U.S. Census 2000 Asian Population Findings
drydem
Hispanic, Asian Populations Increase
rico suave
Not now that the Patels, the Amins, the Engs, the Maleks and many other newcomers have moved into the raised ranch on the half-acre lot practically next door.
Among the most vivid threads in the New Jersey census figures released Thursday are stark figures on the diversification of the suburbs around the state and particularly here in the boom belt across the narrow middle of the state, where new names and faces from abroad have moved the old urban polyglot immigrant drama to a new suburban stage.
The blizzard of numbers from the census tell of a new kind of immigrant, the educated, high-achieving striver who skips the traditional urban gateways of Newark, Jersey City and Elizabeth to put down roots here in Middlesex County, within commuting distance of the electronics, pharmaceutical and medical care industries of central New Jersey.
"Before they would live in an apartment in Newark or New York," said Woody Patel, 36 and the owner of an Indian restaurant here called Chutney Mary's. "But now they all know computers and right away they get jobs for $60,000, $70,000 and they go straight to the suburbs to look for a house."
South Brunswick was once a big, centerless bedroom suburb of New Brunswick to the north. But according to the new census figures, it is not only the third-fastest-growing municipality in the state, it is also one of the strongest magnets for immigrants like Mr. Patel, who came with his mother from Gujarat Province when he was a child.
With a population of 37,700 compared with 26,000 10 years ago, South Brunswick is now 17 percent Asian, which under the Census Bureau's definition could be anyone with origins in India, the Philippines or points in between. Of 418 new students in South Brunswick schools this year, 203 were Asian. Their parents were drawn to the research laboratories at Rutgers, the pharmaceutical plants along Interstate 287 and the electronic firms that line Route 1 from New Brunswick to Trenton, or else they run the motels and gas stations that constitute suburbia's stepping-stone immigrant businesses.
Above all, according to a dozen people interviewed this morning, they came because their children or their parents or other relatives are here, and because a familiar community has grown up under the beech and maple trees that forest the crest dividing the Raritan and the Delaware watersheds.
Mr. Patel was surprised that a visitor might think that most of his restaurant's clientele were Anglos. No, no, he said. Most are Indian immigrants like himself.
And for a clue to how these newcomers explode the old story of penniless, illiterate immigrants, look at Monmouth Junction Elementary School, where of 508 students, nearly 23 percent are Asian, yet only 1.6 percent of students qualify for free lunches because of low income, and fewer than 1 percent are classified as non-English speakers.
Diversity has become so much the norm at South Brunswick schools that it is no longer even ground for comment, said Linda Fekete (speaking of ethnicity, her name is Hungarian), the activities coordinator at South Brunswick High School.
"Ten or 15 years ago we would have these diversity celebration events because diversity was a big thing," Ms. Fekete said. "But it just isn't anymore. The big thing now is cultural mingling and working together."
East Brunswick has not been entirely free of tension over the growth of the Asian population. A few years ago some youths in the area generated headlines when they spray painted the homes of Indians in the area. They even tried to come up with a racist slur — "dots" — after the mark some married Hindu women wear on their foreheads. The term never caught on.
Instead, the new Americans and soon-to-be Americans who were out in the pale late winter sunlight this morning said that what struck them about the place was not prejudice, but just the amount of social mingling that went on.
"In India, for you and me to sit down together, there would have to be some reason, task we needed to do," said Chandra Mohan Dubey, 61, a retired Indian Army major who moved with his wife, Shakuntala, to live with their son, a computer engineer with AT&T, in 1986.
"But here they have got no inhibitions; it is all free-mixing, and there is no harm in that," Mr. Dubey said. "It is the American way."
The melting pot bubbled as usual today at the South Brunswick center for the elderly, where the hands at a bridge game, which follows the compass points, were held thus: North, Thakor Patel, a former Ugandan Indian who came here to join his daughter, a dentist; West, Jagdish Amin, 69, who came to the United States from India in 1979 to be near his children, one dentist, two engineers and a State Department official; South, Peter Alden, 71, a Briton and a microwave engineer who emigrated to New Jersey via Canada; East, Irving Stein, a World War II Navy veteran and the only native- born player at the table.
James Chu, 62, was a Taiwanese ship captain for most of his working life until a stroke impaired his eyesight. Now he takes a township bus each morning to get coffee and a bagel at the center before taking up the cue for his daily game of eight ball in the pool room.
"It's like one family here," he said. "On one side my neighbor is from India, and on the other, it's an Italian guy, I can't pronounce his name. The Italian guy always cleans my sidewalk when it snows, because he knows I can't see so good."
The talk among the retirees at the center is nearly as likely to be about immigration law and the mysteries of the green card residency permit as about successful daughters and brilliant grandchildren.
Sobhy Malek, 71 and a retired high school math teacher from a town outside of Cairo, spoke of an immigrant family in transition, with himself and his wife, Awatef, already here with their daughter, but their son, a chemical engineer, still in Cairo.
"Yes, it was hard to say goodbye," Mr. Malek said. "But someday, I think, my son will be here, too."
drydem
USA 2001 Census - Race and Hispanic-origin
Monday. March 12, 2001.
The National breakout of the population that reported only
one Race ( Total 274.6 million) was:
White 75.1 percent
Black or African American 12.3 percent
American Indian and Alaska Native 00.9 percent
Asian 03.6 percent
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander 00.1 percent
Some other race 05.5 percent
Only 2.4 percent nationally identify themselves as belonging
to more than one race. Hispanics, who could be of any race,
totaled 35.3 million, or about 13 percent of the total population.
Of the 6.8 million people who reported more than one race, 93
percent reported two races. The most common combinations were:
White and some other race 32 percent
White and American Indian and Alaska Native 16 percent
White and Asian nearly 13 percent
White and Black or African American about 11 percent
To view the Census 2000 brief in its entirety, including 11 national-level
tables, go to http://www.census.gov/population/www/cen2000/briefs.html.
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drydem
Number of Asians in U.S. soars
Group joins Hispanics as fastest-growing minorities
Frank James. Chicago Tribune. March 13, 2001
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/metro/chicago/article/0,2669,ART-50463,FF.html
WASHINGTON -- Asians, whose U.S. population grew by more than 52 percent during
the 1990s, joined Hispanics in showing the highest growth rates during the decade,
according to Census Bureau data released Monday.
....
Last week, based on Census Bureau documents made public prior to Monday's
official release of racial and Hispanic data, news organizations reported
that the Latino population rose 57.9 percent during the 1990s, making it
the fastest-growing population group.
But the nation's Asian population grew at almost as high a rate. Demographers
said much of the increase came from immigration, but the Census Bureau won't
release immigrants' countries of origin until later this year.
The rapid growth of the Asian population, especially from immigration, has
stretched the capabilities of the organizations that help the newcomers,
said Giles Li, director of communications for the Washington-based
Organization of Chinese Americans, which serves Asians of various ethnic
and national backgrounds.
"It's harder for us to keep up" in serving the needs of the group, Li said.
"It's a really diverse population, a lot of different languages and
different lengths of time that people have been in this country.
"But overall it's really great news knowing the population is growing
that fast," Li said, "because the more people that are here, the more
people that will be willing to get involved and help us provide service
to the community."
----------------------
Census shows a country in racial transformation
Chart: The new racial makeup
BY EDWIN GARCIA,ANNE MARTINEZ AND JESSIE MANGALIMAN
San Jose Mercury News. Monday, March 12, 2001
http://www0.mercurycenter.com/local/center/census0313.htm
http://www0.mercurycenter.com/special/censuschrt0313.htm
After a decade of breakneck immigration from Asia and Latin America, the United
States has become dramatically more racially diverse than at any time in its
history, with Hispanics vaulting into parity with blacks as the nation's largest
minority group. Statistics released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Monday reveal
that more than half the nation's growth during the 1990s was fueled by large
increases in Latino and Asian populations.
...
The Asian population, meanwhile, grew by at least 52 percent and as much as
74 percent -- a range that takes into account a new option on the census form
that allowed people to designate more than one race.
...
The bureau has been releasing state-by-state racial breakdowns in waves;
the California numbers will be released later this month.
...
Asians emerged as the third largest minority group and one of the fastest growing.
Researchers attribute the continuing growth of the Asian population to immigration.
The past decade is a remarkable testament to the legacy in America's diversity of
the 1965 lifting of Asian immigration quotas, said Diane Chin, executive director
of the Chinese for Affirmative Action, a San Francisco-based civil rights group.
``I think these overall numbers do say to communities of color that we can
represent, especially in a state like California, a significant political
force, that we can express and exercise our will,'' Chin said.
For community organizations like hers, Chin said, the new census numbers
should be a signal ``to develop strategies to make sure these communities
become part of the American body politic.'' ``We have to think together
about forming coalitions, about sharing political power,'' she said.
...
But census data from other states indicate so far that Asians have migrated
to locations outside of these traditional enclaves. Researchers have tracked
and studied this movement for many years, but the census data provides the
first glimpse of its scope.
``We started to pick this up in the 90s, and in the early population surveys
you saw more people who had lived in another country turning up in the
suburbs but not in the central cities. You've never really had this before
and what's surprising is the extent of it,'' said John Haaga, a demographer
with the Population Reference Bureau in Washington, D.C.
In Arkansas and Wisconsin, for example, two states that received census
data last week, the Asian populations grew by a range of 66 percent to
more than 100 percent. In Texas, the Asian population grew from 80 to 106 percent.
Adapting to such overwhelming demographic change can be difficult, said
U.S. Rep. Mike Honda, D-San Jose. But the nation can draw strength from
change, he said.
``It's like in science, when you deepen the genetic code of a species,
it makes it stronger,'' he added. ``In the same way, our nation becomes
stronger, more viable, stronger from diversity.''
--------------
Census Illustrates Diversity From Sea to Shining Sea
ROBERT A. ROSENBLATT
Los Angeles Times. Tuesday, March 13, 2001
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/20010313/t000021979.html
excerpts:
Census Bureau figures show the total population of Asians jumped to
a range of 10.5 million to 12.8 million, a dramatic rise from 7.3 million a
decade ago. Figures on race and ethnicity from the 2000 census are reported
as ranges because this census for the first time allowed people to report
themselves as belonging to more than one group.
The census is painting a statistical portrait of a nation that is still
majority white but increasingly diverse. The nation's total population
is roughly 70% non-Latino white, down from 76% in 1990.
...
Among Asians, 10.5 million checked exclusively an Asian or Native
Hawaiian and Pacific Islander designation, while another 2.3 million
checked Asian and another racial designation.
-----------
Census Reveals Fast-Growing Diversity in U.S.
Carol Ness and Ryran Kim.
San Francisco Chronicles. Tuesday. March 13, 2001.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/03/13/MN217772.DTL
key excerpts:
Propelled by meteoric growth among Asian Americans and Hispanics, the U.S.
population diversified faster during the 1990s than in the previous decade,
new Census 2000 statistics reveal....Growth among Asian Americans and
Hispanics grew more than three to four times faster than the 13 percent
overall population rise
......
Overall, among those who picked one race, 75 percent were white,
12.3 percent black, 3.6 percent Asian, 0.9 percent American Indian
or native Alaskan, 0.1 percent native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander
and 5.5 percent "other," a category census officials said most
often translated to Hispanic.
....
Within the overall raw totals are numbers showing explosive growth
among Asian Americans and Hispanics. Numbering only 1 million in
1965, Asian Americans now top 10 million and approach 12 million
if those who claimed one or more other races are included.
That's a leap of almost 50 percent from 1990 to 2000 for Asian
Americans, or 72 percent including those of mixed race.
...
Karen Narasaki, executive director of National Asian Pacific American
Legal Consortium in Washington, said the growth remains robust because
of continuous immigration.
"The important thing is the Asian American community, no matter
how you measure it, has grown significantly," she said.
Ivy Lee, staff attorney with the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco,
said the Asian American population is likely underrepresented in
the numbers. She cited the new multiracial option and the Bush
administration's decision to not allow statistical sampling to
correct for an undercount estimated at more than 3 million, most
of them believed to be immigrants and minorities.
"A lot of reasons for undercounting, like multiple families
in one house and immigrants afraid of reporting -- that all
affects the Asian/Pacific Islander community," said Lee.
California's share of the Asian American population is huge
but won't be known precisely until 2000 census data for
the state are released, probably next week. In the 1990
census, 40 percent of the nation's Asian Americans lived in California.
In San Francisco, Asians comprise 37 percent of the population,
according to state Department of Finance estimates.
David Lee, director of the city's Chinese American Voter
Education Committee, said many other cities are also seeing
large growth in Asian Americans. They make up 25 percent or
more of residents in cities like Cupertino, Milpitas and
Union City, he said.
"Clearly the Bay Area is a large Asian American center," he added.
But census numbers for nine states released last week showed that
Asians no longer are clustered in traditional entry points like
California and New York. Their numbers in places like Indiana,
Arkansas and South Dakota doubled between 1990 and 2000.
"We think this will start to change the politics for the Asian
American community," Narasaki said. "On a national level, more
members of Congress will have to address the needs of the
Asian American community more than they had before."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2000 Census 2000 Census
Non-Hispanic 1990 Census exclusive non-exclusive
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Asian 6,642,481 10,123,169 11,579,494
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Native Hawaiian and
Pacific Islander 325,878 353,509 748,149
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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