetts residents identified themselves as Asian on the 2000 Census. The largest Asian ethnic group was 
Chinese, representing slightly more than a third of that number.
    The new study, which was due out Tuesday, examined voting lists 
from 10 Massachusetts communities with large Asian or Asian-American populations.
    Watanabe and co-author Michael Liu, both of UMass Boston's 
Institute for Asian American Studies, identified individuals with Asian 
last names in the 10 communities and checked their status on local 
voter lists.
    In those 10 cities and towns, the report found 25% of Asian 
Americans registered to vote, about half the rate for all residents in 
those communities.
    Even leaving out Asians who were non-citizens and ineligible to 
vote, the report found Asian American citizens were much less likely 
to register -- about 50%, compared to 69 percent of all citizens in the communities.
    Lydia Lowe, who has been conducting voter registration efforts in Boston's Chinatown for 10 years, said language differences and unfamiliarity with the political system keep many Asian Americans 
from participating.

8/8/02 Associated Press: "Study: Nevada Asians Seeing Top Economic Growth,"
    Nevada's minorities have made gains in their buying power since 1990 that place them in the top 10 nationwide in their respective categories, a new study shows.
    The University of Georgia study also shows that Asians, Hispanics and blacks in Nevada have increased their income at a faster rate than the state's total population during the past 12 years.
    The study shows that Nevada's Asians ranked first nationwide since 1990 in their growth in buying power 361% -- compared with Asians 
in other states.
    ``A lot Asians have come from other states, where the cost of living tends to be higher,'' Tonie Sison, vice president of external affairs for Concerned Asians of Nevada Development Organization, an umbrella group of Asian civic and business groups.
    ``Many of them tend to work two jobs, which comes from a strong 
work ethic that is passed down,'' she told the Las Vegas Sun.
    Sison said the Las Vegas valley's Asian community, which he estimates at 100,000, is demonstrating its growing economic clout by expanding Chinatown, for example.
    He also said more money in their respective communities also leads to more political clout.  12 Asian candidates are running in the November's elections for offices including State Assembly and District Court, an all-time high.

3/4/02: "Census 2000  Asian Americans still mostly live in western U.S.:
Only slightly wider dispersion than 1990,"
    Despite a small drop-off since 1990, half of all Asian Americans still
reside in the western United States -- with California home to the largest
number.  According to new Census 2000 data released today, 49% of the nation's 11.9 million Asian Americans live in the West, 20% in the
Northeast, 19% in the South and 12% in the Midwest.  California is home to 4.2 million people who listed themselves as at least partly Asian, followed by New York, Hawaii and Texas.  
    In the 1990 census, 54% of Asians resided in the West with 19% in the Northeast, 16% in the South and 11% in the Midwest.  
    Chinese Americans continued to be the largest Asian ethnic group, accounting for 23%, followed by Filipinos and Indians. Combined, the three groups represent 57% of the country's Asian population.  On the other end of the spectrum, Maldivians were the smallest recorded Asian ethnic group in the country -- with just 51 people. According to new detailed census information on even the smallest Asian ethnic groups, there were nationwide 16,720 Burmese, 10,599 Okinawans, 9,399 Nepalese and 2,394 Singaporeans. There were also 212 Bhutanese, 199 Indo Chinese and 78 Iwo Jimans.  
    Three-fourths of Asian Americans reside in 10 states: California, New York, Hawaii, Texas, New Jersey, Illinois, Washington, Florida, Virginia and Massachusetts. Just over half of the Asian population lives in California, New York and Hawaii.  
    By sheer numbers, New York City (872,777) has the most Asian Americans, followed by Los Angeles (407,444), San Jose (257,571) and San Francisco (253, 477).  The highest concentration of Asian Americans in a county was in Honolulu, in which 62% were at least part Asian. San Francisco and Santa Clara were also among the top eight counties, which included three others in Hawaii and two in Alaska.
    According to the new data, Japanese Americans are the most
likely of Asian ethnicities to be multiracial. 31% percent of
Japanese Americans reported their racial status in combination with another race. Filipinos followed with 22% and Chinese at 15%. By
comparison, only 8% of Vietnamese said they were of mixed race.

8/2/01 Associated Press: "Minnesota Hmong Population More Than Doubles,"
    The number of Hmong in Minnesota more than doubled in the 1990s, according to new Census figures. 42,863 Minnesotans declared themselves at least partly Hmong in 2000.  The government looks to Census data to make decisions on social spending.
    Nachee Lee, executive director of the Hmong Cultural Center in St. Paul, helped organize the Census Bureau's efforts to count every Hmong in Minnesota.  He said some Hmong may have gone uncounted in part because of difficulty understanding forms. And many Hmong live in groups larger than those allowed by a landlord, and may have feared a Census worker could somehow evict them, he said.
    During the 1990 Census, 16,833 Minnesotans declared themselves of Hmong descent.
    Neither California nor Wisconsin, another state with a high number of Hmong, have yet received census data that details ancestry.


7/2/01 The New Republic: "Asian America discovers identity politics" http://www.tnr.com/070201/foer070201.html 
    Polling revealed that the vast majority of Asian Americans were fiscally conservative, anti-Communist Republicans.  As recently as 1992 they chose George Bush over Bill Clinton by a 27% margin.  By the end of the decade, however, the situation had flipped.  Al Gore won Asian American votes by 14%.  Nor was this a momentary reversal.  According to the recently published National Asian American Political Survey, 57% of Asians who self-identify with a party consider themselves Democrats.  
    In 1988, according to the Los Angeles Times, Asian Americans gave the Bush-Quayle campaign more soft money than any other "donor bloc."

6/28/01 Reuters: "Many Asian/Pacific Islanders Prosper in US-Survey."
    American families of Asian and Pacific Island descent are more likely than the general U.S. population to make more than $75,000 and include members who have a bachelor's degree or higher, a new Census Bureau survey showed on Thursday.
    The March 2000 profile of the population showed just over 37% of
such families make more than $75,000 compared to the national figure of 28%.
    That number jumps to 42% of families of Asian and Pacific descent
formed by married couples, compared to a third of all such families in the
country, the new figures showed.
    Conversely, the number of Asian-Pacific descendants judged to be living below the poverty level in America was not far from the national figure, at 1.2 million, or 10.7% of the population, against 11.8% of
the nation as a whole.
    For married couple families, the number living below the poverty level was actually higher than the national norm, at 8.1% against 4.8% nationally and 3.3% of non-Hispanic whites.
    That income disparity could be due to the numbers of recent immigrants who have not yet been able to take on high-level occupational jobs, such as the Hmong minority from Laos, Census Bureau statistician-demographer Jesse McKinnon said.
    ``This is a very diverse population we're talking about here,'' McKinnon
said, but noted that in fact the poverty level for the group was at a
historic low.
    More than half -- 53.6% -- of the Asian-Pacific population was
found to live in the Western United States.
    The March 2000 survey did not draw on the much-heralded data gathered in the Census 2000, which aimed to take a snapshot of the U.S. population as of April 1, 2000.
    Although that Census was a nationwide count, the annual March 2000 survey reached its conclusions by selecting some 50,000 households around the country and extrapolating.
    EDUCATED, PROFESSIONAL
    Nearly 40% of the employed Asian-Pacific population aged 16 and
over was in a managerial position or had a professional specialty, as opposed to 30% nationally and a third of non-Hispanic whites.  Less than 1% of the Asian-Pacific population worked in farming, forestry and
fishing against 2.4% nationally.
    The survey also found Asian-Pacific descendants were more likely than the total population to get a university degree, with 29% of the men
aged 25 and over holding a bachelor's degree and 20% an advanced degree against 18% and 10% of the total population and 20% and
11% for non-Hispanic whites.
    The higher figures also cut across gender lines. Asian-Pacific women
outperformed the national norm at even higher rates of nearly 30%
with a B.A. and 11.2% with advanced degrees against 16.3% and
7.3% nationally and 17.6% and 7.9% among non-Hispanic whites.
    But as many as 10.5% of the women had not finished the 9th grade,
which Americans take around the age of 14, compared to a national norm for women of 6.8%.  McKinnon said that again could be due to the recent immigrant influx.
    According to the Center for Immigration Studies, the immigrant population has topped 28 million, or 10.4% of the total U.S. population, the highest percentage in 70 years.
    At 48.3% growth from 1990 to 2000 to 10.2 million people according
to Census 2000 data, the Asian-American community is considered the fastest growing racial minority in the United States. The Hispanic community has grown 57.9% but is not considered a race.

6/21/01: "AAGEN Answers GAO Report on Diversity in the Senior Executive Service"
Leaders of the Asian American Government Executives Network (AAGEN), a group of high-ranking government officials, have released a letter to the General Accounting Office (GAO) applauding a recent report that confirms the under-representation of Asian Pacific Americans in Federal service.  AAGEN Co-Chairs Danny Aranza and Les Jin went on to say in the letter that the pervasiveness of under-representation "nurtures an institutional bias" that contributes to such skewed 
treatment of APA-related events as the Dr. Wen Ho Lee case and the campaign finance controversy.
Followed by a recent nation-wide poll commissioned by the Committee of 100, which found that 25% of Americans have negative attitudes towards Chinese and Asian Americans, the GAO report is especially telling, the AAGEN co-chairs said.  A reflection of the country at large, the report shows federal institutions with a paucity of APA representation in the career SES ranks.  Three cabinet level departments (Housing and Urban Development, Labor, and State), the AAGEN letter states, "did not make one single APA career appointment out of a total of 234 possible opportunities" from 1990to 1999.
"Perhaps most alarming to observe," the letter continues, is "that OPM
(Office of Personnel Management) is among the worst performing agencies toward inclusion of APAs.  A lead agency with this kind of performance record for 10 years has no credibility in the APA community."  The letter further notes the exclusion of intelligence agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from the 
GAO study.  This omission is key, according to AAGEN leaders, because a recent Greenlining Institute report found no APA in the top 620 positions in the FBI as late as 1997.  At the same time, Aranza and Jin expressed concern that the statements made by AAGEN representatives at the start of the GAO investigation were not
addressed in the report.  Instead, Aranza and Jin said generalizations made by GAO masked the problems and the causes.
AAGEN stands ready to work with GAO and Federal agencies to understand the systematic barriers imposed on APA and to introduce best business practices to increase representation of APA in the Federal service, especially at theSES level.  Both the GAO report and the AAGEN response letter can be found in the AAGEN web site at www.aagen.org.

5/29/01 Organization of Chinese Americans press release: "Chinese American Population Increase Reported"
    According to Census data from 2000, the Chinese American population has increased by 48% to over 2.4 million since 1990, leaving the Chinese American community with the highest population of any Asian ethnicity in the country.
    The Asian American population increased at about the same rate as the Chinese American population over that period of time.  Current Census 2000 data detail the populations for the six largest Asian American communities:
    Chinese Americans    2.4 million
    Filipino Americans      1.8 million
    Indian Americans         1.7 million
    Vietnamese American 1.1 million
    Korean Americans       1.1 million
    Japanese Americans   0.8 million
    The only one of these six Asian ethnic groups in America to see a decrease in population was the Japanese American community.
    The ten states with the largest Chinese American populations were:
    California (980,642)
    New York (424,774)
    Texas (105,829)
    New Jersey (100,355)
    Massachusetts (84,392)
    Illinois (76,725)
    Washington (59,914)
    Hawaii (56,600)
    Pennsylvania (50,650)
    Maryland (49,400).
    In terms of percentage of population, the ten largest Chinese American communities are in:
    Hawaii
    California
    New York
    Massachusetts
    New Jersey
    Washington
    Maryland
    Nevada
    District of Columbia
    Illinois

Census 2000 on Asian-Americans
5/19/01 India West
    Driven primarily by the influx of high-tech workers, the Indian American population in the United States increased 105.9% from 1990 to 2000, shooting up from 815,447 to 1,678,765.  Indian Americans had the largest percentage increase of the six major Asian groups in the U.S. and are now the third largest Asian group in the country after Chinese and Filipino Americans, according to 2000 census data released May 15.  Indian Americans went from 0.3% of the U.S. population of 248,709,873 in 1990 to 0.6% of the 281,421,906 in 2000.
    In pure numbers, Chinese were still the largest Asian group in 2000 with 2,432,585 people, Filipinos were second with 1,850,314; Indian Americans third at 1,678,765; Vietnamese fourth, 1,122,528; Koreans fifth, 1,076,872; and Japanese sixth, 796,700.
    There were 1,285,234 in the "Other Asian" category, which not only included Thais, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Malaysians and the many other Asian subgroups, but also those who listed themselves in two or more Asian categories.
    The total Asian population in the decade rose from 6,908,638 in 1990 to 10,242,998. When those who checked off Asian and another race were included, the total Asian population in 2000 was 11,898,828, up 74% from 1990. (Asians who listed themselves in mixed race categories are not included in the specific Asian race totals.)
    Asians are now 4.2% of the U.S. population, compared with 2.8% in 1990.
    By percentage increases, Indians' 105.9% increase placed first in the Main Asian groups; followed by Vietnamese, 82.7%; Chinese, 46.9%; Koreans, 34.8%; and Filipinos 31.5%.  Japanese decreased in population during the decade by about 6%.
    The numerical jump for Indians was 863,318 in the decade compared to 787,113 for Chinese, 507,981 for Vietnamese, 443,544 for Filipinos, and 278,023 for Koreans. Japanese dropped by 50,862.
    Senior Census Bureau demographer Campbell Gibson said that the drop in Japanese figures not only indicates Japanese immigration has slowed considerably, but may reflect the fact that the Japanese have more mixed marriages.  Their total could actually increase slightly when mixed-Asian and mixed-race Japanese get added to their totals, demographers say.
    Increased quotas for professional workers in the last half of the last decade during the technology boom fueled the population jump for Indian Americans.
    According to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, in 1998, the latest year when INS data is available, 62,544 Indian nationals arrived on H-1B visas for specialty occupations. INS figures for 1999 and 2000 could be even higher, due to the 115,000 quota for H-1B visas in fiscal years 1999 and 2000.
    But the technology revolution has masked the fact that Indians were already a fast-growing population even before 1990.
    From 1980-90 Indian American immigration increased 110% from 428,224 in 1980 to 815,447.  Only Vietnamese with 150.8% growth and Koreans with a 123.5% increase had higher percentages of the major Asian groups in that decade.
    "The numbers show that we have a population roughly equivalent to the state of Nebraska, which indicates that if all of our community lived in one state, we would have three Indian American members of Congress," IACPA said in a statement May 15.
    "Indian Americans represent 0.6% of the U.S. population; this would entail that the Indian American community should have at least 45 State legislators of Indian origin...as opposed to the two who currently hold office,...considering there are 7,424 state legislators nationwide," IACPA said.

5/16/01 Dallas Morning News: "High tech jobs helped U.S. Asian population swell in '90s".  
    The overall population of Asian-Americans almost doubled since the 1990 census.  10.2 million people selected only "Asian" on census forms, up 48% from 1990.  Of that total, 2.4 million were Chinese, also up 48% to remain the largest of any Asian group.  The Asian-Indian population increased the most, up 106% to almost 1.7 million.  The increase resulted primarily from high-tech firms recruiting Asian-Indians to fill job openings.  Only the Japanese-American population declined, down 6%.  It was attributed to a low fertility rate and high rates of inter-racial families.

Harvard University Fact Book has student enrollment by race and ethnicity for each of Harvard University's individual schools for the last five years

3/30/01 cnn.com: "Rising minorities find political clout elusive,"
    Census 2000 numbers show a dramatic rise in the number of Hispanics and Asians in the United States, but scholars and political observers say it remains unclear whether these increases have translated into increased political power.
    Hispanics now outnumber blacks as the nation's largest minority, 35,305,818 compared to 34,658,190 African-Americans. The number of Asian-Americans grew 48.3% from 6,908,638 to 10,242,998 in the 1990s.
    California's Hispanic and Asian populations grew so rapidly in the 1990s that the state no longer has a majority of any group, including whites, who now comprise 47% of the total, down from 57% in 1990. Hispanics comprise 32.4%, Asians 10.8%, and blacks 6.4%. In New York, Asian-Americans are now the fastest-growing minority, increasing 56% in the 1990s.
    "Part of the problem is how the lines are drawn," Glenn Magpantay, attorney for the Asian American Legal Defense Fund, said. "The city council district [in New York] for Chinatown represents all of Chinatown, but also goes into heavily white, economically affluent neighborhoods. So, Asian voters are overwhelmed by non-Asian voters. The lines have to be redrawn. The question is whether the lines will be drawn to give Asians meaningful representation."
    New York has the second largest Asian-American population in the country, according to Magpantay, but none has ever been elected to city council, to the state legislature or to Congress.
    James Lai, a political science professor at California's Santa Clara University, said it is still unclear whether Asian-Americans are fulfilling their political potential.
    Asian-Americans, nearly 70% of whom were foreign-born as of 1990, historically have relied on "politics by other means," Lai said. That is, "participation that excluded traditional forms of political behavior, such as running for elected office." Instead, they remain politically active mostly by making campaign contributions, he said.
    Trends over the past decade, Lai said, indicate this group is beginning to show signs of greater political incorporation. He said Asian-Americans have achieved a great deal of "firsts" in the past decade.
    "In 1996, Gary Locke [in Washington] became the first Asian-American mainland governor," Lai said. "In 1994, Tony Lam became the first Vietnamese-American elected official in the United States when he was elected to [the city council of] Westminster, California. In 1998, Chanrithy Uong, a Cambodian-American, and Joe Bee Xiong, a Hmong-American, became the first elected officials from their communities to be elected to Lowell, Massachusetts, and Eau Clair, Wisconsin, respectively."
    The actual number of Asians, blacks and Hispanics may not affect minority political power as much as voter eligibility.
    The issue of citizenship is a problem in the Asian-American population. Sociologists and academics say immigration has fueled the increase of Hispanics and Asians into the United States. But it takes an immigrant between five to six years to become eligible for citizenship.
    And even if they do become citizens, said Dan Ichinose of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, they tend to be unaffiliated with any political party until they are more familiar with the system. APALC is a group that provides Asians and Pacific Islanders with legal services and civil advocacy.
    "You have a phenomenon where Asian-Americans may be 8 or 9% of the city, but only half will be eligible to vote," said Karen K. Narasaki, executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, a group that works to advance the legal and civil rights of Asian-Americans.
    "And Asian-Americans tend to be registered independent," Narasaki said. "In many areas, in order to vote in the primary election, which determines the runoff, you have to register with a party."
    One Asian-American elected official, Dr. Judy Chu, said she ran for office to fight an "English only" movement in the 1980s. She is on the city council in Monterey Park, California, a city where the majority of the population is Asian-American. Still, she said, her position was won with the support of Asians as well as Latinos and whites.
    Pei-te Lien, a political science professor at the University of Utah, says that in Monterey Park the population is 60% Asian but only half are citizens, and even fewer are registered to vote.
    According to a survey by Lien, among Asian-Americans who are registered nationwide, 80% come out to vote. "One problem is that concrete numbers are difficult to get because we don't have a good recording system," Lien said.
    Chu has been elected to her post four times, but she says Asians are still under-represented at the state and federal levels.
    "In my first race, there were so many stereotypes, a kind of fear," she said. "Now, I would say the population in Monterey Park accepts the fact that an Asian-American can be a good leader for the city."
    The number of Asians and Pacific Islanders voting in congressional elections increased by more than 366,000 to 1.4 million voters between 1994 and 1998, according to a report by the Census Bureau last year.
    "While the number of voters nationwide dropped by 2.6 million, the number of Asian and Pacific Islanders going to the polls went up significantly between the 1994 and 1998 elections," said Jennifer Day, co-author of a U.S. Census Bureau report, "Voting and Registration in the Election of November 1998."
    Despite comprising 12% of the population in California, Asian-Americans make up only 2% of the state assembly. And in the race for mayor of Los Angeles, a city with large Asian-American and Hispanic populations, the front runner is Jim Hahn, who is white.
    Lien said Asian-Americans have a problem winning support because they cannot count on their base. Adding to the problem, Guiterrez said, is a resistance to embracing a population that is not mainstream.
    "Asians are still considered more foreign than [American]," Lien said. "Our senatorial candidate [in California], Matt Fong, was confronted with a loyalty question. He was asked if China invades America, which side would he side with. He's a third or fourth generation Chinese-American."
    Lien said Asians have a disadvantage compared to Latinos, who are strong Democratic Party supporters and enjoy the support of unions. They also share the same language, and often, the same religion.
    "Asian-Americans," she said, "don't speak the same language and don't necessarily identify with the Democratic Party. That's cutting into our bloc-vote potential. And the bloc vote is behind the assumption that redistricting is necessary."
    The reasons for the increases in voting are as varied as the populations themselves. Experts attribute some of it to outreach efforts stressing the importance of registration and participation. Litigation has become a tool as well.
    The Asian American Legal Defense Fund challenged the congressional redistricting in one Asian community in New York City. In Diaz vs. Silver, the AALDF argued that two Asian communities in one New York City district constituted one community because the people had the same ethnicity, spoke the same language and were all poor or working class. A panel of three federal judges in New York ordered the district redrawn to include both communities, and the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the decision.
    Hispanic and Asian-American voters do have some characteristics in common. Those who are not as well educated, who have lower incomes, and who are younger do not participate as much as older, wealthier and better-educated community members.
    According to Gold, the reverse was true with immigrants in recent elections. In 1996 and 1998, voter turnout rates among Latino immigrants were higher than those of Latinos who were native-born.

2000 U.S. Census data courtesy of the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies at the UCLA School of Public Policy & Social Research. For continued updates, click on their website: www.sppsr.ucla.edu/lewis.  At the national level, 69.2% of the population in the Year 2000 was NonHispanic White, 12.5% African American, 12% Latino, 4.2% Asian Pacific Islander and 2.1% Other.  In California, 46.7% of the population in the Year 2000 was NonHispanic White, 7% African-American, 31.2% Latino, 12.2% Asian Pacific Islander and 2.9% Other.

3/26/01 India-West (www.indiawest.com) "Asian Population in New York, Illinois Increases by 50%"
    The Asian population in New York state rose 51.6% from 689,303 in 1990 to 1,044,976 in 2000, according to U.S. Census Bureau data released March 15. When individuals who checked Asian and one or more races were included, the Asian and mixed Asian population in the state totaled 1,169,200, an increase of 69.6% since 1990.
    In Illinois, the Asian population jumped 49.9% to 423,603 from 282,569 in 1990. When those who listed themselves in combination with at least one other race were included, Asians numbered 473,649 in 2000, a 67.6% jump.
    Asians were still concentrated in the inner cities in the two states. In the five boroughs of New York City, there were 787,047 Asians counted in 2000. The population of New York City crossed eight million for the first time, growing 6% in the decade.
    In Cook County in Illinois, which includes Chicago, the Asian population was 260,170. Chicago gained population for the first time since 1950, rising to almost 2.9 million.
    Asian Indians in New York in 1990 had a population of about 140,000 the second largest Asian subgroup in the state, but only about half the population of the largest Asian group, the Chinese.
    In Illinois, however, Asian Indians may be shown to be the largest Asian group in the state when data on Asian groups is released this summer.
    In 1990, Filipinos and Asian Indians had about 64,000 each in Illinois, but Asian Indians have seen their numbers rise sharply in Illinois, Texas, California and other states due to high-tech immigrations.
    Of the 15 states that had data released March 14-20, only one reported less than a 47% rise in its Asian population.
    The one exception was Hawaii, a majority Asian state. Interracial marriage in Hawaii state seems to have been a major factor in numbers of people who checked off their multiracial identity for the first time in a census. The Asian population in Hawaii, based on those who checked only Asian, actually dropped 19.09% from 522,967 in 1990 to 503,868 in 2000, but when those who checked Asian and another race were included, the Asian population was 703,232 in 2000, an increase of 34.5% from 1990.
    Three states with large numbers of Indian Americans witnessed significant increases of Asians from 1990 to 2000. In Ohio the Asian population jumped 47.8% from 89,723 to 132,633. The total Asian and part Asian population rose 78.1% to 159,776.
    Asians in Maryland increased 52.7% from 138,148 to 210,929, while the total Asian population in the state grew 73.6% to 238,408. In Connecticut, Asians increased 64.4% to 82,313 from 50,078 in 1990. Including Asians who checked another race, the total was 95,368, a rise of 90.4%.
    States that experienced over 100% increases in their Asian population, when multiracial people are included, were: Nevada (219.2%), Nebraska (124.4%), Kentucky (118.2%), Delaware (113.1%), Colorado (111.4%), Vermont (111.3%), South Carolina (110%), Arkansas (109.5%), Texas (106.5%) and South Dakota (104.5%).
    Asian population figures for 2000 (one race only) reported for 30 states (with the percentage increases from 1990 in parentheses)
New York 1,044,976 (51%)
Texas 562,319 (80.3%)
Hawaii 503,868 (-19.09%)
New Jersey 480, 276 (77.3%)
Illinois 423,603 (49.9%)
Virginia 261,025 (67.3%)
Pennsylvania 219,813 (61.9%)
Maryland 210,929 (52.7%)
Ohio 132,633 (47.8%)
Oregon 101,350 (57.8%)
Colorado 95,213 (66.7%)
Nevada 90,266 (156.2%)
Wisconsin 88,783 (68%)
Connecticut 82,313 (64.4%)
Missouri 61,595 (56.8%)
Indiana: 59,126 (61%)
Louisiana 54,758 (36.3%)
Kansas 46,806 (52.4%)
Oklahoma 46,767 (46.1%)
Iowa 36,635 (46.3%)
South Carolina 36,014 (68.3%)
Alabama 31,346 (48.6%)
Kentucky 29,744 (75.1%)
Alaska 25,116 (41.0%)
Nebraska 21,931 (83.6%)
Arkansas 20,220 (66.8%)
Mississippi 18,626 (46.9%)
Delaware 16,259 (82.9%)
Vermont 5,217 (66.5%)
South Dakota 4,378 (49%)
    Asian population figures for 2000 including Asians in combination with other races with the percentage increases from 1990 in parentheses
New York 1,169,200 (69.6%)
Hawaii 703,232 (34.5%)
Texas 644,193 (106.5%)
New Jersey 524,356 (93.6%)
Illinois 473,649 (67.6%)
Virginia 304,559 (95.2%)
Pennsylvania 248,601 (83.1%)
Maryland 238,408 (72.6%)
Ohio 159,776 (78.1%)
Oregon 127,339 (98.2%)
Colorado 120,779 (111.4%)
Nevada 112,456 (219.2%)
Connecticut 95,368 (90.4%)
Wisconsin 88,763 (94.7%)
Missouri 76,210 (94.1%)
Indiana 72,839 (98.7%)
Louisiana 64,350 (60.2%)
Oklahoma 58,723 (83.5%)
Kansas 56,049 (82.5%)
South Carolina 44,931 (110%)
Iowa 43,119 (72.2%)
Alabama 39,458 (87.1%)
Kentucky 37,062 (118.2%)
Alaska 32,686 (83.5%)
Nebraska 26,809 (124.4%)
Arkansas 25,401 (109.5%)
Mississippi 22,514 (83.8%)
Delaware 18,944 (113.1%)
Vermont 6,622 (111.3%)
South Dakota 6,009 (104.5%)

3/10/01 Dallas Morning News: "Asians' numbers surge in census," 
    New Jersey showed a 94% increase in Asian-Americans since the 1990 census. 
    Arkansas, 110% increase to 25,401
    South Dakota, 105% increase to 6,009
    Louisiana, 60% increase to 64,350
    In Virginia, 14% of those who checked off Asian also marked at least one other race.

2/8/01 Wall Street Journal: "Asian-Americans Join Census Complaints, Calling for Adjustments via `Sampling,'" New York state has the nation's second-largest population of Asian-Americans after California.  New York state is home to one million Asian-Americans.  Asian-Americans represented 2% of the national electorate and about 5% in California.  From 1994 through 1998, according to the Census Bureau, Asian-Americans voting in congressional elections swelled by more than one-third to 1.4 million voters nationally.  

In the 1980s, Asian/Pacific Americans constituted 20% of the available construction firms in San Francisco but received less than 1% of the city's total construction contracts.  (National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, www.napalc.org).

According to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, U.S.-born Asian American men are 7 to 11% less likely to hold managerial jobs than white men with the same educational and experience levels.  Similarly, the U.S. Census Bureau indicates that the median income for Asian Americans with four years of college education is $34,470 a year, compared with $36,130 for whites.  "Myth of Asian `model minority' reeks of racism," by Chris Diaz, 1/10/01 UCLA Daily Bruin Online.

4% of U.S. population is Asian/Pacific Islander.  0.9% of U.S. House is Asian/Pacific Islander and 2% of U.S. Senate is Asian/Pacific Islander.  "Congress Still Doesn't Reflect Makeup of America," 12/2/00 Dallas Morning News, p. 32A (Associated Press).  

"The Voters Speak," 11/8/00 Dallas Morning News: An exit poll by the Voter News Service of 13,143 voters nationwide provided a statistical profile of who voted for president.  The poll had a margin of error of 1.1%.  2% of voters were Asian-American and 41% of them voted for Bush, 55% for Gore.  54% of whites voted for Bush, 42% for Gore; 8% of blacks voted for Bush, 90% for Gore; 34% of Hispanics voted for Bush, 62% for Gore.

11/8/00: CNN and NY Times nation-wide exit polls.  
CNN              Asian-Americans     55% Gore    41% Bush    4% Nader
NY Times      Asian-Americans     54% Gore    41% Bush    4% Nader
NY Times    1996: Asian-Am        48% Dole    43% Clinton    8% Perot
NY Times    1992: Asian-Am        55% Bush    31% Clinton    15% Perot

"Analysis: according to census, Asians surge ahead, Mexicans lag" 
10/9/00 United Press International
    In "Coming to America: A Profile of the Nation's Foreign Born," the U.S. Census Bureau reported that American residents who were born in Asia "compare favorably" to native-born Americans.  See The Census Bureau report   
    The number of immigrants living in the U.S. soared to a record 25.8 million in 1997 -- larger than the population of any state other than California.  This is a dramatic rise from the 9.6 million foreign-born residents in 1970.  The biggest increases since 1970 came among immigrants born in Latin America - up from 1.8 million to 13.1 million - and among the Asian-born, who increased from 0.8 million to 6.8 million. 
    The Asian-born now enjoy 20% higher median household incomes than people born in the U.S. do.  This results in part from 63% of the Asian-born having attended college compared to 49% of the natives.  Only 16% of natives and the Asian-born don't earn a high school diploma.  Further, Asian immigrants are more likely to be managers and professionals (36% vs. 30% of those born here).
    A closer look at the data, however, shows that Asian immigrants are not necessarily affluent.  One reason they achieve high household earnings is because they tend to have more people working per household.  Family sizes are larger and the proportion of retirees over 65 is smaller.  Also, their salaries may be high, but so are their costs of living.  Of all immigrants from Asia, 45% cluster in the Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco areas, where real estate is especially expensive.
    The poverty rate is 13% for natives and 15% for Asians.  About 17% of natives and Asians received noncash public assistance, such as Medicaid. 
    44% of Asians have been naturalized. 

Census Reports APA Voting Increases
On August 29, 2000, the Census Bureau reported that the number of Asian Pacific Americans voting in congressional elections increased by 366,000, to a total of 1.4 million voters.  However, the voter turn-out rate among Asian Pacific Americans from 39% in 1994 to 32% in 1998, reflecting a national trend of lower voter participation.  The total number of voters decreased by 2.6 million between 1994 and 1998.

"A New Majority in California," 8/31/00 Dallas Morning News.  According to Census Bureau estimates, whites are no longer a majority in California.  The Asian and Pacific Islander population increased by 36% from 1990 to 1999.  

"Minority Growth Booming: Hispanics, Asians Lead Way in U.S.," 8/30/00 Dallas Morning News.  According to U.S. Census Bureau estimates, the Asian and Pacific Islander population increased by 43% to 10.8 million from 1990 to 1999.  As of July 1999, more than 575,000 Texans were Asian or Pacific Islanders - a 74% increase since 1990.  Nevada's Asian population rose 123.7% to 88,208, the largest such increase in the nation.  California had the largest Asian population, about 4 million, up 36.8% in the 1990's.  New York was second with more than 1 million, up 44.5%.  Significant county-level increases in Asian population occurred in Clark County, Nevada (Las Vegas) (up 139.3% to 64,636), Fort Bend County, Texas (near Houston) (up 127.6% to 33,048), Gwinnett County, Georgia (up 180.7% to 28,793), and Cobb County, Georgia (up 135.7% to 18,758). 

"Washington's minority growth rate tops that of most states: Hispanics surpass number of Asians; whites still 88% of total populace," 
8/30/00 Seattle Post-Intelligencer.  New estimates from the Census Bureau show a faster rate of growth in the 1990s among Hispanics, Asian and Pacific Islanders and other minorities in Washington than in most other states.  In Washington state, the number of Hispanics grew 75.5 % from 1990 to 1999 -- surpassing Asians as the state's largest minority group.  The Asian and Pacific Islander population grew 43 percent across the country.  In Washington, the growth in those minorities was 59.5 percent.  With the estimated increases in minority groups, the state now ranks third among all states in terms of percentage population of Asians and Pacific Islanders, behind only Hawaii and California. (Washington is about 6 percent Asian.)

According to Yi Zhao, a demographer who prepares annual race-based population estimates for the state Office of Financial Management., the numbers of Asians increased most from 1991 to 1994, but then slowed down.  In general, Zhao said, Asian immigrants have tended to migrate toward core cities such as Seattle, Everett and Tacoma.  As for Asian population by state, California had the most, 4 million, up 36.8% in the '90s.  New York was second with just over 1 million, up 44.5%.  Washington has an Asian population of 343,690, though the state population is much smaller than that of New York or California.

"Is the Republican Party Failing to Attract Asian American Voters?"  
July 27 - August 2, 2000 AsianWeek.com
http://www.asianweek.com/2000_07_27/feature1_asianamervoters.html 

Election Day exit polls taken by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) in New York in 1996 and again in 1998 showed Asian Americans were voting for Democrats in larger numbers than before.  AALDEFs March exit poll in New York City found that API Democrats there outnumbered API Republicans by a more than 2-1 ratio.  But Asian Americans have also shown a tendency to avoid voting
along party lines, AALDEF found.

In the 1992 election, Clinton received 31% of the Asian American
vote while George Bush received 55%, according to a Voter
News Service exit poll.  In 1996, however, Clinton got 43% of
the Asian American vote, an increase of more than 38%, the
poll showed.  According to an exit poll conducted by AALDEF,
Clinton garnered more than 70% of the Asian American vote
in California and New York.

This dramatic shift may be due to Clintons efforts to repeal some of the
harshest provisions of the welfare reform act that had hurt many
Asian Americans, said Karen Narasaki, executive director of the
National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium in Washington.


"Latino Voter Surge Unrealized"
San Gabriel Valley Tribune, July 18, 2000: 
In the 1998 general elections, turnout among Asians and Pacific 
Islanders slid from 22% in 1994 to 19%, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Tuesday. 

The study, including data on registration and voting for persons age 18 
and over, compared the most recent non-presidential elections, where turnout is traditionally lower than in presidential elections. 

See report on "The Asian and Pacific Islander Population in the United States: March 1997 (Update) of the Current Population Report."
- The Asian Pacific Islander population is estimated at 10.1 million, representing 3.8% of the total population. 
- API families had a real median income of $49,100 in 1996.
- About 15% of all API's had incomes below the poverty level in 1996.