March 25, 2011
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Asian population in the United States has grown by nearly half over the past 10 years as the country looks increasingly diverse, the US Census Bureau said Thursday.
The Asian American population totaled 14,674,252 as of last year, a rise of 43 percent from a decade earlier, the Census said in a study on race. Asians who identify with only one race now make up 4.8 percent of the US population.
The only other group rising at the same pace was Hispanics, whose ranks also jumped 43 percent over the past decade.
Growth has been much more tepid among non-Hispanic white people, whose numbers rose by just one percent in the past decade. They now make up 69 percent of the US population.
The minority population is not evenly spread among the United States. California, the most populous state and a major Asian American hub, is "majority minority" with 53.3 percent belonging to minority groups.
Texas, with a burgeoning Hispanic population, has also become majority minority under the latest Census, joining California, Hawaii, New Mexico and Washington, DC.
Census guidelines on race historically have been subject to debate. According to the 2010 Census, Asian Americans include people tracing ancestry to the Indian subcontinent but not Arabs or Persians, who are considered white.
The Census does not classify Hispanics as a race, with Hispanics also asked to identify themselves with one or more race.
