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25 VVVVVVVVVVV 1 VVVVVVVVVVV Intragroup Diversity Asian American Population Dynamics and Challenges of the Twenty-first Century MIN ZHOU Asian America began to take shape in the late s when a large number of Chinese immigrants arrived in the United States as contract laborers. In the span of more than one and a half centuries, it has evolved into a vastly diverse ethnic community consisting of people whose ancestors, or who themselves, were born in more than twenty-five Asian countries. As of , the estimated number of Asian Americans grew to . million, up from less than  million in  and from . million in . The group’s many-fold growth in the past forty years is primarily due to immigration, which has accelerated since the passage of the Hart-Cellar Act of . Based on the  U.S. census, about  percent (or . million) of the Asian American population are foreign-born (the first generation ), another  percent are native-born with foreign-born parentage (the second generation), and only  percent are native-born with native-born parentage (the third generation), with the exception of Japanese Americans who are entering the fourth generation in America based on estimates of the U.S. Current Population Survey. This chapter offers a demographic overview of the Asian American population at the dawn of the twenty-first century. It highlights the tremendous intragroup diversity in origin, socioeconomic status, and patterns of settlement and adaptation. It also discusses the challenges that this ethnic group faces in the twenty-first century, particularly the causes and consequences of the “model minority” image and its implications for Asian Americans. Demographic Transformation Diverse National Origins The term “Asian American” is a socially constructed term because the variety of ethnically distinct subgroups far exceeds the similarities that these subgroups share. In , the size of Asian American community was about . million, largely made up of three national-origin groups—Japanese ( percent), Chinese 26 MIN ZHOU ( percent), and Filipino ( percent). Those who fell into the “Other Asian” category ( percent) included mostly Koreans and Asian Indians. Since , the community has been dramatically transformed by contemporary immigration. As of , at least twenty-five national-origin groups have been officially tabulated in the U.S. census. As Table . shows, Americans of Chinese and Filipino ancestries are the largest subgroups, at more than  million, followed by Indians, Koreans, Vietnamese, and Japanese, whose numbers surpass the  million mark. There are many other national-origin or ethnic groups who have made their visible presence in the United State only after the s, such as Cambodians, Pakistanis, Laotians, Hmongs, and Thais. The “Other Asian” category in the  census includes Bangladeshis, Indonesians, Malaysians, and Singaporeans, among others. Immigration from Asian countries has accelerated since the s. The share of immigrants from Asia as a proportion of the U.S. total inflow grew from a tiny  percent in the s to around  percent in the s and s. Prior to , no Asian country was on the United States’ annual list of top ten immigrant -origin countries. Since then, however, China, the Philippines, India, Korea, and Vietnam have shown up on the list repeatedly. Between  and , immigration accounted for more than half of the population growth for Asian Americans (and for  percent of Indian growth,  percent of Filipino growth, and  percent of Vietnamese growth). National origins stretched out to more than twenty-five Asian countries, many of which had no prior settlement histories on American soil. Table . illustrates the extent of legal immigration into the United States from six major Asian countries from  to . Before World War II, immigration by decade from these countries was fairly low, except for the Chinese, but it has become increasingly voluminous as the direct effect of the implementation of the Hart-Cellar Act of . Compared to other Asian groups, Japanese immigration slowed down since World War II. Korean immigration slowed down signi ficantly in the s, showing less than half of the inflow from the previous decade. Filipino immigration also slowed down in the s, but the inflow remained substantial. While most of the immigrants have come directly from their ancestral homelands, others have arrived from a different country. For example, the Chinese today have immigrated into the United States not only from mainland China but also from the Chinese diaspora—Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, and the Americas. Indians have arrived not only from India but also from Fiji, Uganda, Trinidad, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. Many of the Southeast Asians have been resettled...

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