Education, jobs draw influx of Asians to region
By: David Sherfinski
Examiner Staff Writer
October 1, 2009
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| (Andrew Harnik) |
Asians are flocking to the Washington area, drawn by the region's strongeducational and economic opportunities.
And with strong academic success, high household incomes and low poverty rates, the area's Asian-American and Asian immigrant populations are contributing to the strength of the Washington region.
The major draw is the quality school systems, which are ranked among the best in the country, said Cora Foley, who is co-organizing the Fairfax County Asian American History project.
"That is the major magnet," she said.
Asians are "especially concerned about the future of their children," said Alan Kraut, professor of immigration history at American University.
Indeed, after leaving the U.S. Foreign Service, Foley and her husband, Michael, decided to settle in Springfieldbecause of Fairfax County's outstanding public school system.
Asian students this year for the first time took more than half of the coveted spots at Fairfax's Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, the Washington region's top public high school.
And Asian students in Montgomery County had a 95 percent graduation rate last year, the highest in the county.
"My mom would say to me, 'All we have is [our] education,' " Vy Nguyen, the Vietnamese-American team leader for the Fairfax history project, said in an interview posted on its Web site. "'People here aren't going to respect you -- especially because we're Vietnamese. So make them respect you. Learn. Because education will get you anywhere.' That's what my parents taught me."
The desire to live in Washington is so strong that Asians -- 392,471 of them in a recent census survey of foreign-born populations -- are approaching Hispanics as the region's largest immigrant group.
They now make up more than half of the foreign-born population in Fairfax and Loudoun counties, and 37 percent in Montgomery County, according to recent census data. Nationally, Asians, who have been coming to the U.S. in large numbers since the 1970s,constituted 27.3 percent of the foreign-born population.
"A lot of the new immigrants know how to speak English and have advanced degrees," said Preston Rico of Rockville, presidentof the Asian American Parents'Advisory Council in Montgomery County.
Rico, who moved to the U.S. from the Philippines when he was 11, said his parents came to escape a dictatorship, butthatAsian immigrants now are coming for economic and educational reasons.
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Sharon Bulova said Montgomery and Fairfax countiesare attractive -- for multiple reasons.
"We both are known for our economic development and for being business-friendly," she said. "We would be attractive to your Asian-American community because that is a strong ethic of theirs -- to achieve and to be entrepreneurial."
Asians earned a median household income of $91,841 in the Washington-Alexandria-Arlington region, higher than the $85,824 by the general population, according to recent census data. The poverty rate of Asian families was 4.3 percent, compared with 4.8 percent overall.
In Montgomery County, Asians' median household income of more than $101,000 topped the county's median of $94,000, census data shows.
In Fairfax County, Korean-Americans are the largest and fastest-growing segment of the Asian population. They own nearly 50 companies there, including biotech and information technology companies, as well as restaurants, stores and dry cleaning shops.
But for Foley, whose family migrated from the Philippines in the '70s, her attachment to the area goes beyond education and the economy.
"A lot of Asian-Americans feel welcome here, in large part," said Foley, who retired from the State Department two years ago. "The community is very positive in the acceptance of our heritage and culture.
"They consider Fairfax to be home," she added. "I do."
Violet Ikonomova contributed to this report.
