ImmigrationProf Blog

Adding to ImmigrationProf blog’s prior list of recently-released demographic data on the AAPI population, this Pew Survey contains information specifically about Asian American politics and Asian American history.

Asian American History

Despite the long history of Asian Americans in the US — spanning the Chinese laborers who helped build the first transcontinental railroad, Vietnamese refugees following wars in Southeast Asia, and the arrival of more than 14.7 million immigrants from Asia since 1965 — only one-in-four Asian adults (24%) say they are extremely or very informed about U.S. Asian history, according to the new survey of Asian Americans. Half say they are somewhat informed about U.S. Asian history, while another quarter (24%) say they are little or not at all informed.

Not surprisingly, U.S.-born Asian adults (28%) are slightly more likely than those who are immigrants (23%) to say they are substantially informed about Asian history in the U.S. Among immigrants, how many years they have lived in the U.S. is also related to differences in knowledge of U.S. Asian history. More surprisingly, older Asian Americans are more informed than youth 18-29 years old.

Among those who say they are at least a little informed about U.S. Asian history, most say they learned it from the internet (82%) or media (75%), while 63% say they learned from family and friends. Fewer Asian adults say they learned about it in a classroom setting, with 37% saying they learned in their college or university years and 33% while they attended K-12 school. 

Asian American Politics

Asian Americans represent some of the fastest growing parts of the electorate across the country. A majority of Asian adults who are registered to vote think of themselves as Democrats or lean Democratic (62%) rather than as Republicans or Republican leaners (34%).

Across origin groups, about two-in-three Filipino (68%), Indian (68%) and Korean (67%) registered voters identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party. A slightly smaller majority of Chinese registered voters (56%) identify as or lean Democratic, while about half of Vietnamese registered voters (51%) identify with or lean to the Republican Party

More information on AAPI politics can be found at APIA Vote (including a fascinating newsletter last week on the high number of Tongan immigrants in Utah) and AAPI Data. For Pew’s full report, see here.

MHC