US Senate photo from Wikimedia Creative Commons of Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI)
By Louis Chan, AsAmNews National Correspondent
Asian Americans in North Dakota? Believe it.
A new PEW Research Center study released today revealed both North and South Dakota had the fastest growth rate of Asian Americans in the country.
From 2000 to 2019, the study found the number of Asian Americans tripled in each of the Dakota states.
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Indiana, Nevada and North Carolina were the next fastest growing with Asian Americans increasing by 183%, 176% and 175%, respectively.
Why, you might ask?
“There are many different reasons why Asian Americans, or any specific racial or ethnic group settles in certain places: migrating based on where other family and friends are located, job opportunities, or settlement based on refugee placement,” said Neil Ruiz, co-author of the study, said to AsAmNews via email.
“I don’t have any specific answers to why Asian Americans increased in those 5 states, but these are some of the possible reasons why people move to places. But, we’re going to be looking more closely at those types of questions when it comes to Asian Americans in the near future as we look to conducting more research.”
His study conducted with Abby Budiman also found the continuation of a trend-Asian Americans are the fastest growing population in the entire country overall between 2000 and 2019.
Asian Americans grew at an 81% clip overall during those two decades compared to Whites who grew just 1%. By 2060, the population of Asian Americans is expected to surpass 35 million.
Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders increased 61% during this same period. That’s the third fastest growth behind Hispanics at 70%.
However, the same study found that the growth rate of Asian Americans has steadily declined over the two decades studied.
The biggest populations of Asian Americans are in California (5.9M) , New York (1.7M), Texas (1.5M), New Jersey(870K)and Illinois (732K). 56% of Asian Americans live in those five states.
You can read the full report at .
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