Asian Population Now Dominant Group in Santa Clara County, U.S. Census Reports

New U.S. Census Bureau data released today show that the percentage of white residents — in both Santa Clara County, in California and across the U.S.— declined for the first time in history.

The numbers released by the Census Bureau today also revealed continuing increases in the population of U.S. metro areas compared to a decade ago, as the bureau also released detailed databases of the 2020 numbers so governments across the country can begin redistricting efforts.

The numbers— the basis of new boundaries for local, state and federal electoral districts beginning in 2022— arrived several months behind schedule, and will be published in easier-to-understand versions Sept. 30.

In Santa Clara County, people who identify as Asian are now the largest racial group or ethnic group for the first time, representing 38.9% of the county’s 2020 population of 1,936,239, according to census numbers released today. The county’s Asian population grew by more than one-third, by nearly 190,000, over the 2010 census numbers.

Santa Clara County’s Hispanic or Latino population grew, but at a slower pace, by just over 8,000 people, in the last decade. This group represents 25.2% of the 2020 population count for the county.

The 2020 Census reported about 71,000 additional white residents over 2010, while the county proportion of the population of this group fell to 28.7%.

The new U.S. Census data released on Thursday also showed significant increases nationally among people who identify as multi-racial, with Hispanic and Asian populations driving much of the nation's population growth between 2010 and 2020.

Santa Clara County was one of the fastest growing counties in California in the past decade, growing to 1,936,259, an 8.7% increase, the fifth-fastest-growing among the state’s top 10 counties in population.

The fastest-growing counties were Trinity, with just 16,000 people, at 16.9%, followed by Placer and nearby San Benito, at 16.2% growth over the last decade.

The census also today reported that Santa Clara County had the third highest percentage of growth in housing units in the state, adding more than 56,000 units.

The most populous county in the United States in 2020 remained Los Angeles County with over 10 million people. New York City remained the largest city in the U.S. in 2020 with 8.8 million people. The new data showed that 312 of the 384 U.S. metro areas gained population between 2010 and 2020.

While the white population remained the largest race or ethnicity group in the United States, with 204.3 million people identifying as white alone, as a proportion of the entire U.S. population, it decreased 8.6% over 2010.

The Hispanic or Latino population, which includes people of any race, was 62.1 million in 2020. The Hispanic or Latino population in California grew about 11% to become the largest ethnic or racial group in the state, while nationally the Hispanic population grew 23%.

“We are excited to reach this milestone of delivering the first detailed statistics from the 2020 Census,” said acting Census Bureau Director Ron Jarmin at a televised mid-day press conference.

The new numbers represent where people were living as of April 1, 2020, and will be available for the nation, states and communities down to the block level.

The Census Bureau also released data visualizations, America Counts stories, and videos to help illustrate and explain these data. These resources are available on the 2020 Census results page. Advanced users can access these data on the FTP site.

Today’s release also reveals changes in the size and distribution of the population across the U.S.

The population of U.S. metro areas grew by 9% from 2010 to 2020, resulting in 86% of the population living in U.S. metro areas in 2020, compared to 85% in 2010.

“Many counties within metro areas saw growth, especially those in the south and west. However, as we’ve been seeing in our annual population estimates, our nation is growing slower than it used to,” said Marc Perry, a senior demographer at the Census Bureau. “This decline is evident at the local level where around 52% of the counties in the United States saw their 2020 Census populations decrease from their 2010 Census populations.”

The 2020 census reveals that the U.S. population is much more multiracial and more diverse than what has been measured in the past, census officials said.

The percentage of the national population identifying as white dropped to 57.8% over the last decade, compared to 63.7% in 2010. During the same period, the Hispanic percentage grew to 18.7%, and Blacks held steady nationally at 12.1%.

“We are confident that differences in the overall racial distributions are largely due to improvements in the design of the two separate questions for race data collection and processing, as well as some demographic changes over the past 10 years,” said Perry in a statement..

Nicholas Jones, director and senior advisor for race and ethnicity research and outreach at the Census Bureau, added: “Today’s release of 2020 Census redistricting data provides a new snapshot of the racial and ethnic composition and diversity of the country. The improvements we made to the 2020 Census yield a more accurate portrait of how people self-identify in response to two separate questions on Hispanic origin and race, revealing that the U.S. population is much more multiracial and more diverse than what we measured in the past.”

 

Three decades of journalism experience, as a writer and editor with Gannett, Knight-Ridder and Lee newspapers, as a business journal editor and publisher and as a weekly newspaper editor in Scotts Valley and Gilroy; with the Weeklys group since 2017. Recipient of several first-place writing and editing awards, California News Publishers Association.

31 Comments

  1. HB

    the exodus of run of the mill whhh Ite eez in CA is more correlated to increasing rents than decreasing

  2. Well, the important thing is that we’ve become a color blind society.
    At last we’ve fulfilled Martin Luther King’s dream and no longer judge people by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
    Fortunately we have the Census Bureau to inform us which skin colors have the best character content.

  3. Anyone who knows anything about the meaning of race–especially the category “White”–knows that it means almost nothing. It is, therefore, all the more revealing that the race-fragile and sociopathic libertarian (NOT HIM/HBO/Galt) reacts so strenuously to the mere mention of “White.” It sounds like an extreme case of White resentment, the fuel of modern “White” identity politics since the days of Barry Goldwater (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_backlash).

    Anyway, for serious and honest readers, “whiteness” has been a subject of long-term and ongoing disputation at many levels. Just consider the fact that immigrant Finns, Irish, Southern Italians, Armenians, Arabs, Indians, Iranians and others were not considered “White” until conflicts over these questions were brought to court, especially in the period after 1875. The original Naturalization Act of 1790 stated that eligibility for citizenship in the U.S. as being limited to “any alien, being a free white person who shall have resided within the limits . . . of the United States for a term of two years.” But who qualified as “White” mutated over time. Each of the above ethnic groups raised arguments in court to prove their “whiteness” and, therefore, their eligibility for citizenship, oftentimes by arguing that they are Caucasians or Aryans (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_whiteness_in_the_United_States; https://ajammc.com/2017/08/29/armenian-whiteness-america/).

    One of the most amusing cases was that of one George Shishim, an immigrant from Syria, who in 1909, argued in a Los Angeles County court that: “If I am Mongolian, then so was Jesus, because we came from the same land.” (“Mongolian” or “Mongoloid” were official designations for Semitic peoples of Asia including Jews.) (See http://copticvoiceus.com/why-are-middle-easterners-classified-as-caucasian/; https://lebanesestudies.news.chass.ncsu.edu/2014/11/20/how-the-lebanese-became-white/.) In other words, at least one Arab immigrant challenged the “White” perception of Christ himself: was Christ “White” like us, or not?

    In the case of Mexicans in the U.S. and Mexican immigrants, the census and government authorities treated them as “White” between 1850-1920. Unlike Black-Americans and Chinese-Americans, Mexican-Americans could legally marry non-Hispanic “Whites.” During 1929-1939, due to racist and anti-immigrant movements, as many as 2 million Mexican-Americans and Mexicans were “repatriated” to Mexico, almost half of whom held U.S. passports, only to be redefined as “White” in the 1940s and 1950s. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Repatriation).

    This is a long way of saying that “White”–unlike an ethnic affiliation–has no meaning beyond whatever socially-constructed meaning the Census Bureau, the government, other institutions and the population at large give it.

  4. “This is a long way of saying that “White”–unlike an ethnic affiliation–has no meaning beyond whatever socially-constructed meaning the Census Bureau, the government, other institutions and the population at large give it.” — Econoclast

    At a time when people of color, especially Blacks, are condemning the white “race” (as well as individuals who’ve been officially classified as white their entire lives), and government entities are blatantly discriminating against them, it’s difficult to take serious Econoclast’s little semantic dance around the validity of the “white race.”

    The truth is it doesn’t matter if your roots are in Syria, Armenia, Southern Italy, Finland, Ireland, or Arabia, if you live in America today you will be as quickly condemned as a slave holder, person of privilege, or racist as will anyone with roots in Europe (except race-peddling Mexican-Americans who, despite having roots in Spain, are treated by other racists as non-Europeans).

    Econoclast is right that there is a lot of gray area to racial identity, but one race-related thing remains perfectly black and white: ignorance.

  5. “It is, therefore, all the more revealing that the race-fragile and sociopathic libertarian (NOT HIM/HBO/Galt) reacts so strenuously to the mere mention of “White.”

    You constantly do this and it is a joke.

    1) my wife is Asian which means my sons are more Asian than “white”, and frankly if I cared about a race it would be the race of my kids
    2) second I have pointed out that I am Irish and Ukrainian – resulting in me being Catholic, so if anything my ancestors have been absolutely brutalized mostly by “whites”, a bit by Muslims, and America by and large has not been kind
    3) and all that means absolutely nothing, all that matters is today and what I’m going to do tomorrow

    The points I continually make is that you have to live in this time for better or worse, you have to look at the hand your dealt right now and play it. Crying about 100+ year old treaties, crying redlining when it ended 70 years ago and wasn’t really a issue for blacks or latinos in San Jose, but a very real issue for “Orientals” and “Italians”, crying about wealth inequalities at the same time you fight for open space, UGBs and rent control, are all a waste of time, not relevant to improving your situation, or will somehow bridge anything. Even if this “movement” somehow ended in reparations, if you have no sense of money, a couple hundred grand will mean nothing in a decade – it’ll be gone.

    All we hear on this rag is white, white, white and in a way that make race agitators and activists feel good – like a nice bowl of ossobuco, but is just a theft of their agency. The problems that face people in the bay area are by and large not identity based, and it is CERTAINLY not “white supremacy”, it’s one class of people (latino politicians, Asians business people, and progressive whites who run this place) extracting massive economic blood from poor people and distracting them from that reality by fomenting race hate. The problem with housing is not redlining, it’s development constraints, the problem with pay is not minimum wage, its a massive oversupply of low skilled labor and a TERRIBLE public education system you and your ilk subject poor people to.

    What is funny is the consistent obsession by so many of the bay area elite and their appointees that bring out race as some sort of boogieman, when it is barely an issue in this place at this time. Even if you think blacks have gotten the shaft, which they have, if you give the 2% that live in San Jose a home and board, NOTHING will be any different in a substantial way – houses will still be 2M+, rent will still be outrageous, and pay will still suck.

    It’s not race fragility or race guilt or anything else, it’s pointing out you are lying to these people by convincing them they have no agency in solving their problems because white supremacy is some invincible force, which I can tell you as fact it is not only “vincible” it is basically invisible.

  6. Another reason to RECALL White WASP Elitists like Gavin Newsom – even the “ALL CAPS” Clown agrees.
    “Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce, called on Gavin Newsom to declare a “State of Emergency” on the Oakland crime wave, after a series of assaults and robberies in Chinatown.”
    We all know those “WASP Citizens” of OAKLAND are causing a Crime Wave in the Asian Community.

    “Newsom has also championed “Criminal Justice Reform” measures (MTing Prisons & ZERO$ Bail) that, ..are fueling a statewide crime wave, accompanied by Left-Wing’ efforts to Criticize Police as racist, and to “defund the police” in major cities.”

  7. I think a lot of Caucasians are moving out. We’re tired of being blamed for the problems of other races. We’re tired of being taxed to supplement their incomes. Maybe after we’re gonna the Asians will get the blame.

  8. There’s no justification for collecting all this racial demographic data other than to rationalize racist and discriminatory government programs. Just stop.
    I politely explained to the HUD census guy that came to ask questions that I wouldn’t participate because I know that whatever data they collect they’ll somehow see in the numbers exactly what they want to see. I won’t be a party to such a charade.

  9. Wow.. the “ALL CAPS” Clown has so much Free Time on his hands – no job?, no friends?, no family? no yard-work? no exercise regime?.. Or may just needs to alleviate his insecurities.. Some supremely insecure people actually secretly believe that they are better than anyone else.

    Amusing how these behaviors compare …The 5 Behaviors of a “Know-It-All”..

    1. ARGUMENTATIVE: If someone is constantly trying to argue, there’s a high chance that this person is a know-it-all. They always want to make sure that THEIR OPINION is the Last One Heard on every subject..

    2. CONDESCENDING: Usually, a know-it-all is so sure of their own knowledge that they tend to be condescending to the people around them. After all, THEY PERCEIVE Everyone else as Lacking in Knowledge .. BUT they’re NOT as Smart as they Want to Believe.

    3. “WELL, ACTUALLY…”: HE HAS TO interject in order to correct something you’ve said. “Well, actually…” is a favorite phrase of a know-it-all. A know-it-all DERIVES JOY from being seen as the Most Educated, the Most Well-Rounded, and the Most Intelligent. A know-it-all will take every opportunity they can to correct someone on even the slightest indiscretion.

    4. SHIFTING GOAL POSTS: the KNOW-IT-ALL type of person often have something closer to the “ILLUSION of KNOWLEDGE.” They aren’t aware that they don’t know something, which Makes them Think That They KNOW … well … Everything.
    So, when caught in being wrong, a know-it-all will often shift the goalposts of their argument.

    5. INFLATED EGO: Of course, since a know-it-all is walking around with the “ILLUSION of KNOWLEDGE.”, they have NO IDEA about all the things they don’t really know. Thinking they know everything gives them an INFLATED SENSE of SELF-IMPORTANCE. In fact,
    Their EGO IS HUGE.
    This quickly grows obvious when you start talking to them. A know-it-all may spend a majority of the time talking about himself (or herself) and personal accomplishments.

  10. JohnG,
    Exactly what I was thinking but it was yours to respond to the SJI know-it-all… the Bi-ennial American Housing Survey (AHS).
    The AHS is sponsored by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau.
    The survey is the most comprehensive national housing survey in the United States.
    The 2021 AHS data collection period is expected to start in May, 2021 and end in September, 2021.
    And NO, replies or participation is not required by Law or the U.S. Constitution.

  11. can there be a more idiotic comment in an article about Asians dominating Santa Clara County (one of the most valuable pieces of RE on the planet) population than the whha-ite leadership in America somehow screwed America up… Please

    Good for these Asians making it so big here in one or two generations, obviously some of the best and brightest left their country to come here. that is, they abandoned a place run by bold, brave, diverse leaders to one run by raccisss wha-iiteez with the ubiquitous white supremacy oozing through the pores of the county. they not only let them come, but invited them to come and enriched said non- wha-ite-z with untold wealth and power

    idiot

  12. Robert Cortese: I sincerely hope all the “Whites” move out and that all the Mexicans, Germans, Irish, Italians, Portuguese, French, Native Americans, Polish, Salvadorans, Ukrainians, Russians, Greeks, Jews, Arabs, Iranians, Indians, Pakistanis, Finns, Guatemalans, Dutch, Koreans, Scots, Afghans, English, Spaniards, Chinese, Nicaraguans, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Venezuelans, Laotians Tongans, Thais and Cubans all stay around for a long, long time.

    Remember, “White” is not a melanin deficiency–it is a state of mind and a product and legacy of settler colonialism and the legal and extra-legal norms and practices developed here. Hopefully, the U.S. will get over and beyond “White” and grow into a mature country. You know, like Canada and New Zealand.

  13. FG,
    Yeah. Hopefully the U.S. WILL get over and beyond “White”. I’m ready. I’d guess most of the other commenters are too.
    But as long as the Census continues to insist that we select a race by which to define ourselves then many of us will check the “white” box. Sorry about that.

    It’s too bad ’cause it doesn’t need to be this way. But race mongering is a trillion dollar industry in this country and the majority party has too much at stake to risk allowing racial differences to become unimportant.
    So don’t worry. The Democrats are diligently seeing to it that you’ll have the “state of mind” race to blame for many years to come. No need to take any responsibility for your own problems. Relax.

  14. Santa Clara County survey data collection and recording is systemically discriminatory against the Latino population. I have served as Santa Clara County MHSA SLC member for two years. During my term (3 years), what I have observed is the most outrageous discriminatory data collection and reporting in surveys. The most two obvious examples are data collection of Latino and “Asian” populations. For example, SCC data collection includes South Asians (Indian) and East Asians under the same race Asian Umbrella. These two groups are not even the same ethnic group, cultural background or descent. How could they then be a race? Other people from Africa and other places are added into the same umbrella group on the basis of Asia geographical area, no shared culture beliefs, ancestry, or biological or social history. At the same time, I .Latina woman, am forced to chose other on SCC surveys because my race is not there. If we are assigning a race to a group of people based on geographical region, then Latinos are a race too, the American Continent. In fact, most Latinos share Spanish and Indigenous ancestry. This include the the Boricuas, Puerto Rico, to the Cariocas, in Brazil, Mayas in south Mexico to Guatemala…We are a race. In addition, as ethnic group, we shared a macro culture with most important components being the Spanish language, music, art, and food. Most Latinos are Christians. Most Christians live in Brasil and Mexico. In the most recent MHSA finance data, Latinos were the largest group receiving MH services in the county followed by Whites. This is because these are the two largest groups in the County not the flawed umbrella of Asians. What is the percentage of Indians and South Asians living in the county? Answering this question is a first step to fix this flawed data collection and reporting on race. The fact that Santa Clara County systemically includes all “Asians” under the same umbrella but forces Latinos to choose “Other” for a race is systemically discriminatory. The fact that most Behavioral Health and other county’s offices and departments’ managers are White, East Asians, or Indians speak to the volume of harm resulting from this outrageous County’s discriminatory practice of inclusion and exclusion. Then supervisors were unable to understand why Latinos were contracting and dying from COVID. Reporting larger Asian population includes more funding for Asian projects and services. It also means that local Indian Politicians report a largest caucus which it does not exist. In Santa Clara County and in California the two largest populations are Whites and Latinos, citizens, documented, and undocumented. It is time to right this up. This should be a discriminatory law suit against Santa Clara County for systemically including some residents under the same umbrella of race while excluding other residents by not including their race in surveys to collect data on race. Ana G Villarreal/ MHSA SLC, Faith Based Pro-Life Christian Feminist

  15. Strange, I am white and have been a resident of SCC for decades and never heard from this census or the last Census! Soooo, how did they count my family?

    I am not screaming racism, but I would be on the side of “the government is totally corrupt and incompetent.”

  16. Christian Feminist, fantastic – Bless You.

    however,

    We are all God’s children, race distinguishes tempt us to hate

  17. Agree with Not Him. However, I am publicly reporting a specific discriminatory practice in data collection and reporting that has left Latinos, not the rest of God’s children, out in the data collection and reporting process. Their race not in SCC surveys.

  18. They left out my race too, Celtic.

    What difference does it make?

    Feed the hungry, house the homeless – race doesn’t matter.

    Our bodies are just dust in the wind in the end and your soul knows no race.

    Do what you can with what you have for those you can.

  19. Not Him, the difference here is that I am reporting incidents I experienced, I witnessed, and I have documentation to show. Now that I hear your race was out too, I will report this as well. Ethnicity and race are important in governmental data and reporting related to state funding. Many mental health and addiction programs in Santa Clara County are funded with MHSA funding. For this, it is important that all Santa Clara County residents’ ethnicity and race are counted in data reporting of used and unused services, who received those services and who didn’t. The data reported showed Latinos were the group that utilized MH services the most, followed by Whites, Blacks, Asians, and so on. From all these groups, the Latino group was the only group that could not choose their race because it was not on surveys. For this, the “other” race bar on graph matched the number of Latinos who utilized the service.

  20. Ms. Villarreal

    To continue the progression of housing the homeless and feeding the hungry, we should give heal the sick regardless of race and certainly mental health is part of that. Unfortunately for many immigrants coming from predominately Catholic heritages, those encouraging said immigration don’t tell them how specifically un-Catholic the United States really is and this lead to many mental health issues in my family in the 1930-1990s. The level of social engineering on Catholic parishes was brutal once the ruling power realized they had a political force on their hands. I am the only practicing Catholic left in my family, perhaps a few on the fringes of my extended family. The conflict between progressive values such as sexual liberation, deterioration of family values, and pervasive spread of secularism to every corner of our lives has a persistently corrosive effect on Faith and family and I saw that across both my mother and father’s side of the family.

    Many Catholic immigrants may see the United States as a faith-base country and their culture will be strong enough to resist the pressure to have children outside of marriage, commit abortion, engage in existing race and culture wars, behave overly promiscuous etc. I hope that newer Catholic’s culture is strong enough to resist it, but history is not kind.

    I also strongly believe obsession with race overemphasizes the object/subject trap in which the racially obsessed are cast as objects being acted on instead of subject acting on the world. That feeling of powerlessness leads to race hate, as I pointed out, and as far as I am concerned race hate is mental illness and if reinforced will lead to a downward spiral negatively affecting those racial obsessed, with no ill effects to those they hate. CBT aims to de-catastrophize this object identification and this persecution fantasy, while this racial obsession will only hamper progress and actually make it worse.

    I will continue to select none of the above when selecting race, thanks, no need to make a complaint on my behalf.

  21. Mr. not him, do not change subject. I am specifically talking to general demographic information all of us have to answer when we receive public health services. I am not talking about homeless but about the demographic information of a particular group not being added in surveys of public services. This is the County systemically excluding a group from stating their race while at the same time including different groups within the same umbrella of race. The systemically inclusion and exclusion of residents’ race in Santa Clara County Mental Health services data collection and reporting is a discriminatory practice.

  22. Not Him, the point here is that I am talking about apples and you about oranges or the other way. You have focused on race being important or not. This is a topic of discussion. However, I am talking about general demographic data collected during mental health and addictions services being funded by SCC MHSA Funding. A percentage of the state MHSA funding is given to the county by the state based on needs of SCC residents for services. The demographics are: Name, DOB, gender (male or female), sexual orientation, ethnicity, race…under the race, there are different options, not one for Latinos. How can the county or others conclude that x group is the largest race in county if the data collection and reporting are flawed? Once again, you have focused and directed the conversation to the importance of race. I am talking about the validity and reliability of reports based on flawed data collection which excludes sand minimizes some residents while including and maximizing other residents.

  23. Race is a false idol.

    It leads to the temptation to hate, no matter how you look at it or however Caesar sells it to you.

    This is just one of the meanings behind the New Covenant.

    Love your neighbor as you love God.

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