Indians, Asians Fast Becoming Politically Relevant In U.S.: Report

WASHINGTON: With Indians and other Asian-Americans and Pacific-Islanders growing in number at a fast pace, people of colour will be in the majority in the U.S. by mid-century, according to a new report.

They are also quickly reaching the critical mass needed to be politically relevant, says the report from the Centre for American Progress and AAPI Data on how the growth of this group will affect a variety of key policy areas from immigration and education to healthcare and the environment.

With the Indian-American population shooting up 76 percent in the first 12 years of the 21st century, Indian-Americans numbering 3.34 million are already the third largest Asian community in the U.S., after people from China and the Philippines.

The top six groups — Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese — account for 85 per cent of all residents, the report noted.

"While this shows a fair amount of national origin concentration, it nevertheless represents a decline from 89 per cent for these top six groups in 2000, as smaller Asian American groups have grown disproportionately in the last decade," noted authors Karthick Ramakrishnan and Farah Ahmad.

Chinese are still by far the largest group of Asian-American population with 4.1 million (22 percent), Filipinos come next with 3.59 million (19 percent) followed by Indians with 3.34 million (18 percent) in the third place.

But with the growth rates for other national origin groups changing faster during this decade, Indians and Filipinos, for example, are now about equal in size.

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