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Indian Population Explodes in the U.S.

Numbers rise 38% in five years to reach 2.32 million

India Abroad
September 1, 2006 (page 1)
by George Joseph in New York

The Indian community in the United States added more than 640,000 to its number in the last five years, a growth rate with no precedent in the history of Indian immigration to the U.S.

From 1,678,765 in 2000, the population grew to 2,319,222 in 2005, a growth rate of 38%, the highest for any Asian community.

Indian have become the second largest Asian community after the Chinese whose numbers went up from 2,432,585 to 2,882,257 over the same period, according to the American Community Survey of the U.S. Census Bureau.

The 2000 Census found the Indians the fastest growing community showing an increase of 106% during 1990-2000.

The Philippinos ranked second then, but have been pushed to third place.

Indians are most heavily concentrated in five states: California, New York, New Jersey, Texas and Illinois.

Similarly, the top five urban destinations of Asian Indians include New York, the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose area, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC.

Though the Census is conducted only every ten years, the last one was held in 2000 -- the Census Bureau conducts an annual survey that measures key population statistics during which it accounts for people living in households and excludes the population in institutions, colleges and other group quarters. If those numbers are included, particularly given the huge number of Indian students at U.S. universities, the Indian population could significantly be larger.

The survey found that New Jersey has one of the highest percentages of Asians in any state. The state's Asian population jumped up by about 34% from 480,000 in 2000 to 620,000 in 2005. So, the number of Indians has gone up in New Jersey from 170,000 in 2000 to 230,000 now, a growth rate of 35%.

Indian Americans are growing even in places hither to not known to have too many of them, the survey noted. While Indians continue to be the biggest ethnic Asian community in New Jersey, they have increased their representation in states like Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania.

'But the rapid growth of immigrants are not associated with negative effects on the unemployment of native born workers, according to a study by the Pew Hispanic Center that examined data during the boom years of the 1990s and the downturn and recovery since 2000,' said Rakesh Kochhar, the Center's Associate Director for Research.

'No consistent pattern emerges to show that native-born workers suffered or benefited from increased numbers of foreign-born workers. In 2000, nearly 25% of native-born workers lived in states where rapid growth in the foreign-born population between 1990 and 2000 was associated with favorable outcomes for the native-born,' he said.

"The ACS provides us with an invaluable annual snapshot of the Asian American population profile," said Saul Gitlin, Executive Vice President, Strategic Services of Kang and Lee Advertising, a multicultural marketing consulting and communications agency specializing in reaching the Asian American markets.

Although ACS does not offer the depth of statistics available in the full decennial census, it does provide key projections for the nation, by region, and down to the state and county levels. According to Kochhar, economic growth and the jobs that come with it are magnets for immigrants. He said the flow of immigrants peaked in the late 1990s and then decreased. 'It may have been associated with the recession or with 9-11. But it was a temporary lull in 2003 and 2004. There has been a pickup again,' he noted.

The survey found that the Indian population in Minnesota stands at over 30,000. This is another sharp increase after the figure more than doubled in the 1990s from 8,000 to 17,000. Indians are the second largest Asian community in Minnesota after the Hmong, a people from southern China and Viet Nam.

The ACS found that the total Asian population has grown to 12.4 million, a 23% increase since 2000. After the Indians, the highest growth rate is among Vietnamese (28%) and Philippinos (22%).

In 2005, 12.4% of the nation was foreign-born. According to the ACS, more than one in three residents living in Los Angeles (40.3%), San Jose (37.9%), and New York (36.6%) were not U.S. citizens at birth.

The number of immigrants living in America increased about 16% in the last five years mostly because of recent arrivals from Mexico. The nation's household population in 2005 was 288,378,137, up from 273,637,296 in 2000.

Of those, 41 million are Hispanics. Among them nearly 27 million are from Mexico. The African Americans number 36.8 million, which relegates them to third place. The largest numbers of immigrants continue to live in the six states that have traditionally attracted them: California, New York, Texas, Florida, New Jersey and Illinois.

But, increasingly, immigrants are bypassing the traditional gateway states like California and New York and settling directly in parts of the country that, until recently, saw little immigrant activity like the upper Midwest, New England and the Rocky Mountain states.

Rise in Immigrant Population (in millions)