Asian Americans are Americans with ancestry from the continent of Asia (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of those immigrants). According to annual estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, as of July 1, 2024, the Asian population was estimated at 22,080,844, representing approximately 6.49% of the total U.S. population, making them the fastest growing and fourth largest racial and ethnic group in the United States after African Americans, Hispanic and Latino Americans, and non-Hispanic White Americans.
Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous peoples of the continent of Asia, the usage of the term "Asian" by the U.S. Census Bureau denotes a racial category that includes people with origins or ancestry from Central Asia, East Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. It excludes people with ethnic origins from West Asia, who were historically classified as "white" and proposed to be categorized as Middle Eastern Americans starting from the 2030 census. Central Asian ancestries (including Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Turkmen, and Uzbek) were previously not included in any racial category but have been designated as "Asian" as of 2024. It is also explicitly stated on the Census that racial categories reflect social definitions of race based on the American general public. They are not meant to define race biologically, anthropologically or genetically.
The "Asian" census category includes people who indicate their race(s) on the census as "Asian" or reported entries such as "Chinese, Indian, Bangladeshi, Filipino, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Korean, Japanese, Pakistani, Thai, and Other Asian". In 2020, Americans who identified as Asian alone (19,886,049) or in combination with other races (4,114,949) made up 7.2% of the US population.
Chinese, Indian, and Filipino Americans make up the largest share of the Asian American population with 5.5 million, 5.2 million, and 4.6 million people respectively. These numbers equal 23%, 20%, and 18% of the total Asian American population, or 1.5%, 1.2%, and 1.2% of the total US population. Vietnamese Americans are the 4th largest Asian American population, and Korean Americans are the 5th largest with both populations making up 8% of the Asian American population respectively.
Although migrants from Asia have been in parts of the contemporary United States since the 17th century, large-scale immigration did not begin until the mid-19th century. Nativist immigration laws during the 1880s–1920s excluded various Asian groups, eventually prohibiting almost all Asian immigration to the continental United States. After immigration laws were reformed during the 1940s–1960s, abolishing national origins quotas, Asian immigration increased rapidly. Analyses of the 2010 census have shown that, by percentage change, Asian Americans are the fastest-growing racial group in the United States.
Terminology
As with other racial and ethnicity-based terms, formal and common usage have changed markedly through the short history of this term. Prior to the late 1960s, people of various Asian ancestries were usually referred to as Yellow, Oriental, Asiatic, Brown, Mongoloid, or Hindoo. Additionally, the American definition of 'Asian' originally included West Asian ethnic groups, particularly Turkish Americans, Armenian Americans, Assyrian Americans, Iranian Americans, Kurdish Americans, Jewish Americans of Middle Eastern descent, and certain Arab Americans, although in modern times, these groups are now considered Middle Eastern American and grouped under White Americans in the census."Proceedings of the Asiatic Exclusion League" Asiatic Exclusion League. San Francisco: April 1910. Pg. 7. "To amend section twenty-one hundred and sixty-nine of the Revised Statutes of the United States. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that section twenty-one hundred and sixty-nine of the Revised Statutes of the United States be, and the same is hereby, amended by adding thereto the following: And Mongolians, Malays, and other Asiatics, except Armenians, Assyrians, and Jews, shall not be naturalized in the United States."How the U.S. Courts Established the White Race The term "Asian American" was coined by historian-activists Yuji Ichioka and Emma Gee in 1968 during the founding of the Asian American Political Alliance, and they were also credited with popularizing the term, which meant to be used to frame a new "inter-ethnic-pan-Asian American self-defining political group". This effort was part of New Left anti-war and anti-imperialist activism, directly opposing what was viewed as an unjust Vietnam War.
Prior to being included in the "Asian" category in the 1980s, many Americans of South Asian descent usually classified themselves as Caucasian or other.Chandy, Sunu P. What is a Valid South Asian Struggle? Report on the Annual SASA Conference. Retrieved July 13, 2021. Changing patterns of immigration and an extensive period of exclusion of Asian immigrants have resulted in demographic changes that have in turn affected the formal and common understandings of what defines Asian American. For example, since the removal of restrictive "national origins" quotas in 1965, the Asian American population has diversified greatly to include more of the peoples with ancestry from various parts of Asia.
Today, "Asian American" is the accepted term for most formal purposes, such as government and academic research, although it is often shortened to Asian in common usage. The most commonly used definition of Asian American is the US Census Bureau definition, which includes all people with origins in East Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.United States Census Bureau, Census 2000 Summary File 1 Technical Documentation , 2001, at Appendix B-14. "A person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam. It includes Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Other Asian." This is chiefly because the census definitions determine many governmental classifications, notably for equal opportunity programs and measurements.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "Asian person" in the United States is most often thought of as a person of East Asian descent. In vernacular usage, "Asian" is usually used to refer to those of East or Southeast Asian descent, with South Asians not included as often.Epicanthal folds : MedicinePlus Medical Encyclopedia states that "The presence of an epicanthal fold is normal in people of Asiatic descent" assuming it the norm for all Asians This differs from the US census definition, and the Asian American Studies departments in many universities consider all those of East, South, or Southeast Asian descent to be "Asian".Cornell Asian American Studies ; contains mentions to South AsiansUC Berkeley – General Catalog – Asian American Studies Courses ; South and Southeast Asian courses are present
Census definition
In the US census, people with origins or ancestry in East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Central Asia are classified as part of the Asian race; while those with origins or ancestry in parts of West Asia (Israelis, Turks, Persians, Kurds, Assyrians, Arabs, etc.) and the Caucasus (Georgians, Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Chechens, Circassians, etc.) are classified under the "Middle Eastern and North African" race.United States Census Bureau, 2000 Census of Population, Public Law 94-171 Redistricting Data File.. (archived from the original on November 3, 2001). As such, "Asian" and "African" ancestry are seen as racial categories only for the purpose of the census, with the definition referring to ancestry from parts of the Asian and African continents outside of parts of West Asia and North Africa.
In 1980 and before, census forms listed particular Asian ancestries as separate groups, along with white and black or negro.1980 Census: Instructions to Respondents , republished by Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota at http://www.ipums.org Accessed November 19, 2006. Asian Americans had also been classified as "other".Lee, Gordon. Hyphen magazine. . 2003. January 28, 2007 (archived from the original on March 17, 2008). In 1977, the federal Office of Management and Budget issued a directive requiring government agencies to maintain statistics on racial groups, including on "Asian or Pacific Islander". By the 1990 census, "Asian or Pacific Islander (API)" was included as an explicit category, although respondents had to select one particular ancestry as a subcategory.1990 Census: Instructions to Respondents , republished by Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota at http://www.ipums.org Accessed November 19, 2006.Reeves, Terrance Claudett, Bennett. United States Census Bureau. Asian and Pacific Islander Population: March 2002 . 2003. September 30, 2006. Beginning with the 2000 census, two separate categories were used: "Asian American" and "Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander".
Debates and criticism
The definition of Asian American has variations that derive from the use of the word American in different contexts. Immigration status, citizenship (by birthright and by naturalization), acculturation, and language ability are some variables that are used to define American for various purposes and may vary in formal and everyday usage.Wood, Daniel B. "Common Ground on who's an American." Christian Science Monitor. January 19, 2006. Retrieved February 16, 2007. For example, restricting American to include only US citizens conflicts with discussions of Asian American businesses, which generally refer both to citizen and non-citizen owners. A 2023 Pew Research Center survey of Asian Americans found that 28% self-identify as "Asian", with 52% preferring to refer to themselves by more specific ethnic groupings and 10% simply self-identifying as "American".
In a PBS interview from 2004, a panel of Asian American writers discussed how some groups include people of Middle Eastern descent in the Asian American category. Asian American author Stewart Ikeda has noted, "The definition of 'Asian American' also frequently depends on who's asking, who's defining, in what context, and why... the possible definitions of 'Asian-Pacific American' are many, complex, and shifting... some scholars in Asian American Studies conferences suggest that Russians, Iranians, and Israelis all might fit the field's subject of study." Jeff Yang, of The Wall Street Journal, writes that the panethnic definition of Asian American is a unique American construct, and as an identity is "in beta". The majority of Asian Americans feel ambivalence about the term "Asian American" as a term by which to identify themselves. Pyong Gap Min, a sociologist and Professor of Sociology at Queens College, has stated the term is merely political, used by Asian American activists and further reinforced by the government. Beyond that, he feels that South Asians and East Asians do not have commonalities in "culture, physical characteristics, or pre-migrant historical experiences".