Asians Now the Largest Group of US Immigrants

This is our summary, in our own words, of the Pew Research Center's June 2012 report "The Rise of Asian Americans."

A landmark June 2012 report from the Pew Research Center redrew the picture of immigration to the United States. For the first time, the largest share of new immigrants was arriving not from Latin America but from Asia: in 2011, 36% of new immigrants came from Asia, compared with 31% from Latin America — a historic reversal of a decades-long pattern.

The report also found that Asian Americans had become the highest-income, best-educated racial group in the country. Seventy-four percent of Asian-American adults aged 25 and older held at least a bachelor's degree, compared with 31% of all American adults. The median household income for Asian Americans was $66,000, versus $49,800 nationally.

Asian Americans numbered 18.2 million in 2011 — about 5.8% of the U.S. population — and were the fastest-growing major racial group. Six countries accounted for the great majority of Asian Americans: China, India, the Philippines, Vietnam, Korea, and Japan. Indian Americans were among the most educated subgroups.

The report was careful about what the averages concealed: aggregate success masked wide variation between subgroups, and recent immigrants faced the same adjustment pressures — language, credential recognition, family separation — that every immigrant wave has faced. The numbers documented an achievement; they did not explain away the difficulty.

Based on the Pew Research Center report "The Rise of Asian Americans" (June 19, 2012).