ABSTRACT
Chinese exchange student. Japanese salesmen. Korean greengrocers. Recent immigrants from Hong Kong and the Philippines. Thousands upon thousands of refugees from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Asians are everywhere. Some say they are taking over but, more often than not, the comment is made only in mock horror. Although “takeover” is a far from accurate image, in recent years, the United States has become a magnet for any number of people from Asia. While many have come to study or to ply their wares, many more have come to stay. Betweeen 1970 and 1980 the number of persons who specified Asian or Pacific Island ancestry to United States census takers increased 146 percent, making it the fastest growing segment of the population. Since 1980, the pace has accelerated considerably, augmented by several large waves of Indochinese refugees. In the years ahead, the “Asian cohort” will continue to grow because of high birth rates and because of the effect of chain migration (i.e., once citizenship is attained by an individual, his relatives move up on the priority list for entrance into the United States, and many do come).
