How Los Angeles County became home to the biggest AAPI communities in the country
Aida Ylanan, Sandhya Kambhampati
Los Angeles Times
May 15, 2024
Los Angeles County is home to more Asian Americans than any other county in the United States. California is home to roughly 6 million Asians and Pacific Islanders, the most in the country, with the seven Southern California counties accounting for half of the state’s AAPI population. And Asian Americans are the fastest growing population in the nation. To understand the Asian and Pacific Islander diaspora in Southern California, the Los Angeles Times analyzed 40 years of data from the Census Bureau.
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AAPI communities have existed in Southern California since the 1800s, with ethnic enclaves such as Old Chinatown and Little Tokyo established by some of the region’s first Asian settlers. Neighborhoods such as Koreatown, Historic Filipinotown and Thai Town formed from a later influx of immigration after the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 opened the door to widespread migration from Asia. The AAPI population in Los Angeles grew from 198,000 in 1970 to almost a million in 1990, according to researchers at UCLA.
There are 14 Asian-majority suburbs in Los Angeles County, and all but one, Cerritos, are in the San Gabriel Valley. L.A. County has gained 2 million people since 1980, with the Asian population more than tripling from 417,000 to over 1.4 million today. Areas such as Monterey Park, Koreatown, Long Beach, Torrance and Cerritos each became home to between 10,000 to 18,000 Asians in the 1980s. Forty years later, these communities have tripled in size. Santa Clarita is home to the fastest-growing Asian population, from less than 600 to nearly 19,000 today.
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