Demographics of Asian Americans

The demographics of Asian Americans describe a heterogeneous group of people in the United States who trace their ancestry to one or more Asian countries. Because Asian Americans total about 5.6% of the entire US population, diversity within the group is often overlooked in media treatment.

The first recorded Asian Americans in the continental United States were a group of Filipino men who established the small settlement of Saint Malo, Louisiana, after fleeing mistreatment aboard Spanish ships. Since there were no women with them, the Manilamen, as they were known, married Cajun and Native American women. In 1778, Chinese and European explorers first arrived in Hawaii. Numerous Chinese and Japanese began immigrating to the US in the mid-19th century; numerous Chinese immigrants worked as laborers on the First Transcontinental Railroad, many who immigrated due to overpopulation and poverty experienced in Canton Province. In the mid-20th century, refugees from Southeast Asia fled wars in the homelands to come to the United States. Most Asian Americans who immigrated to the United States arrived after 1965, due to immigration reform that ended an earlier era of exclusion of Asian immigrants.

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