Asian Americans in California

Asian Californians are residents of the state of California who are of Asian ancestry. California has the largest Asian American population in the U.S., and second highest proportion of Asian American residents, after Hawaii. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, there were over 6 million Asian-Americans in California; 15.5% of the state's population. If including those with partial Asian ancestry, this figure is around 17%. This is a jump from 13.8% recorded in 2010.

The largest Asian American ethnic subgroups in California are Chinese Americans, Filipino Americans, Indian Americans, and Vietnamese Americans. Asian Americans in California are concentrated in the San Francisco-San José and Los Angeles metropolitan areas.

Background
Including those with partial Asian ancestry, the following Asian ethnic groups in California are: Filipino (3.9%, 1,474,707), Chinese (except Taiwanese; 3.6%, 1,349,111), Vietnamese	(858,589, 1.7%), Indian (666,445, 1.5%), Koreans (505,225, 1.3%), Japanese (428,014, 1.1%), Taiwanese (109,928, 0.2%), Cambodians (102,317, 0.2%), Hmong (91,224, 0.2%), Laotians (69,303, 0.2%), Thai (67,707, 0.1%), Pakistanis (53,474, 0.1%), Indonesians (39,506, 0.1%), Burmese (17,978, 0.05%), Sri Lankans (11,929, 0.03%), Bangladeshis (10,494, 0.03%), Nepalese (6,231, 0.01%), Malaysians (5,595, 0.01%), Mongolians (4,993, 0.1%), Singaporeans (1,513, 0.004%), Okinawans (1,377, 0.003%), and Bhutanese (750, 0.001%).

Economical
Asians have the highest income per capita in the US, and may have a slightly above average rate in California. However, income average varies with Asian groups, from Cambodians and Hmong to Taiwanese and Indians.

Asians make up approximately 2-4% of homeless in California, which is low, but communities exist especially in San Francisco and San Jose.

While a large proportion of Asian Americans have higher educational attainments and median income averages, many Asian American groups, often those coming from low-income Southeast Asian families, face hardships such as poverty, depression, emotional and domestic abuse, racial bullying, and gang violence. Cambodian and Southeast Asian-dominant street gangs such as the Asian Boyz, which is an off-shoot of the African American and Los Angeles based Crips gang, formed in Los Angeles County the late 1970s to the 1980s during the Cambodian refuge migration to the U.S, especially in Long Beach, Fresno, Sacramento, Oakland, St. Paul, Minnesota, and Lowell, Massachusetts.

Often, these gangs would fight with Hispanic gangs but would eventually shift into fighting with fellow Cambodia and Asian gang members, mostly with rival Asian gangs or criminals/dealers. This violence over drugs, turf, and arguments would sometimes lead to violence and murders, and violence involving innocent children and families during home invasions have been reported in the San Bernardino area in the 1990s and elsewhere.

Education
Asian Americans and immigrants have a high student body percentage among many California colleges; UC Berkeley is about 40% Asian.

Cambodian
There are many Cambodians in Long Beach, Stockton, and Fresno. Long Beach is 4% Cambodian with over 20,000 people of Cambodian residents. There is a Cambodiatown in LB. There is a Cambodian population in Oakland, and there were, and to a lesser extent today, Cambodian communities in Tenderloin, San Francisco.

Chinese
San Francisco is 21.4% Chinese, and the San Francisco Bay Area is 8% Chinese. Many of the Chinese Americans are Cantonese-speaking immigrants or descendants from Guangdong province and Hong Kong. There are also many Taiwanese and mainland Chinese immigrants in the Silicon Valley area.

The Bay Area in general is 8-9% Chinese. Many live in Santa Clara County, with many prevalent in Cupertino, Sunnyvale, and Milpitas. In the East Bay, many in San Ramon, Dublin, Pleasanton, Oakland, Walnut Creek, and Piedmont. Berkeley has many Chinese in the area; UC Berkeley is about 20% Chinese. On the Peninsula, there are many Chinese Americans in Daly City, San Mateo, San Bruno, and Foster City.

Northern California and America at large’s Chinese population largely originated in the Taishan area, with at least half of Chinese Americans in the 1980s reporting some or all Taishanese ancestry. Nearby cities such as Zhongshan had larger emigration waves to the US and/or California. There were also some Shanghainese immigrants coming into the Bay Area to a lesser extent during the 70s-80s.

Sacramento is 3-5% Chinese. Davis has many Asian American residents and students at UC Davis. Elk Grove has a Chinese community.

Los Angeles is 1.8% Chinese, and Los Angeles County is 4% Chinese. A large portion of the Chinese population resides in the San Gabriel Valley. Areas with notable Chinese and Chinese-American populations include Chinatown, parts of San Fernando Valley, and Westwood in Los Angeles, the San Gabriel Valley, the 626 (Arcadia, Alhambra, El Monte, Monterey Park, Rosemead, San Gabriel, Temple City), Rowland Heights, Diamond Bar, Hacienda Heights, and the Los Angeles County/Orange County border cities of Cerritos and Artesia. Chinatown in Los Angeles is populated by mostly working-class Cantonese and mainland Chinese while the western San Gabriel Valley has a diverse Chinese population. Rowland Heights and the Eastern San Gabriel Valley is mainly populated by Taiwanese. In Orange County, Irvine has a large Chinese population.

San Diego has Chinese communities in Torrey Pines and Ranchos Penasquitos, and there are sizeable numbers in other County cities such as Carlsbad and Poway.

Filipino
The majority of Filipinos in California reside in the Greater Los Angeles area. According to a 2013 study, there are 1.5 million Filipino Americans in California, making them one of the largest Asian ethnic groups in the state. Since 2018 the population has grown to 1.6 million according to some sources.

Hmong
As of the 2010 census, a little over 91,000 Hmong live in California alone, out of the total 260,000 in the country. They mainly live in Fresno, Merced, Sacramento, and Stockton areas.

Indian
Little India, Artesia, California

California has the most Indian Americans in terms of sheer number, but percentage-wise, the U.S. state with the highest number of Indian Americans is New Jersey, and the U.S. city as well as metropolitan area with the highest absolute number of Indians is New York City. California is about 1.3% Indian, with many living in Orange County and Santa Clara County. Many live in Yuba City, about 15% Indian, which has a significant Sikh community.

Indonesian
Los Angeles, California is home to the largest population of Indonesians in America, with Riverside, California having the second largest population.

Japanese
California contains five of the top 10 metropolitan cities with the greatest Japanese population in the United States. Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, San Diego, and Sacramento have the largest Japanese populations in California, with Los Angeles having more than the other cities combined. There are several areas of California that held assembly centers and internment camps (also known as relocation centers) where Japanese Americans were forced to relocate to after the Attack on Pearl Harbor, such as Arcadia(Santa Anita Racetrack), Fresno(Fresno Fairgrounds), Arboga, Merced, Owens Valley(Manzanar War Relocation Center), Pinedale(Pinedale, California), Pomona(Fairplex), Sacramento(Camp Kohler), Salinas(California Rodeo Salinas), San Bruno(Tanforan), Stockton, California(San Joaquin County Fairgrounds), Tulare, Turlock(Stanislaus County Fairgrounds), and Woodland. The Tule Lake War Relocation Center in Modoc County was the biggest of the 10 internment camps in its prime.

Korean
Koreans make up 16% of the Asian Pacific Islander (API) community in Los Angeles County, the highest percentage in the entire country. In the API community of California, Koreans comprise 9% of the population, but only 1% of the total population.

There are many Koreans in Fullerton and Irvine in Orange County, and a significant community in Cupertino, Santa Clara and San Francisco.

Laotian
California is the top state in the country with the largest Laotian population, which as of 2015 is 271,000 across the country. Among the population of Laotians, Hmong people are counted as well. They are mostly in Northern and Central California, in Oakland, Richmond, Fresno, Sacramento and Stockton. There are some in Southeast San Diego.

Malaysian
Los Angeles is second to New York in terms of Malay population, however the combined population of Malay in Los Angeles and San Francisco is equal to New York.

Taiwanese
Los Angeles is home to the largest percentage of Taiwanese Americans in the country. There is a Little Taipei, and Hacienda Heights and Monterey Park both have large Taiwanese communities.

Thai
California possesses the largest Thai population outside of Asia, and is the only state in the country that has a designated "Thai Town," which is also the first of its kind globally.

Of the 5.6 million Asian people in California, approximately 68,000 are Thai, which is 28.5% of the entire Thai population in the United States.

Vietnamese
Totally (647,589, 1.7%) Vietnamese in California.

San Jose is 10% Vietnamese, and the San Francisco Bay Area has a sizable Vietnamese population. Other areas of Santa Clara County like Milpitas, and Alameda County’s Fremont is home to many. Chinatown, San Francisco and Tenderloin, San Francisco have communities.

Orange County has a large Vietnamese population, with much of the population in Garden Grove and Westminster, which contains a Little Saigon. There are also smaller but significant Vietnamese communities in Anaheim and Santa Ana in Orange County.

There is a Vietnamese population in San Diego County. Little Saigon, San Diego in City Heights has a Vietnamese community, and they can be found in Ranchos Penasquitos.

Notable people
This is a list of notable people of Asian descent who were either born, raised, or spent a significant amount of time in California.

Art & Design

 * David Choe
 * Gyo Obata

Fashion

 * Chanel Iman
 * Jen Kao
 * Derek Lam
 * Humberto Leon
 * Carol Lim
 * Peter Som
 * Alexander Wang

Business

 * Tony Hsieh
 * Johnny Kan
 * Vinod Khosla
 * Noel Lee
 * Eric Ly
 * Bobby Murphy
 * Shantanu Narayen
 * Sundar Pichai
 * Kevin Tsujihara
 * William Wang
 * Jerry Yang

Culinary

 * Roy Choi
 * Ming Tsai
 * Jennifer Yee

Acting & Filmmaking

 * Eric Byler
 * John Cho
 * Rosalind Chao
 * Jamie Chung
 * Justin Chon
 * Pat Morita
 * Brenda Song
 * Hailee Steinfeld
 * Rob Schneider
 * George Takei
 * Ashley Argota
 * Johnny Yong Bosch
 * Todd Haberkorn
 * Janice Kawaye
 * Dante Basco
 * Dion Basco
 * Karin Anna Cheung
 * Richard Chew
 * Margaret Cho
 * Justin Chon
 * Darren Criss
 * Jake Cuenca
 * Ivan Dorschner
 * Griffin Gluck
 * Mark-Paul Gosselaar
 * Rene Gube
 * Vanessa Anne Hudgens
 * David Henry Hwang
 * Dwayne Johnson
 * Rodney Kageyama
 * Michael Kang (director)
 * Tim Kang
 * Lance Krall
 * Jennie Kwan
 * Bobby Lee
 * Brandon Lee
 * Chris Chan Lee
 * Jason Scott Lee
 * Ki Hong Lee
 * Shannon Lee
 * Lee Tung Foo
 * Justin Lin
 * Julia Ling
 * Marie Matiko
 * Matthew Moy
 * Robert A. Nakamura
 * Minae Noji
 * Haing Ngor
 * Steve Nguyen
 * Eva Noblezada
 * Masi Oka
 * Yuji Okumoto
 * Lisa Onodera
 * Grace Park
 * Randall Park
 * Dat Phan
 * Lindsay Price
 * Ke Huy Quan
 * Navi Rawat
 * Ernie Reyes Jr.
 * Sab Shimono
 * Jack Soo
 * Pat Suzuki
 * Faran Tahir
 * Chris Tashima
 * Jennifer Tilly
 * Meg Tilly
 * Thuy Trang
 * Daya Vaidya
 * Lalaine
 * Kelly Vitz
 * Garrett Wang
 * BD Wong
 * Anna May Wong
 * Victor Wong
 * Daniel Wu
 * Jessica Yu
 * Kelvin Yu

Dance

 * Dana Tai Soon Burgess
 * Dominic Sandoval
 * Lawrence Kao
 * Jabbawockeez
 * Poreotics
 * We Are Heroes

Music

 * Conan Gray
 * Hayley Kiyoko
 * Steve Aoki
 * Traphik
 * Dumbfoundead
 * Jocelyn Enriquez
 * Nichkhun Horvejkul
 * Joshua Hong- member of the K-pop group Seventeen
 * Tiffany Hwang
 * Jessica Jung
 * Krystal
 * Nicole Jung
 * Eli Kim
 * Kevin Woo
 * Mark Tuan- member of the K-pop group Got7
 * Amber Liu
 * Lena Park
 * Kero One
 * Dan the Automator
 * Tony Kanal
 * Mike Park
 * Simon Tam
 * Apl.de.ap
 * DJ Qbert
 * Mike Relm
 * Shing02
 * Mike Shinoda
 * Joseph Hahn
 * Tyga
 * Vienna Teng
 * Alex Van Halen
 * Eddie Van Halen
 * Vanness Wu
 * Nicky Lee (singer)
 * Far East Movement
 * IAMMEDIC
 * KeyKool
 * DJ Rhettmatic
 * H.E.R.
 * Saweetie
 * Jhené Aiko
 * Olivia Rodrigo

Television

 * Christine Ha
 * Tammy Jih
 * Poreotics
 * Quest Crew
 * Jessica Sanchez
 * Jeannie Mai Jenkins

Law

 * Morgan Chu
 * Viet D. Dinh
 * Heather Fong
 * Lance Ito
 * Fred Korematsu
 * Dale Minami
 * Debra Wong Yang
 * John F. Aiso
 * Tani Cantil-Sakauye
 * Edward M. Chen
 * Vince Chhabria

Literature

 * Nellie Wong
 * Shawn Wong
 * Jade Snow Wong
 * Judy Yung
 * Laurence Yep
 * Charles Yu
 * Lisa Yee
 * Gene Luen Yang
 * Wakako Yamauchi
 * Karen Tei Yamashita
 * Hisaye Yamamoto
 * Merle Woo
 * Yoshiko Uchida
 * Gail Tsukiyama
 * Truong Tran
 * Timothy Tau
 * Amy Tan
 * Craig Santos Perez
 * Viet Thanh Nguyen
 * Fae Myenne Ng
 * An Na
 * Toshio Mori
 * Sally Wen Mao
 * Aimee Phan
 * Nina Revoyr
 * Barbara Jane Reyes
 * Shawna Yang Ryan
 * Albert Saijo
 * Yumi Sakugawa
 * Lisa See
 * Brenda Shaughnessy
 * Him Mark Lai
 * Alexandra Kleeman
 * Katie Kitamura
 * Maxine Hong Kingston
 * Ronyoung Kim
 * Porochista Khakpour
 * Hiroshi Kashiwagi
 * Soji Kashiwagi
 * Le Thi Diem Thuy
 * Gus Lee
 * Helie Lee
 * Krys Lee
 * Joseph O. Legaspi
 * Russell Leong
 * Sandra Lim
 * Timothy Liu
 * Jessica Hagedorn
 * Vince Gotera
 * Philip Kan Gotanda
 * Prince Gomolvilas
 * Eugene Gloria
 * Tess Gerritsen
 * Jamie Ford
 * Ben Fee
 * Khaled Hosseini
 * Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston
 * David Henry Hwang
 * Ai
 * Noel Alumit
 * Rick Barot
 * Steph Cha
 * Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
 * Daniyal Mueenuddin
 * Do Nguyen Mai
 * Margaret Dilloway
 * Frank Chin
 * Cathy Linh Che
 * Melissa de la Cruz
 * Han Ong
 * Whilce Portacio

Military

 * Dan Choi
 * Susan Ahn Cuddy
 * Rudolph Davila
 * Joe Hayashi
 * Young-Oak Kim
 * Kurt Lee
 * Eleanor Mariano
 * Susan K. Mashiko
 * Roy Matsumoto
 * Sadao Munemori
 * Kiyoshi K. Muranaga
 * Joe M. Nishimoto
 * Kazuo Otani
 * Eldon Regua
 * George T. Sakato
 * Ted T. Tanouye
 * John C. Young

News, Media, & Journalism

 * Christine Chen
 * Lanhee Chen
 * Veronica De La Cruz
 * Lisa Ling
 * Richard Lui
 * Kent Ninomiya
 * Iva Toguri D'Aquino
 * Ben Fong-Torres
 * Michael Yamashita

Politics

 * Larry Asera
 * Lisa Bartlett
 * Thelma Buchholdt
 * David S. Chang
 * Ling Ling Chang
 * Tyler Diep
 * Charles Djou
 * Andrew Do
 * Matt Fong
 * Sam Hayakawa
 * Kamala Harris
 * Mike Honda
 * Jay Kim
 * Young Kim
 * Doris Matsui
 * Norman Mineta
 * Janet Nguyen
 * Sean Reyes
 * Harry Sidhu
 * Michelle Steel
 * Mark Takano
 * Nao Takasugi
 * Van Tran
 * Leana Wen

Activism

 * Larry Itliong

Religion

 * Randolph Roque Calvo
 * Francis Chan

Science

 * Michio Kaku
 * Leroy Chiao

Sports

 * Bobby Balcena
 * Tedy Bruschi
 * Brandon Chillar
 * Tiffany Chin
 * Amy Chow
 * Patrick Chung
 * Natalie Coughlin
 * Kris Dim
 * Victoria Manalo Draves
 * Tommy Edman
 * Ariel Hsing
 * Haley Ishimatsu
 * Anthony Kim
 * Chloe Kim
 * Tommy Kono
 * Michelle Kwan
 * Kyle Larson
 * Cung Le
 * Sammy Lee
 * Jeremy Lin
 * Alexander Massialas
 * Mirai Nagasu
 * Dave Roberts
 * Kyla Ross
 * Eric Sato
 * Liane Sato
 * Kevin Tan
 * Tiger Woods
 * Kristi Yamaguchi
 * Tabitha Yim
 * Al Young
 * Caroline Zhang