Chinese Americans Form Largest Asian Group in California: Census

The number of Asian residents in California rose 35.2 percent to almost 3.7 million in the 1990s with Chinese Americans becoming the largest Asian group in California, census information released Wednesday shows.

The 2000 census reflects the continued suburban diaspora of Chinese Americans, who neared the 1-million mark in pushing past Filipinos to become the state's largest Asian group. Though the Chinese population dropped 6 percent in the city of Los Angeles, it grew more than 34 percent in the county and strongly throughout the rest of the region.

After recording astronomical growth in the 1980s, California's deep-rooted Chinese American community in the 1990s jumped 39 percent to 980,642. Driven by both immigration and native births, the number of Chinese in California has more than tripled since the 1980 census.

In the heyday of Los Angeles' Chinatown, Southern California's Chinese were tightly centralized and more homogenous. But since the mid-1970s, the Chinese population has become increasingly suburban, dispersing into the San Gabriel Valley and elsewhere.

In the 1990s, the Chinese community shot up almost 136 percent in Walnut and more than 42 percent in Cerritos, helping to establish Asian majorities in those cities. In Monterey Park, the first Chinese suburb and the only other Southern California city with an Asian majority, the group grew by almost 13 percent.

Chinese suburban newcomers are gradually translating population into political heft. In the 1990s, Chinese Americans won seats on the Walnut and Diamond Bar city councils, as well as on several San Gabriel Valley school boards.

The Filipino population rose by 25.6 percent statewide to 918, 678, with a 27 percent rise in Southern California to 371,421.

Mirroring a national trend, California's Japanese American population fell almost 8 percent in the 1990s, affected by intermarriage and a low birth rate. Regionally, the sharpest drop occurred in the city of Los Angeles, where the number of Japanese fell 18.5 percent to under 37,000.

Southern California's Vietnamese population grew sharply in the 1990s and now exceeds 230,000, including 135,548 in Orange County alone, where the Vietnamese American community surged almost 89 percent.

Like Chinese, Korean Americans moved steadily into the suburbs in the 1990s, while increasing their numbers by one-third statewide to 345,882.

The new economy left its stamp as well, fueling a 97 percent advance for Asian Indians, particularly in Northern California, where a host of highly skilled immigrants answered the technology industry's need for computer programmers and engineers. Many came to the United States on special high-tech visas, settling in communities in the South Bay and East Bay.

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