Having doubled their population in the last decade, Indian Americans have emerged

Having doubled their population in the last decade, Indian Americans have emerged as a powerful political group in the United States that the Republican and Democratic parties cannot ignore in a presidential election year.
According to the 2010 census, more than 1,154,000 Indian Americans are eligible to vote as against 576,000 in 2000, said a report released by two American NGOs — South Asian Americans Leading Together and the Asian American Federation.

Between 2000 and 2010, the South Asian American population became the fastest growing major ethnic group in the United States and has emerged in new areas of the country, the report said, adding that overall, South Asians of voting age increased between 100 percent to 414 percent, the report said.

Indians comprise the largest segment of the South Asian community, making up over 80 percent of the total population, followed by Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans, Nepalis, and Bhutanese.

It is estimated that at least 66,000 Indo-Caribbeans live in the United States. The population of Indian Americans (single ethnicity) has increased by 69 percent from 1,678,000 in 2000 to 2,843,000 in 2010.

During the same period, the population of Indian Americans (single and multiple ethnicities) increased from 1,899,000 to 3,183,000.

According to the report, the population of eligible Pakistani-American voters increased from 52,755 to 161,000 (an increase of 205 percent).

“With the 2012 elections underway, there has been an increase in the number of South Asians of voting age in the United States since 2000,” according to the report by SAALT and AAF, which said it based its statistics on figures from the 2010 population.

According to SAALT and AAF, the 2010 census figures reveal that there are over 3.4 million South Asians living in the United States.

Comparing only the four South Asian groups for which there is census data from both 2000 and 2010 (Bangladeshi, Indian, Pakistani, and Sri Lankan), the South Asian community as a whole grew 78 percent over the past decade, the report said.

While Indians and Pakistanis are the third and seventh largest Asian American ethnic groups, respectively, Bangladeshis, Nepalis, Sri Lankans, and Bhutanese each rank among the top 20 Asian American ethnic groups.

According to the report, the five states with the largest South Asian populations are California, New York, New Jersey, Texas and Illinois.

Beyond the areas that historically have large South Asian populations, the community has experienced the greatest growth outside of these “traditional” metropolitan areas, the report said.

The South Asian population grew the most in Charlotte, North Carolina, increasing 187 percent over the past ten years.

This was followed by Phoenix, Arizona; Richmond, Virginia; Raleigh, North Carolina; San Antonio, Texas; Seattle, Washington; Stockton, California; Jacksonville, Florida; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; and Las Vegas, Nevada.

Among the ten fastest growing South Asian metropolitan areas, only the Seattle and Phoenix metropolitan areas had more than 30,000 South Asians in 2010, while the smallest of the top ten fastest growing metropolitan areas was the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area with close to 6,500 South Asians.

The remaining metropolitan areas had between 10,000 and 25,000 South Asians, the report said. —With PTI reports.