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| Asian American population numbers translates into growing political influence. |
It's time to throw out the old 2010 stat used for the past decade that counted 18 million Asian Americans in the U.S. The 2020 Census counts 24 million Asian Americans, 7.2% of the U.S. population, up from 2010's 6%.
Combined with the Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander population of 1.6 million, the umbrella designation of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, the AANHPI population numbers 25.6 million, or 7.7% of the U.S. population.
RELATED: The U.S. is diversifying faster than expected
As impressive as these numbers are, they are likely an undercount because of Trump administration efforts to not count people of color and immigrants by asking a question about citizenship status and moving up deadlines despite natural disasters such as the pandemic, wildfires and floods. Those attempts to undermine the Census were thrown out by the Supreme Court.
Assuming an undercount occurred, the AANHPI population could be closer to 8% of the U.S. population, which makes us harder to ignore by pollsters, marketers, political parties and pop culture.
Reasons for the increase is due to several factors. The AANHPI population is generally younger than the American average. In other words, a larger portion of the AANHPI community is of child-bearing age; and legal immigration from Asia is greater than from any other region.
California, trendsetter
If you want to know what the U.S. will look like in the future, one needs to look at California, where national trends often start. California’s White population plummeted by 24% in the last decade, confirming California is one of three states — along with New Mexico and Hawaii — where Whites are not the largest ethnic group.
In 2014, Hispanics surpassed Whites as California’s largest ethnic group. The state's Hispanic population grew by 11% to 15.5 million people, making up almost 40% of California's nearly 40 million residents.
But it was the Asian population that had the biggest percentage gain, 25%, over the past decade, making up 15.1% of the population. California now has more than 6 million people of Asian descent — more than the total population of most other states.
“I think the story nationwide focuses primarily on the Hispanic population, but in California ... I think the Asian population, in particular related to the growth in the younger age groups, is sort of a major driver of factors as to why we see this large increase over the past 10 years,” said Noli Brazil, a demographer at the University of California-Davis, told the Associated Press.
Other highlights about the AANHPI community from the data released Thursday:
Asian Population
- Coupled with the 4.1 million respondents who identified as Asian in combination with another race group, such as White or Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, the Asian alone or in combination population comprised 24 million people (7.2% of the total population).
- The Asian alone population grew by 35.5% between 2010 and 2020. In comparison, the Asian in combination population grew by 55.5%.
Hawaii is the only state where Asians make up the largest ethnic group coming in at 36.5% of it's total population of 1,455,271; followed by White at 21.6%, Native Hawaiian and other Pacific at 10.2% and Hispanic or Latino at 9.5%. Just over 20% of Hawaii's population were of two or more races.
Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander population
Over half of Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders identified with more than one race.
- In the 2020 Census, 689,966 people (0.2%) identified as Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone, up from 540,013 people (0.2%) in 2010.
- Coupled with the 896,497 people who identified as Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander in combination with another race group (such as Asian or White), the Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone or in combination population totaled about 1.6 million people and 0.5% of the total population.
- The Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone population grew by 27.8% between 2010 and 2020. In comparison, the Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander in combination population grew faster — 30.8% since 2010.
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| Multiracial Americans is the fastest growing ethnic and racial group in the U.S. |
Multiracial Population
In 2020, the percentage of people who reported multiple races changed more than all of the race alone groups, increasing from 2.9% of the population (9 million people) in 2010 to 10.2% of the population (33.8 million people) in 2020.
- The largest Multiracial combinations in 2020 were White and Some Other Race (19.3 million), White and American Indian and Alaska Native (4 million), White and Black or African American (3.1 million), White and Asian (2.7 million), and Black or African American and Some Other Race (1 million).
- Between 2010 and 2020, the White and Some Other Race population added 17.6 million people to the Multiracial population, a change of over 1,000%.
- The White and American Indian and Alaska Native population also increased, growing by about 2.5 million people or 177%.
- The White and Black or African American population increased by 1.2 million people, a 67.4% change.
- The White and Asian population increased by 1.1 million people, a 65.8% change in size.
- The Black or African American and Some Other Race population increased by 722,383 people, a 230% change.
The observed changes in the Multiracial population could be attributed to a number of factors, including demographic change since 2010. But we expect they were largely due to the improvements to the design of the two separate questions for race and ethnicity, data processing, and coding, which enabled a more thorough and accurate depiction of how people prefer to self-identify.
EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AAPI perspsective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.
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