Data

Although Northfield is less racially diverse than the coastal cities in the United States, there is a significant population of Asian Americans, and the number has been increasing throughout the recent years. Bolstered by the influx of Vietnamese refugees between 1975 and 1999, the population of Asian American in Northfield has grown to 3.5%.  Today, people of various Asian descents, such as Asian-Indian, Chinese, Hmong, Japanese, Laotian, Malaysian, Thai, Vietnamese, and many others, call this town home. Nevertheless, this number does not take into account the international students who attend both St. Olaf College and Carleton College.

Overall Minnesota has a growing Asian population that includes a wide range of ethnic backgrounds. Similar to most regions in the United States, Minnesota’s early Asian Pacific population were predominately Chinese, Japanese, and Filipinos (Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans, 2012). The earliest documentation of Asians in Minnesota was in 1880 when two Chinese men established the Chinese Laundry in St. Paul and the Lung Wing Laundry in Minneapolis (Holmquist, 1981). Of course, there were foreign students who came here for higher education, beginning more than a century ago. For instance, the first group of Chinese students attended the University of Minnesota  in 1914 (China 100, 2014). Asian population can be seen in almost every corner in the state nowadays. Below we present the top ten counties with the largest Asian American population based on the most current census data.

* Excluding Taiwanese

Not only is there a present and significant Asian American population in Minnesota, but the state has also seen its substantial and continuous growth. According to the 2010 US Census, Asians in Minnesota have increased 52.5% and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders grew 5.8% since 2000. The overall Minnesotan Asian population, moreover, marks several major differences from the national make-up. For example, more than half (50.2%) of the Asian population here identifies as Southeast Asian; the national percentile is only 20.7%. Meanwhile, the Hmong population is the largest Asian population in Minnesota at 66,181 or 27% of all Asian Pacific Minnesotans. A summary of the census information is provided below.

References

Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans, State of the Asian Pacific Minnesotans: 2010 Census and 2008-2010 American Community Survey Report (April 2012).

June Drenning Holmquist, They Chose Minnesota: A Survey of the State’s Ethnic Groups (St Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1981).

University of Minnesota, China 100 (2014).