ABSTRACT
Asian Pacific Americans will continue to be the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States into the next millennium principally because of immigration. The demographic predictions for the year 2020 show that 54 percent of Asian Pacific Americans will be foreign-born. This is consistent with census figures in 1980 and 1990 which revealed that, except for Japanese Americans, every group was mostly comprised of those born abroad (e.g., Chinese, over 60 percent; Koreans, 80 percent; Asian Indians, 80 percent; Filipinos, over 70 percent; Vietnamese, 90 percent). These predictions also find support from current annual levels of immigration (e.g., Filipinos 60,000, Chinese 55,000, Koreans 30,000, Asian Indians 30,000, Pakistanis 9,700, Thais 8,900). In 1992, 50,000 Southeast Asian refugees were admitted. And a trend in increased immigration from Japan has developed as well. During the 1980s, Asian Pacific immigration totaled about two million to help account for the 108 percent increase during the decade (from approximately 3.8 million to 7.3 million).
