Census: AANHPI community is fastest growing group in the US but there's danger ahead

AANHPI fought for disagregated data leading up to the 2020 Census.

America's reputation as the land of opportunity and promise is taking a hit among would-be immigrants thus achieving Donald Trump's goal of the making America white again.

In addition, In a series of executive orders and policy shifts, the Trump regime has moved to fundamentally reshape how the U.S. Census Bureau counts the Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) community—a move advocates warn could leave the "fastest-growing" group in America both underrepresented and underfunded.

Population growth in the United States has slowed significantly with an increase of only 1.8 million, or 0.5%, between July 1, 2024, and July 1, 2025, according to the new Vintage 2025 population estimates released Jan. 27 by the US Census Bureau.

This was the nation’s slowest population growth since the early period of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the population grew by a historically low 0.2% in 2021. The slowdown also comes after a sizeable uptick of growth in 2024, when the country added 3.2 million people and grew by 1.0%, the fastest annual population growth rate since 2006.

“The slowdown in US population growth is largely due to a historic decline in net international migration, which dropped from 2.7 million to 1.3 million in the period from July 2024 through June 2025,” said Christine Hartley, assistant division chief for Estimates and Projections at the Census Bureau. “With births and deaths remaining relatively stable compared to the prior year, the sharp decline in net international migration is the main reason for the slower growth rate we see today.”

Currently, the estimates of NIM are trending toward negative net migration. If those trends continue, it would be the first time the United States has seen net negative migration in more than 50 years.

Despite the slowdown in immigration growth, AANHPI is still the fastest growing demographic in the US according to Census estimates.

if you’ve been following this blog, you know the "model minority" myth usually hides the real struggle. While the Bureau hasn't released a 2026-specific "America Counts" report yet, the 2020-2024 ACS 5-Year Estimates just went live on January 29, 2026, and they tell a story of a community that's growing fast but still fighting for visibility.

About us:

Here’s the breakdown on what the numbers say about us:

Strength in Numbers: The AANHPI community has topped 26.8 million—with 25.2 million identifying as Asian (alone or in combo) and 1.6 million as Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander.

The Big Three: Chinese (5.5M), Asian Indian (5.2M), and Filipino (4.6M) remain the largest groups followed by Vietnamese (2.3M) and Korean (2.0M).

NHPI Community: Native Hawaiians are the largest detailed group (approx. 693,679), followed by Samoan (268,539) and Chamorro (159,845).

Citizenship & Veterans: Roughly 73.2% of the Asian population and 85.9% of the NHPI population are US citizens. Military service remains prominent in the NHPI community, with 6.6% of adults identifying as veterans.

The Education Gap: On the surface, 56.6% of Asians have a bachelor’s degree, but look closer—the NHPI community sits at 25.6%. This is why we keep screaming for data disaggregation; you can't fix what you don't count.

Hustle and Business: There are now over 650,000 Asian-owned firms with employees, proving we aren't just part of the workforce—we’re the ones creating the jobs.

Regional Concentration: Nearly half of the NHPI population continues to reside in Hawaii and California. For the Asian population, more than half live in just four states:
California, New York, Texas, and Washington.

View From the Edge: Danger ahead

The Trump regime's suspicion of the immigrant community could undermine Census' collection for disaggregated data, something the ANNHPI community has been asking for for decades.

Here is what will happen if the Census Bureau sticks to Trump's edicts:

Undocumented neighbors disappear: By directing the Department of Commerce to exclude undocumented residents from the count used for congressional apportionment, the administration is effectively erasing a portion of our community. Since many AANHPI families live in mixed-status households, this move creates a "chilling effect" that keeps even legal residents from opening their doors to census workers.

Cutting the advocacy cord: On day one, the administration revoked Executive Order 14031, which officially shuttered the White House Initiative on AANHPI. Without this body and its advisory commission, the community loses its primary seat at the table for ensuring the census provides linguistic access and accurate data disaggregation.

Expert voices muted: The official disbanding of the Census Bureau National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic, and Other Populations in June 2025 means there are fewer experts in the room to explain why a Hmong farmer in Minnesota or a Tongan family in Utah might be missed by generic counting methods.

Trump's "New Census": The Trump regime has proposed a new data collection model that may rely on administrative records and election info rather than traditional door-knocking. For communities with high numbers of non-citizens or limited-English speakers, this shift risks a massive undercount that could drain resources from local hospitals, schools, and infrastructure for a decade to come.

With billions of dollars and political power at stake, these changes aren't just administrative—they’re personal. An undercount doesn't just mean a smaller number; it means our concerns go unheard and our resources are misallocated.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news, views and chismis from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X, BlueSky or at the blog Views From the Edge. 

Poll: Trump policies are turning the American Dream into a nightmare

As 2025 winds down, the "American Dream" is starting to look more like a recurring nightmare for the millions of immigrants who call this country home. Usually brimming with hope and optimistic outlooks, immigrants report rising fear, increasing negative outlooks economically and healthcare.

A new KFF/New York Times Survey of Immigrants reveals deepening anxiety and fear among immigrants of all statuses amid the Trump administration’s intensified immigration enforcement and restrictive policies. For our AANHPI community, these aren’t just statistics; they are the aunties, uncles, and cousins living in the shadows of the San Gabriel Valley or the high-tech corridors of Jersey City and Silicon Valley.

In the first year of Trump’s second term, the comprehensive  survey revealed a community under significant strain, characterized by widespread fear, economic instability, and worsening health.

While most immigrants still value their decision to move to the US, a growing majority (60%) believe the country is no longer the "great place for immigrants" it once was.

The survey paints a portrait of families under strain—where fear of detention and economic instability are negatively impacting immigrants’ health and reshaping immigrant families’ daily lives and views of US political parties.

The partnership survey builds on KFF’s groundbreaking work surveying immigrants over the past few years, including a 2023 survey in partnership with the Los Angeles Times, a 2024 survey during the presidential election cycle, and a survey earlier this year that was paired with a focus group report on the experiences of undocumented immigrant families. As of June 2025, there were 51.9 million immigrants living in the U.S.

FYI: Access the full survey reports and methodologies on the KFF Survey of Immigrants series page.

 Findings from the new survey are detailed in three KFF reports and help inform the reporting in a package of news stories released by the New York Times. One KFF report focuses on the worries and experiences of immigrants amid increased immigration enforcement, a second examines the political views of immigrant voters, and a third probes the health and health care experiences of immigrants.

The survey finds that more than one in five (22%) immigrants personally know someone arrested, detained, or deported for immigration-related reasons since the president’s return to office—nearly triple the share from April 2025. Forty-one percent of immigrants now fear they or a family member could be detained or deported, up sharply from 26% in 2023. Fear has increased the most among lawfully present immigrants and naturalized citizens, indicating that growing unease is not confined to those who are undocumented.

About half of immigrants – across all statuses – report feeling less safe since the president’s second term began. Three in ten immigrants say they or a family member avoid traveling, working, going to other public spaces, or seeking medical care because of fear of enforcement since January. Among likely undocumented immigrants, this avoidance rises to three in four. More than half of immigrants (53%) lack confidence they would be treated fairly if detained.

About one in ten eligible US voters today are naturalized citizens. In the current climate, nearly six in ten immigrant voters say their views on the Trump administration’s immigration policies have had an impact on which political party they support — including over four in ten who say they have had a “major impact.”

When immigrant voters are asked to describe how the administration’s immigration policies have impacted which party they support, a larger share express views that reflect negative views of these policies or a shift away from Republicans (36%) than express views in support of these policies or the Republican party (19%).

Among other key findings:

• Most immigrants still say their own lives are better for coming to the U.S., and most would come again. But while about one-third say the U.S. is a great place for immigrants, nearly twice as many (60%) say the country used to be a great place for immigrants, but that’s no longer true.

• About half of immigrants report struggling to pay for housing, food, or health care—up from 31% in 2023. Many say it’s become harder to earn a living since January.

• 29% of Asian immigrants in 2025 reported worrying that they or a family member could be detained or deported, more than doubling from 14% in 2023.

• Data shows that 6% of Asian immigrants avoided applying for assistance programs due to immigration-related fears in 2025.

• Approximately 8% of Asian immigrants were reported as uninsured in 2025.

• A majority of Asian immigrants (54%) say their safety is better since moving to the US, though this is lower than the overall immigrant average of 65%.

Impacting health

Four in ten (40%) immigrant adults overall and nearly eight in ten (77%) likely undocumented immigrants say they have experienced negative health impacts since January 2025 due to immigration-related worries. These include increased stress, anxiety, or sadness; problems sleeping or eating; and/or worsening health conditions like diabetes or high blood pressure. About one in five (18%) immigrant parents say that their child’s well-being has been impacted due to immigration-related worries since January 2025.

The share of immigrant adults who reported skipping or postponing health care in the past 12 months increased from 22% to 29% between 2023 and 2025. Among those who went without care, about one in five (19%) say it was due to immigration-related concerns. 

About three in ten (30%) immigrant parents say that any of their children delayed or skipped health care in the past 12 months due to immigration-related fears, cost or lack of insurance, and/or not being able to find services at a convenient time or location, rising to about six in ten (58%) of parents who are likely undocumented.

The Political Pivot

The most telling part of this new reality is how it’s reshaping the immigrant vote. About 60% of immigrant voters say these aggressive enforcement actions have fundamentally changed how they view the political parties.

While there is a nuanced split on border security, there is a loud, clear rejection of Trump's more radical proposals. A staggering 80% of immigrant voters—including many in our Asian American neighborhoods—are standing firmly against "third-country" deportations and the push to end birthright citizenship.

The message from the 2025 KFF survey is clear: the welcome mat has been pulled out from under immigrants. For the first time in recent memory, a majority of immigrants (60%) believe the US is no longer a great place for those seeking a new life.

Despite the Trump-instigated hardships facing immigrants, most immigrants said that if they had to make that decision to leave their home countries to come to the US, they would do it all over again. Such is the power of the American dream and the opportunities it offers.

In essence, while the aspiration for a better life remains a powerful motivator for coming to America, the actual path to achieving that dream has become significantly more challenging and less certain for many.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news, views and chismis from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X, BlueSky or at the blog Views From the Edge. 

Chinese American family files lawsuit for info on relative who died in ICE custody

GE FAMILY

ICE claims that Chaofeng Ge, above, committed suicide during his detention.

The family of Chaofeng Ge, a Chinese man who died while in the custody of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), is suing the U.S. government and ICE for a lack of transparency regarding the circumstances of his death.

Chaofeng Ge, a 32-year-old Chinese citizen from Queens, NY, was found dead on August 5, 2025. Authorities say Ge died by suicide by hanging. However, an independent autopsy found that his hands were tied behind him, raising questions  over the claim of suicide.

"I am (devastated) by the loss of my brother and by the knowledge that he was suffering so greatly in that detention center," Ge's brother ,Yanfeng Ge, said in a statement Nov. 12, adding that he wants answers and accountability.

Ge died at the Moshannon Valley Processing Center, a private facility in Pennsylvania operated by the GEO Group. He had been in ICE custody for just five days following a conviction related to credit card fraud.

The lawsuit is the family contends that its  requests for information via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) were ignored by the detention facility operators and ICE. GEO Group runs the facility as a detention center for ICE. Yanfeng Ge said in the suit that GEO did not reach out to the family to explain what happened.

ICE and the Clearfield County coroner reported the death as a suicide by hanging. However, the family's attorney states that an independent autopsy revealed Ge was found not only hanging, but also with his hands and legs tied behind his back, a detail not included in initial ICE reports. This discrepancy is a central point of concern for the family.

The lawsuit alleges that Ge experienced "significant distress" and was isolated because no staff at the facility spoke Mandarin and refused to attempt communication with him, preventing him from expressing his needs or receiving necessary mental health treatment.

“Mr Ge was isolated because no one in the facility could speak Chinese. MVPC staff refused even to try to communicate with him, much less offer him the mental healthcare that he so urgently needed,” the complaint alleged.

The lawsuit highlights concerns over US immigration detention, noting that record-high numbers of people, including a sharp rise in Asian immigrants, are allegedly being held in overcrowded facilities with limited access to medical and mental healthcare.

The lawsuit comes amidst ongoing criticism of the Moshannon Valley Processing Center, with immigration advocates and former detainees reporting "inhumane" and "punitive" conditions, including inadequate medical care and abuse.

An ICE spokesman stated the agency does not comment on pending litigation. The agency had previously released a statement that all in-custody deaths are tragic and thoroughly investigated, and that it is committed to safe and humane environments.

A report by the UCLA Asian-American Studies Centre published in July found that total Asian immigrant arrests nearly tripled from under 700 in 2024 to almost 2,000 between February and May 2025. A majority of those detained came from China, India, and Vietnam.

The report also found that 21 deaths have occurred in ICE custody. Of the people who died, five were of Asian descent.

David B. Rankin, attorney for the Ge family. stated that the government is willing to violate the law to keep information about these centers from the public, and that the lawsuit aims to bring much-needed transparency.

"People are dying and our government doesn't have the common decency to offer the family any explanation, it's appalling," said Rankin.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news, views and chismis from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X, BlueSky or at the blog Views From the Edge. 

US blocked from deporting undocumented immigrants from Asia

Some immigrants from Asia have already been deported to Central American countries.

Immigrants from Asia were saved from being deported to Libya by a federal judge eaerlier this week. They were on the tarmac in Texas  waiting for the flight to Libya when they received the judge's order.

US District Judge Briaan Murphy on May 7 said the deportation of the noncitizen immigrants from the Philippines, Vietnam and Laos would violate his earlier ruling that people have the right to challenge their removal by US authorities.

Tin Thanh Nguyen, told the news agency Reuters that his client, a Vietnamese construction worker from Los Angeles, was among the immigrants woken in the early morning hours and bussed from an immigration detention center in Pearsall, Texas, to an airfield where a military aircraft awaited them.

After several hours, they were bussed back to the detention center around noon, the attorney said on Thursday.

Murphy's ruling was in response to an emergency motion by the Asian immigrants' lawyers who claimed their clients were in "imminent" danger of being deported to Libya -- "a country notorious for its human rights violations."

Sending the would-be deportees to Libya or Saudi Arabia without giving them a chance to raise concerns about their safety "blatantly defies this Court's preliminary injunctions," lawyers representing the migrants argued in an emergency motion filed in federal court in Boston, where Murphy last month issued a preliminary injunction barring the Trump administration from deporting noncitizens to any country other than their place of origin without due process.

“The allegedly imminent removals, as reported by news agencies,” the judge said, “would clearly violate this Court’s Order.”

“The Department of Homeland Security may not evade this injunction by ceding control over non-citizens or the enforcement of its immigration responsibilities to any other agency, including but not limited to the Department of Defence,” Murphy added.

Since the illegal deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador, US judges have blocked further deportations under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, which was last used to incarcerate Japanese American citizens during World War II.

Libya, meanwhile, denied that it has agreed to received deportees from the United States. Libya has been locked in a civil war since strongman Omar Ghadafi was killed 11 years ago.

The Libyan government, "categorically denies the existence of any agreement or coordination with it regarding the reception of any migrants deported from the United States,” the party in power said.

The plan to deport would-be deportees to Libya was first reported by Reuters. 

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio last week hinted that Washington was looking to expand the number of countries where it may deport people beyond El Salvador.

“The further away from America, the better,” Rubio said at a cabinet meeting at the White House last Wednesday.

Abuses against detained migrants in in Libya have been widely documented, with UN investigators saying they had evidence of possible crimes against humanity, including accounts of murder, torture, enslavement, extrajudicial killings and rape.

The Trump administration had deported 152,000 people as of May 5, according to Department of Homeland Security.

Dawn raids and the threat of being arrested at work , school or during a regularly scheduled check-in with ICE, have spread fear and uncertainty among people across the US, including more than 1.3 million people from Asia, amid Trump's crackdown against immigrants without documentatin.

Nguyen said his client, whose name he wouldn't reveal, said his client was told: ‘We’re deporting you to Libya,’ even though he hadn’t signed the form, he didn’t know what the form was,” according to Reuters.

Nguyen told the news agency his client, originally from Vietnam, has lived in the US since the 1990s but was complying with the law by checking wi with the government when he was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) earlier this year.

"Many people are now afraid to go to work, visit their places of worship, attend school, or even seek medical care out of fear of encountering immigration enforcement," said Martin Kim, immigration advocacy director for the Washington-based civil rights group Asian Americans Advancing Justice — AAJC.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X or at the blog Views From the Edge.

Immigrants driving growth in the US

Immigrants from Asia and other countries are keeping the United States population from stagnation. If not for immigration, the US population would have declined this year.

The US gained more than 1.6 million people in the past year, an increase driven by immigrants and a lower death rate, according to data released this week by the US Census Bureau. The total immigrant population grew by almost 30% between 2005 and 2022, climbing to just over 46 million people. Foreign-born Americans made up 13.9% of the US population in 2022, up 1.5 percentage points from 2005.

Immigration from Asia drove growth in Asian American communities last year, accounting for two-thirds of the 577,000-person increase in people who identify as Asian, including those who identify with more than one race. The 2.4% increase was the largest of any race or ethnic group, boosting Asian American population to 24.6 million

The county with the showing the most increase in the US is King County, Washington — home to Seattle — which added almost 21,500 Asian residents last year. 

There were more than 1.7 million Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders in the U.S. last year, an increase of 1.2% over the previous year. Clark County, Nevada, home to Las Vegas, had the biggest increase, with almost 1,500 new residents. So many Native Hawaiians, seeking the high cost of living in their island state, were responsible for that growth.

With it's proximity to the US, Mexico provides the most immigrants, but the next three countries are India, China and the Philippines. In fact, five of the top ten countries are Asian countries.

Immigrants' top ten countries of origin

“Immigrant and refugee communities bring talent, culture and a set of skills that are needed in our community,” said Arrey Obenson, president and CEO of the International Institute of St. Louis, which helps newcomers adapt to life in the US.

In the 2000 U.S. Census, the Federal Government defines “Asian American” to include persons having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent. “Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander” includes Native Hawaiian, Samoan, Guamanian or Chamorro, Fijian, Tongan, or Marshallese peoples and encompasses the people within the United States jurisdictions of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. The previous “Asian and Pacific Islander” (API) category was separated into “Asian Americans” and “Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders” (NHOPI).

The rise marked a bump of 0.5% as more states saw population gains than in any year since the start of the pandemic, bringing the US population to 334,914,895. While the increase is historically low, it’s higher than those seen in 2022 (0.4%) and 2021 (0.2%) when immigration slowed because of COVID-19.

The states that saw the largest growth in foreign-born residents over the five years were Texas, Florida, California and New Jersey.

The small growth in the white population was driven by Latinos, or Hispanics, who identified themselves as being white. Without the Hispanic Whites, the White population in the US would have shown a decrease.

Other highlights of the Census report:

• During the 2018-2022 period, there were an estimated 45.3 million foreign-born people in the United States; 13.7% of the nation’s total population.
• The foreign-born population rose by more than 5 million between the 2008-2012 (39.8 million) and 2018-2022 periods.
• The Foreign-born made up over a fifth of the state population in California (26.5%), New Jersey (23.2%), New York (22.6%) and Florida (21.1%) in 2018-2022.
• Florida, Texas, California and New Jersey had the largest numeric increases in the foreign-born population between 2008-2012 and 2018-2022.
• Almost half (49.1%) of all foreign-born people entered the United States before 2000, and more than half of all foreign-born people (52.3%) were naturalized U.S. citizens in 2018-2022.
• During the 2018-2022 period, an 18.7% share of the foreign-born population 25 years and older had a bachelor’s degree as their highest degree and 14.9% had a graduate or professional degree, compared to 21.4% and 13.1% of the native-born population 25 years and older.
• Nearly two-thirds (63.5%) of the foreign-born population 16 years and older were employed in the civilian labor force, and more than a third of the foreign-born U.S. civilian employed population (16 years and older) worked in management, business, science and arts occupations in 2018-2022.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow me at Threads.net/eduardodiok, @DioknoEd on Twitter or at the blog Views From the Edge.

Pew survey: America is still in the heart for Asian Americans, most favor Taiwan but not the PRC

In the last few years, Asian Americans have been experiencing a dramatic rise in  hate incidents from verbal insults to mass shootings, a new survey finds that about  three quarters of Asian Americans say there is no other country they'd rather be in.

According to a new analysis of Asian American adults, around three-quarters of Asian Americans (78%) have a favorable view of the United States – including 44% who have very favorable views of the country. 

Conducted July 5, 2022, to Jan. 27, 2023 among thousands of Asian adults living in the US, the survey found opinion of Japan, Korea and Taiwan is also quite positive, while views of Vietnam, the Philippines and India are somewhat mixed; and opinion of China is predominantly negative.

Among Asian Americans who trace their heritage to these places, opinions of their own ancestral homeland are largely positive – though Chinese American adults are the exception perhaps due to the negative media coverage of the Peoples Republic of China's espionage efforts including the recent discovery of a Chinese spy balloon flying over portions of the US. There is also growing tension between the US and the PRC as the two nations compete economically, politically and militarily.

About nine-in-ten Taiwanese and Japanese Americans say their opinion of their ancestral homelands is very or somewhat favorable, as do large majorities of Korean, Indian and Filipino adults. A smaller majority of Vietnamese Americans (59%) say they have a favorable view of Vietnam, while fewer than half of Chinese Americans (41%) hold a favorable opinion of China. (Note: Asian origin groups findings are among respondents who self-identify with one Asian origin only.)

FYI: Read the entire PEW report.

Among the report's other key findings:

• Members of each Asian origin group tend to view their own ancestral homeland much more favorably than other Asian adults. For example, among the seven origin groups highlighted in this report, the difference is the largest on views of India: 76% of Indian Americans have a favorable opinion of India, compared with 23% of other Asian Americans, a gap of 53 percentage points.

o Chinese and Vietnamese adults are the only origin groups in this analysis to express more favorable views of other places in Asia than their ancestral homelands. Chinese adults see Japan, Taiwan and South Korea more favorably than they do China. Vietnamese adults see Japan more favorably than they do Vietnam.

• As tensions rise between mainland the PRC and Taiwan, Chinese Americans’ favorability of Taiwan over mainland China is particularly notable: 62% of Chinese Americans say they have a favorable view of Taiwan, higher than the share who say the same about China (41%).

o Chinese Americans’ views of the PRC and Taiwan vary by nativity, immigration experience and how long they have lived in the United States. Chinese immigrant adults are more likely than those born in the US to hold favorable views of China (45% vs. 25%.) Meanwhile, when it comes to opinion of Taiwan, US-born Chinese adults are somewhat more likely than immigrant adults to view Taiwan favorably (70% vs. 60%).

• There is little difference in views across political party affiliation, which is particularly notable on views toward the PRC. Nearly identical shares of Republican and Democratic Asian Americans see China positively (20% and 18%, respectively) and negatively (55% and 52%). This departs from trends seen among the general U.S. public, in which our past analyses have found that Republicans are more likely than Democrats to hold an unfavorable opinion of China.

• About half of Asian Americans (53%) say the United States will be the world’s leading economic power over the next decade. About one-third (36%) of Asian adults say China will be the leading economic power globally in the next 10 years and much lower shares say the same of India and Japan. Views of the next decade’s top economy varies by place of birth, age and gender.

• Most Asian adults say they would not move to their ancestral homeland, though this varies by nativity and time spent in the U.S. Nearly three-quarters of Asian adults (72%) say they would not move there (or, in some cases, move back) if they had the chance, while 26% say they would. Asian immigrants are about twice as likely as those born in the U.S. to say they would move to these places of heritage (30% vs. 14%).

• Interest in moving to ancestral homelands is lower among immigrants who have lived in the United States for a longer time. About half (47%) of Asian immigrants who have been in the U.S. for 10 years or less say they would move to their ancestral homelands, compared with roughly one-in-five (22%) who have been in the U.S. for more than 20 years.

o Among the 26% of Asian Americans who say they would move to their ancestral homelands, the top reasons include being closer to friends or family (36%) and a lower cost of living (22%). Smaller shares also pointed to greater familiarity with the culture, better support for older people, and feeling safer in their homeland.

• The survey explores what each Asian origin group’s main reason for moving to their ancestral homelands would be. (Note: The effective sample size was too small to report Taiwanese and Japanese Americans who say they would move to their ancestral homeland.)

o Among Chinese adults living in the U.S. who say they would move to China, the main reason reported is being closer to family and friends (27%) and familiarity with Chinese culture (24%).

o Among Filipino adults living in the U.S. who say they would move to the Philippines, the main reason reported is lower cost of living (47%) and proximity to friends or family (35%).

o Among Indian adults living in the U.S. who say they would move to India, the main reason reported is lower cost of living (52%).

o Among Korean adults living in the U.S. who say they would move to South Korea, the main reason reported is access to better health care (24%) and proximity to family and friends (22%).

o And finally, among Vietnamese adults living in the U.S. who say they would move to Vietnam, the main reason reported is lower cost of living (35%) and proximity to friends and family (32%).

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow me at Threads.net/eduardodiok, @DioknoEd on Twitter or at the  blog Views From the Edge.

 

 

Pew Report: Asian American immigrants tell their stories of overcoming language barriers

Imagine being in a classroom, a hospital ER or a government office. People are talking and you can't understand a word. You feel frustrated, confused and ashamed That's the way life is for many new immigrants.

“There are a lot of obstacles … we can’t communicate … it is difficult … particularly [when] going to see a doctor. Sometimes we want to talk about our conditions or our health conditions, but we don’t know the words in English, especially my parents … sometimes, I have to go with them and don’t know how to explain things to the doctor.”

–Immigrant woman of Cambodian origin in mid-20s

A new study by the Pew Research Center emphasied the language and cultural obstacles that impact Asian immigrants to the US who arrive with little to no proficiency in English. But navigating life in America also impacts English-speaking immigrants as they adjust to life in a new country with its own unique linguistic and cultural quirks. Monday, (Dec. 19), the PRC released a new analysis highlighting Asian immigrants’ experiences navigating language barriers in the U.S., based on focus group interviews conducted in 2021.

The study found a little over half of Asian Americans (54%) were born outside the United States, including about seven-in-ten Asian American adults (68%). While many arrived in the U.S. within the last five years, a majority (71%) arrived in the U.S. over 10 years ago. Overall, 53% of Asian immigrants ages 5 and older who have been in the U.S. for five years or less say they speak English proficiently, a share that rises to 60% among those who have been in the country more than a decade.

    FYI: Read the entire Pew Research Center report

New immigrant arrivals to the United States face many challenges and obstacles when navigating their daily lives. For Asian immigrants, these include language and cultural obstacles that impact those who arrive with little to no proficiency in English. But navigating life in America also impacts English-speaking immigrants as they adjust to life in a new country with its own unique linguistic and cultural quirks.

A majority of Asian Americans (54%) were born outside the United States, including about seven-in-ten Asian American adults (68%). While many Asian immigrants arrived in the United States in recent years, a majority arrived in the U.S. over 10 years ago. 

The story of Asian immigration to the US. is over a century old, and today’s Asian immigrants arrived in the country at different times and through different pathways. They also trace their roots, culture and language to more than 20 countries in Asia, including the Indian subcontinent.

Focus group participants talked about daily challenges communicating in English while getting medical care, accessing government services, learning in school and finding employment. They also mentioned the obstacles they faced understanding US culture in daily life situations, sharing their frustration, stress and at times sadness because of the barriers they encountered. 

Some participants talked about their challenges while learning English, as well as the times they received words of support and encouragement from others to overcome these language barriers.

“When I just came here and had to go to government offices for various procedures, it was easier to understand if there was a Japanese person who could explain in Japanese, but if they explained in English, I didn’t understand English and had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to do.”

–Immigrant woman of Japanese origin in mid-40s

There were participants who recalled feelings of fear at school, not only because they did not know the language but because they did not understand how American society and schools functioned. One immigrant woman of Vietnamese origin recalled not knowing whom to ask for help because no one in her family understood American culture.

“When I came to the U.S. … I went to high school immediately … my parents went to work to earn money, so I had to go to school. … But at that time, I felt very scared. I didn’t understand what people talked [about] in school at all. It was not only English, but also culture and other things, everything was different in school. Coming home, I didn’t know who to ask; no one in my family knew. Because my family came here under the sponsorship. … There were many things I didn’t understand about the culture here. I didn’t know; I didn’t dare to ask.”

–Immigrant woman of Vietnamese origin in early 40

A portion of focus groups participants came to the United States in their teenage years. These participants recalled challenging situations at school regarding their English skills. Some participants knew no English and reported having to take hours of English as a second language (ESL) classes, which left them behind in other classes in high school.

“I was already old when I first came because I was 14. I attended ninth grade but failed. I moved down to seventh grade because I could not do it. In seventh and eighth grade, it was challenging because I could not keep up with others in any of the classes in high school. I moved to ESL to learn the English language. I attended two, three hours and then I joined others again. It was a waste.”

–Immigrant woman of Laotian origin in early 50s

Among Asian Americans ages 5 and older, 58% of immigrants speak English proficiently, compared with nearly all of the U.S. born who say the same (94%).

There is language diversity among Asian immigrants living in the US. The vast majority (86%) of Asian immigrants 5 and older say they speak a language other than English at home, while 14% say they speak only English in their homes. 

The most spoken non-English language among Asian immigrants is Chinese, including Mandarin and Cantonese (20%). Hindi (18%) is the second most commonly spoken non-English language among Asian immigrants (this figure includes Urdu, Bengali and other Indo-Iranian and Indo-European languages), followed by Tagalog and other Filipino languages (13%) and Vietnamese (9%). 

This reflects the languages of the four largest Asian origin groups (Chinese, Indian, Filipino and Vietnamese) living in the US But overall, many other languages are spoken at home by Asian immigrants. (See above chart.)

The Pew study was conducted in 2021 with 49 focus groups with Asian immigrants to understand the challenges they faced, if any, after arriving in the country. The focus groups consisted of 18 distinct Asian origins and were conducted in 17 Asian languages.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.

Sunday Read: Asian American electorate doubles its number and increases its influence

US politicians, Democrats and Republicans, can no longer afford to ignore the Asian American voter. From 2000 to 2020, the number of Asian American eligible voters more than doubled, growing by 139%, according a Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data.
In the same two decades Hispanic voters grew at a similar rate (121%), but the black and white electorates grew far more slowly (33% and 7%).

"If candidates work to reach out to our communities — many of which have low English proficiency — and work to push issues they care about, we could definitely see an impact in November," AAPI Vote executive director Christine Chen told NBC Asian America.

More than 11 million Asian American voters will be able to cast their ballots this year, making up nearly 5% of the nation’s eligible voters. They are also the only major racial or ethnic group in which naturalized citizens – rather than the US born – make up a majority of eligible voters,

Because most Asian Americans are first-generation immigrants, there are about 4.5 million future voters waiting to become full-fledged US citizens and voters. Between 2000 and 2018 – the most recent year available – the number of Asian immigrant eligible voters doubled from 3.3 million to 6.9 million. As of 2018, naturalized citizens accounted for about two-thirds of all U.S. Asian eligible voters.

Since 2000, newcomers from Asia have made up the greatest number of immigrants to the US, surpassing immigrants coming from Mexico.

The Asian American electorate reflect the composition of entire Asian American communities with 85% coming from China, the Philippines, India, Vietnam, South Korea and Japan, according to the Pew analysis. 

More than half of the Asian Americans live in only three states. California is home for 3.6 million Asian American voters or 35% of the U.S. Asian electorate, followed by New York with 920,000 voters and Texas, 698,000. 

In the swing state of Texas, the growing Asian American electorate could turn the red state to blue for the Demcratic presidential candidate and possibly elect its first Asian American congressmembers -- Sri Preston Kulkarni and Gina Ortiz Jones.

Hawaii is the only state where Asian American voters make up the largest share, 38%, of the electorate. California Asian American voters with 14% of the electorate is an increasingly politically influential group.

Both Democrats and Republicans have increased outreach to the Asian American communities but according to AAPI Data, the majority of the Asian American electorate leans towards the Democratic Party. Vietnamese American voters tend to trend towards the GOP.

In the 2018 election, 77 percent of AAPI voters supported a Democratic House candidate. Support of Asian American voters was critical in the 2018 midterm elections delivering traditional Republican districts to the Democrats.

Meanwhile, only in Hawaii do Asian Americans account for a larger share of eligible voters than any racial or ethnic group. They make up 38% of the state’s eligible voters, by far the highest share in the country. California has the next highest share with 14%.

Immigrants from the Philippines has the highest rate of naturalization of all contributing countries with 82% of the permanent residents from the Philippines eligible for citizenship swore their allegiance to the US, according to an earlier Pew study.

As more of the newly arrived become US citizens, the influence and power of Asian American voters is expected to grow even more.

Supreme Court allows temporary implementation of 'public charge' restrictions for immigrants

FACEBOOK / NYIC

Members of the New York Immigration Coalition vow to fight the 'public charge' rule in the courts. 

Any hope that the Supreme Court would exercise its independence from the executive branch disappeared Monday as the court ended the injunction that prevented Donald Trump's so-called "public charge" rule to take effect.

Immigrants may have to choose between food for their families or keeping their eligibility to become US citizens.

The US Supreme Court today temporarily lifted nationwide court orders blocking implementation of the Trump administration’s public charge regulation, allowing this widely opposed wealth test to take effect while several cases challenging the legality of the rule make their way through the courts. 

“Nearly every sector of society has gone on record in opposition to this morally repugnant and legally dubious regulation, and for good reason: its implementation will hurt countless of immigrant and citizen families, and we’re all worse off as a result,” said Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center.

Monday’s 5-4 ruling with the conservatives in the majority, will force countless immigrants to forgo health care, food stamps, and housing assistance; it will drive families to illness, starvation, and homelessness; and it is impossible to square with federal law.

“DHS has always been confident that an objective judiciary would reverse the injunctions imposed on the agency so that we are able to enforce long-standing law passed by a bipartisan Congress,” said Ken Cuccinelli, the Senior Official Performing the Duties of the DHS Deputy Secretary. 

“Self-sufficiency and self-reliance are key American values not to be litigiously dismissed, but to be encouraged and adopted by the next generation of immigrants. We plan to fully implement this rule in 49 states and are confident we will win the case on the merits,” he said in a statement.

The only state not affected is Illinois because their TRO is based on a separate legal action.

The regulation that will go into effect threatens the health, nutrition, and housing of families — overwhelmingly families of color — all over the country. 

Three lower courts agreed that the Trump guidelines did not follow the law and ruled that the rules could not be implemented while the cases wind its way through the courts. The Trump administration leapfrogged the appeals courts and went directly to the Supreme Court  dominated by GOP justices.

MORE INFORMATION:

• USICS defines "public charge"
• Are you affected by this ruling?

The multiple lawsuits challenging the regulation will still have to be decided by their merits, and the regulation may be overturned by courts hearing those cases. However, considering the aggressiveness of the administration, if those courts rule against the restrictive guidelines, it is likely the DOJ would appeal those decisions right up to the Supreme Court.

The rule affects legal immigrants who may or may not be waiting to become US citizens. "This cruel and un-American plan penalizes those who are in the U.S. legally," said Rep. Grace Meng, D-NY. "It will have dire consequences for hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants, mostly children and families who require critical safety net programs for health care, food and other basic and daily necessities."

The implemented guidelines are much narrower than earlier attempts by the Trump administration to deny any sort of public benefits to immigrants. The assistance affected is specifically food stamps, housing assistance and Medicaid. It is not certain that the SCOTUS ruling will affect those who seek health care through the American Care Act, one of chief Obama-era targets of the Trump government.

Agencies working with immigrant communities fear that people will drop out of the assistance programs in order to maintain their eligibility for a green card that moves their status a step closer to citizenship.

“The true effect, and therefore, the true intent behind the Administration’s public charge rule is to create a climate of fear among immigrant families, and it’s working," said Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-HI. "I’ve heard from a number of hardworking, taxpaying immigrants in Hawaii, many not even subject to the rule, who are afraid to see their doctor or access essential services.” 

UPDATED Jan. 28, 10 a.m. to include statement from DHS.