Asian Immigrants Number Nearly 1.6 Million in L.A., More Than in New York

By Dennis Romero Wed., Oct. 17 2012 at 9:01 AM

A / Flickr

626 Night Market in Pasadena

When President Obama said at the debate last night that "talent" from around the world wants to come to the United States, he wasn't kidding.

And they all want to come to L.A.

The U.S. Census this week announced that Los Angeles has more foreign-born Asians than any other city in America:

About 1,589,000 of them call the metropolitan area home. That's a number that beats New York's 1,539,000 and the San Francisco area's 707,000.

In fact, L.A. has more foreign-born Asians than the city of San Francisco has people. (San Diego rounds out the top 10 list with 269,000.)

U.S. Census

The top five Asian countries that send folks to L.A: China (295,000 people), the Philippines (288,000), Vietnam (229,000), Korea (223,000), Iran (135,000) and "other" (418,000).

To even begin to measure L.A.'s Asian influence, you'd have to consider our native-born Asian-American population, (The Census' last count of people of Asian descent for L.A. was 484,000, but that seems to include immigrants as well and might not have included as large a metropolitan area).

California is home to 3.7 million foreign-born Asians, says the Census. In the United States today, more than one in four immigrants is Asian.

[@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]

Tags:

Asian Americans, Asians, city rankings, immigration, Los Angeles, New York, U.S. Census

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abramsrl

I love LA Weekly, but please, let's focus better -- there are not 1.6 Million Asians in L.A. -- certainly not in the city which is about 500 sq miles, nor in LA County which is about 5,000 sq. miles. The world's largest Vietnamese community (outside of Vietnam) is in Orange County. Orange County is NOT Los Angeles, nor is it correct to include Orange County in the term "LA area." We have a name for that bi-county area, and not surprisingly, it is "The L.A. Orange County area."

On the other hand, kudos for providing the link directly to the US Census data.

I know you guys are overworked, being the only legit newspaper in town, but I expect your A+ game each and every time. LA relies on your hitting the bulls eye -- without fail, so when you bat only 990, I complain.

Chance.

@abramsrl LA Weekly, like most news sites in Los Angeles, seems to only know two areas: The "City" which is Pasadena to Venice, and the Metro which includes three counties.

It coincides with most people's understanding of what is the City of Los Angeles. For example, Marina Del Rey probably thinks they are part of the City of LA and Woodland Hills doesn't.

It may all make sense in terms of pop culture, but it requires reading between the lines when reading about demographics or anything to do with government.

abramsrl

@Chance. And your point is??? It has nothing to do about reading between the lines. It's about stating the facts correctly. LA Weekly is very good, but everyone slips up once in a while.