LAS VEGAS — Dozens of workers line up for a buffet catered by Satay Malaysian Grille, a popular Chinatown eatery here. They carry plates piled high with Asian delicacies to nine rows of long tables facing a dais. By the time the employees savor mango-sticky-rice treats, their luncheon speakers are introduced: a local TV reporter, a former school administrator, a bank founder, a magazine publisher, a chamber of commerce executive, a local politician.
Only one is Anglo. The rest: Chinese, Japanese, Thai — all Asian Americans.
This event isn't in Las Vegas' Chinatown district but in a meeting room at one of the pillars of the local business establishment: Nevada Power. The lunch, held so the utility's workers could hear voices from the Asian-American community, is a reflection of the explosive growth and rising clout of Asian Americans in Nevada and other inland Western states. They've become a powerful voting bloc that's being wooed by presidential candidates — and an economic force that businesses are catering to.
This decade, the Asian population has grown at a faster rate than that of the Hispanic population in 14 states — including Nevada, Arizona and Texas — as well as Washington, D.C.
In a surprising twist to historical settlement patterns, growing numbers of Asian Americans are beginning to bail from the places that have long been their main gateways to the West: California and Washington. Wearied by the same crushing home prices, poor schools, jammed freeways and persistent crime that have sent millions of other Californians packing, Asian Americans are moving to spots in the West they hope will produce better lifestyles — namely Las Vegas and Phoenix.
The Asian migration is fueling ethnic diversity in places that have been overwhelmingly white. Since 1990, Nevada has had the most rapid growth of any state in the number of Asians and Pacific Islanders. The number jumped 174% in the 1990s and 67% so far this decade to about 211,000, according to 2007 Census Bureau estimates. Asians now make up about 8.2% of Nevada's 2.6 million people — a higher percentage than the national share of 5.4%. Most live here in Clark County, where Asians are the fastest-growing minority.
Arizona also is registering significant growth among Asians, a trend fueled largely by an exodus from California and Washington. They're leaving for lower cost of living, warm climates and better job markets, a reflection of the migration patterns that have made Nevada and Arizona the nation's fastest-growing states throughout much of the past two decades.
Asians are doing what middle-class whites have been doing for decades: moving to more affordable parts of the West, says William Frey, demographer at the Brookings Institution. "California is losing Asians, and the main destinations are other states in the Mountain West," he says. His analysis of Census data shows that since 2001, 86,000 more Asians left California for the inland mountain states than vice versa. "It started with whites, followed by Hispanics, and Asians are now continuing that trend," Frey says. "It means a place like Las Vegas is becoming a microcosm of growing America."
Pauline Ng Lee, a Chinese-American bankruptcy lawyer, moved 10 years ago from Los Angeles' Hollywood Hills section to Summerlin, an upscale community on Las Vegas' west side. "We moved into a neighborhood where more than 60% of the residents were from California, either southern or northern," she says. "We came out for two reasons: My husband had a great opportunity … as a physician, and the cost of living was so much lower."
In the first quarter of this year, for example, the median sales price of existing single-family homes in the Las Vegas area was $247,600, compared with $459,400 in the Los Angeles area, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Ten years ago, Las Vegas' Chinatown was less than three blocks long. Today, it stretches almost 4 miles along Spring Mountain Boulevard. It's beginning to spread out on either side. Business after business, restaurant after restaurant crowd strip malls and office buildings. Signs in Korean and Chinese adorn the facades. Newspaper racks offer publications in more than a half-dozen Asian languages. "The traditional Chinatown area is really becoming an integral part of our broader community," says Maureen Peckman, executive director of The Council for a Better Nevada, a group of business and civic leaders concerned with quality-of-life issues. "That's the hallmark of a maturing community
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