Which races are considered asian

As mainstream news media starts paying attention to the potential nomination of Judge Sri Srinivasan, important questions of identity are cropping up. So here is a teachable moment on where Indians fit into the Asian American category, in a simple Q and A format:. Asian is a racial category not an ethnic category. The U. Census Bureau , and the federal government and most state government data collection agencies, include India and the entire Indian subcontinent including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, etc.

Are all people from Asia considered Asian Americans? Asians, totaling 2. Asians provided other origins or indicated they are Asian but did not indicate a specific origin. Nearly half of U. California had an Asian population of roughly 6. It was followed by New York 1. A majority of U. Aside from Hawaii, where U.

The modern immigration wave from Asia has accounted for a quarter of all immigrants who have arrived in the U.

But when and how Asian immigrants arrived in the U. Single-race, non-Hispanic Asians are projected to become the largest immigrant group in the country , surpassing Hispanics in Four nations in Asia were among the top 15 countries of birth for U.

As of , the Asian population in the U. But the median age of U. The relative youth of the U. Nearly six-in-ten U. Another quarter of the U. Nearly all U. About a third of U. Nearly two-thirds of U. Most Asian immigrants, by contrast, speak a language other than English at home. Asians who are immigrants are slightly more likely than U. Asians have a lower homeownership rate than the U. That feeling can be particularly relevant when it comes to checking a box on a form like the Census.

The division of seats in Congress and state legislatures is also affected by Census data. Along with questioning the safety of offering up personal information to the government — perhaps due to the fact that the government also used Census data to round up people of Japanese descent for imprisonment in camps during World War II — language barriers, feelings of neglect and lack of familiarity with the Census all play a part in discouraging Asian Americans from participating, according to the New York Times.

As part of an effort to address the situation, volunteers from civic organizations are canvassing to educate Asian populations about the Census and appease any fears. Dillingham wrote back, in a letter shared with TIME, saying that the Census Bureau is in fact trying to expand the campaign to include content produced in South Asian languages.

In terms of how resources get allocated for diversity and hiring, it is actually very critical to meet the needs of those communities, which can be very different. Write to Anna Purna Kambhampaty at Anna. Notions of ethnic and national identity carry political, social and familial meanings too complex to analyze here. Numbering only 6.

In these states, the Asian American population has more than doubled between and The Asian American population grew the slowest in the large states where the Asian American population had already been large.

They are followed in size by Filipino 3. Data from U. Brief demographic and identity information on Asian and Pacific Islander communities in the US, including origins, population data and English speaking ability. Tweet Email. Definitions In the U. Asian Countries There is no official definition of the boundary between Asia and Europe nor between continents for that matter so the boundaries are merely traditional — and some of the countries listed as Asian might not seem obvious.