Asians are still the fastest growing group in the U.S.

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THE GROUP 18 Million Rising , a group of activists trying to increase the influence and presence of Asian/Americans, might have to change its name. There are now 20.3 million Asians living in the United States, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2014 data that was released last week. 18 Million Rising was formed in 2012 and the data of that year reflected the 2010 Census results.

Additionally, Asians remain the fastest-growing racial group in the United States, according to latest information from the Census Bureau.

“The next half century marks key points in continuing trends — the U.S. will become a plurality nation, where the non-Hispanic white population remains the largest single group, but no group is in the majority,” said Acting Director Thomas L. Mesenbourg.

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Furthermore, the population is projected to grow much more slowly over the next several decades, compared with the last set of projections released in 2008 and 2009. That is because the projected levels of births and net international migration are lower in the projections released last week, reflecting more recent trends in fertility and international migration, especially immigration from Asia.

Sam Garrow, a Census Department demographer, said Asians have been the fastest-growing race group since about 2000, and the main driving force is international migration. In 2013, China replaced Mexico as the top sending country for immigrants to the U.S., officials said.

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The nation's Asian population grew at 3.4 percent between July 2014 and 2015, with migration responsible for the majority of the growth, government officials said Thursday. There are now 21 million Asians in the United States. California has the largest population of Asian Americans at 6.3 million, a bit over 15 percent of the state's population. 

Hawaii, where the population is 56 percent Asian, is the nation's only majority Asian state.

The term “Asian American” is too general to describe ethnicity in Hawaii, said Jonathan Okamura, an ethnic studies professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

“Diversity is recognized,” he said. “We tend to use categories like Filipino, Japanese and Chinese to describe people who immigrated from Asia,

“Talking about Asians as the fastest-growing group is meaningless,” he said.

Instead, people should take specific looks at the Filipino or Japanese population on Hawaii to get a feel for the Asian American population in the state, Okamura said.

Since 2010, Filipinos are the second-largest ethnic group in Hawaii, he said. In 2010, people who identified as Filipino increased 24 percent from the 2000 census. The ranking knocked the Japanese population down to the third-largest ethnic group in Hawaii.

California has the largest number of most racial and ethnic groups, with more Hispanics, whites, Asians and American Indians than any other state. New York state has more blacks than any other state, and Hawaii has the largest numeric population of Native Hawaiians than any other state. 

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The second fastest-growing racial group was those who claim two or more races, government officials said. The number of people who claimed two or more races grew 3.1 percent to 6.6 million. This group was also the youngest group of all racial or ethnic groups with a median age of 20 years old.

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The fast Asian growth rate appears to be occurring beyond the traditional destination states such as Hawaii, California, Illinois and New York. Asians are dispersing themselves in throughout the country including states as disparate as Wisconsin and South Carolina.