Asian American demographics by city

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Wow, NJ really bulked up its Korean population in recent decades. I had heard that NJ Koreans are an outgrowth of a small 1970's-1980's Bronx enclave (there are tiny remnants still, in Bedford Park, and a handful of elderly and not much more than a church and market) that quickly moved to Jersey as they rose up the economic ladder. The most heavily Korean NJ suburbs are right over the GW Bridge from Upper Manhattan/Bronx so it sounds plausible.

Koreans arrived pretty poor and were greengrocers. Now mostly out of that business and highly professional. Palisades Park, NJ is the only majority Korean city in the U.S. and has a pretty impressive Korean presence.

Then there's the second NYC-area community, which began in Elmhurst and Flushing Queens, and moved eastward, into Bayside Queens and then into Long Island. Northern Boulevard from downtown Flushing to downtown Great Neck has a strong Korean presence. Great Neck South High School is majority Asian, mostly Korean (Great Neck North is mostly Persian Jewish).

What led to Indian dominance in NJ specifically? Was there a similar founder enclave type event?

Was NJ/NY the first Indian dominated region immediately after 1965 (after some great timing in immigration restriction, as a gap in time from West coast Punjabis/Yuba valley/Pacific NW, which had the same 20th century timing as BC Sikhs but with less influence in total pop. to present day)?

Also, Korean growth was pretty fast (and immigration strong) pretty recently (even to the 2000s) considering how quickly South Korea became rich and had low birthrates in the 21st century.

Korea is a country in the world that has a lot of living emigration in recent memory for its current GDP per capita of the old country -- 34 997,78 USD, that's pretty much at 35-36K Italy and 39 K Japan levels, both of which had not very recent immigration waves sending people to the US.

Despite being first world so quick, Korean trends emigration timing seem closer to Vietnam's, no doubt though much due to war, or the Philippines (even though they still only have 3-4 K GDP per capita now, 10 times lower than Korea!), than to Japan or Italy whose GDP per capita they match. Also China or Mexico (at around a third Korea's GDP per capita).

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

What led to Indian dominance in NJ specifically? Was there a similar founder enclave type event?

Good question. No clue why a narrow corridor running from roughly Woodbridge (across the water from Staten Island) to the outskirts of Trenton has emerged as the largest Indian population center in the U.S.

I'm pretty sure it's a relatively recent emergence. Looking at the public school data, the demographic changes don't appear earlier than the 1980's, and don't really kick in until post-2000. I'm also pretty sure this is an Indian corridor, in contrast to the more pan South Asian demographics across the Hudson. Also not sure how waterfront/gentrified Jersey City fits in, which seems to be the core enclave of choice for young professional South Asians (not just Indians).

[Tom In Chicago]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Also not sure how waterfront/gentrified Jersey City fits in, which seems to be the core enclave of choice for young professional South Asians (not just Indians).

^Cost vs. wanting desperately to be in Manhattan?

. . .

[Docere]

Can't seem to find the 2020 Census data for detailed Asian group but the Census Bureau Factfinder has now categorized the Asian populations into detailed groups with and subcategorized into East, Southeast and South Asian groups.
Here's the South Asian populations.

South Asian

New York 990,295
Bay Area 490,415
Chicago 304,469
Dallas 300,860
Washington 279,494
Los Angeles-Riverside 226,092
Houston 223,286
Atlanta 183,666
Philadelphia 171,917
Seattle 156,893
Boston 133,273
Detroit 124,215

[Docere]

Chinese

New York 893,691
Bay Area 870,882
Los Angeles 820,326
Seattle 186,332
Boston 185,436
Washington 143,528
Chicago 143,107
Houston 126,221
Philadelphia 112,541

* including Taiwanese

[Docere]

Asian population with groups with at least 20,000 listed.

Los Angeles-Riverside

Total: 3,013,358

Chinese, except Taiwanese 755,324
Filipino 673,256
Vietnamese 404,435
Korean 374,465
Japanese 231,352
Indian 217,110
Taiwanese 65,002
Cambodian 58,943
Thai 43,535
Indonesian 32,198
Pakistani 29,050

New York

Total: 2,645,932

Chinese, excluding Taiwanese 865,288
Indian 731,525
Filipino 262,776
Korean 222,540
Pakistani 117,579
Bangladeshi 105,603
Japanese 69,698
Vietnamese 41,808
Taiwanese 28,403

San Francisco-San Jose

Total: 2,379,321

Chinese, excluding Taiwanese 830,167
Indian 452,201
Filipino 427,494
Vietnamese 241,618
Japanese 115,778
Korean 108,000
Taiwanese 40,715
Pakistani 20,516

Washington

Total: 827,055

Indian 200,790
Chinese, excluding Taiwanese 134,553
Korean 103,718
Filipino 94,146
Vietnamese 80,609
Pakistani 45,212
Japanese 30,017

Chicago

Total: 797,757

Indian 252,622
Filipino 156,009
Chinese, excluding Taiwanese 136,519
Korean 65,170
Pakistani 43,876
Vietnamese 31,576
Japanese 31,230

Seattle

Total: 786,644

Chinese, excluding Taiwanese 173,578
Indian 140,644
Filipino 133,437
Vietnamese 82,768
Korean 81,952
Japanese 66,428
Cambodian 24,096

Honolulu

Total: 758,296

Filipino 252,913
Japanese 248,616
Chinese, excluding Taiwanese 169,728
Korean 45,015

Dallas

Total: 681,526

Indian 238,466
Vietnamese 104,175
Chinese, excluding Taiwanese 82,931
Filipino 54,461
Korean 48,086
Pakistani 34,164
Japanese 20,909

Houston

Total: 667,934

Indian 162,119
Vietnamese 154,532
Chinese, excluding Taiwanese 117,591
Filipino 73,324
Pakistani 47,897
Korean 26,680

San Diego

Total: 526,433

Filipino 203,075
Chinese, excluding Taiwanese 85,801
Vietnamese 58,770
Indian 50,630
Japanese 39,685
Korean 31,267

Boston

Total: 491,458

Chinese, excluding Taiwanese 178,948
Indian 113,629
Vietnamese 48,354
Korean 30,545
Cambodian 27,613
Filipino 21,594

[Docere]

L.A. has the most nationalities represented. Even the smaller communities are quite sizeable: 60,000 Cambodians, 40,000 Thais and 30,000 Indonesians. But South Asian presence is rather low; there are more Japanese Americans than Indian Americans. 3 million Asians in the region - around the total population of Greater Vancouver.

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by Docere

L.A. has the most nationalities represented. Even the smaller communities are quite sizeable: 60,000 Cambodians, 40,000 Thais and 30,000 Indonesians. But South Asian presence is rather low; there are more Japanese Americans than Indian Americans. 3 million Asians in the region - around the total population of Greater Vancouver.

LA has the largest total Asian population, but I'm guessing the Bay Area is higher on a per capita basis. But notably there is also a smaller Hispanic population here as well.

[Docere]

Percentage-wise yes. It's about 35%. San Jose-Santa Clara County is over 40% Asian and Asian-plurality.

[homebucket]

@Docere, do you have the Canadian data as well? I'm guessing Vancouver and Toronto should be fairly high as well.

[homebucket]

Interesting, the Vietnamese population in NYC is pretty low relative to its peers. Only Chicago's is lower, although percentage wise, Chicago is probably higher.

[Docere]

2021 census:

Greater Toronto-Hamilton Area

Population 7,208,015

South Asian 1,259,680 17.5%
Chinese 702,580 9.7%
Filipino 303,145 4.2%
Southeast Asian 111,830 1.6%
Korean 78,680 1.1%
Japanese 22,395 0.3%

Vancouver and Lower Mainland

Population 2,924,680

Chinese 516,825 17.7%
South Asian 422,875 14.5%
Filipino 146,790 5%
Korean 65,690 2.2%
Southeast Asian 60,630 2%
Japanese 32,345 1.1%

[homebucket]

^ Interesting, so the South Asian population in Toronto far exceeds any MSA in the US, but it would only place 4th for Chinese. Still no slouch though.

[Docere]

It's huge. Similar to London in that respect.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by homebucket

^ Interesting, so the South Asian population in Toronto far exceeds any MSA in the US, but it would only place 4th for Chinese.

Possibly, but I'm not sure that's apples-apples. What is Toronto? Some of the above are MSAs and some are CSAs. For example, some of the NJ Indian corridor would be in a separate MSA from NYC.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Docere

Percentage-wise yes. It's about 35%. San Jose-Santa Clara County is over 40% Asian and Asian-plurality.

San Jose is the only Asian plurality MSA in the continental U.S., which is pretty interesting. It will likely remain the only Asian plurality MSA, at least for a while. I don't think SF is quite there, and there don't appear to be other obvious candidates.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Possibly, but I'm not sure that's apples-apples. What is Toronto? Some of the above are MSAs and some are CSAs. For example, some of the NJ Indian corridor would be in a separate MSA from NYC.

None are CSAs. But I've combined L.A. with Riverside and San Francisco with San Jose. I'm not a huge fan of CSAs but I think there's enough overlap to combine them in those two cases.

Hamilton now meets the "MSA" commuting threshold so it makes sense to combine Greater Toronto Area and Hamilton.

Should also note the Golden Horseshoe doesn't meet the "CSA" definition. There's not enough commuting from Kitchener-Waterloo and Niagara region to the GTA to warrant it.

[Docere]

28,000 Indians and 30,000 South Asians in Mercer County.

In the New York CSA, 1,074,064 South Asians, a bit behind GTHA.

[proghousehead]

The India vs Pakistan World Cup cricket match is being held in New York in 2024. I’m guessing demand will be utterly insane and tickets will resell for way way higher than face value.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by homebucket

^ Interesting, so the South Asian population in Toronto far exceeds any MSA in the US, but it would only place 4th for Chinese. Still no slouch though.

About half of Toronto's Asian population is South Asian.