Today’s NYT contains a useful graphical tool for displaying census data. The data being used is nothing new – it’s all census 2000 data — but the graphical display reveals patterns that you don’t notice in a table. The image below shows where immigrants from India are, with larger circles denoting the larger population clusters. (I focus on Indians because they’re the only South Asian group that this tool lets you explore)
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The largest circles show populations of 50,000 or more. You can find them in Santa Clara county (just south of San Francisco), Cook County (around Chicago) and Queens, NY. Of course, the San Francisco and NYC clusters contain other large populations of Indians in adjacent counties, with a disontinuous mega cluster of Indians in the Boston to DC corridor.
It’s also interesting to see how few Indians there are in other parts of the USA. The very smallest dots on the map, the ones the size of flyspecs, those show populations of fewer than one hundred Indians, such as the 88 Indians in Jasper, MO. Basically, if you can’t see brown on this map, there weren’t Indians worth mentioning back in 2000.
It’s worth clicking on the image and going to the tool itself, since that graphic gives you information about the size of each of the clusters when you hover over any point. This is just a screen capture to show you where the IBDs are.
The NYT link would be nice:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/03/10/us/20090310-immigration-explorer.html
Oops, I see. You have to click the image. My bad…
So you guys at SM have been scamming us all these years…telling us the bunker is in SD! I don’t even see a speck, not even near a neighboring state! Ha!
It’s Indian born only, and in 2000. We moved there when we started the blog, and except for Manish, I don’t think any of the rest of us were born in India.
Also, since they don’t count the monkeys, we’d be too few to show up. We like to fly under the radar 😉
I actually found the numbers surprisingly small. Especially in Montgomery County, Maryland (where my parents live), I feel like I see Indians everywhere. It’s hard to imagine that there are just 16,000 IBDs in the whole county. Even in the county where I live in Pennsylvania (also Montgomery County, coincidentally), I was shocked to see that the census comes up with just 5000 IBDs.
Maybe there’s been a big jump since 2000. Or maybe I spend too much time in Indian grocery stores…
Which LA dot is me? Or am I not included because of reasons discussed ad infinitum on this blog?
This is such an interesting tool!
I didn’t know that the Indian population in Queens so far outnumbered the tally from all other NY boroughs combined!
I knew you would come up with some kind of explanation!
OK I’m sorry I didn’t realize or catch originally that this was Indian born….that changes a lot of things no????
I am aware that to a particular guest blogger Fargo is not just a movie. (It is a shopping and weekend getaway spot).
Does that count for something?
Pima County represent!
NYT is pulling data from socialexplorer.com which has the table for “place of birth for the foreign-born population”. [link] India-born population count is just over a million – 1,022,552. Seems low to me as well, even for 2000.
H1b quota is 65K/year. Back in 2000, it was 200K. Even at 65K/year, during 1990-2000, probably around 300K Indians got H1b-visa. Most of them would have IBD spouses and some IBD kids. That alone counts for 700-750K. India sends around 80K student to USA each year now. At any given point of time, three years of incoming students (MS=2 year, BS = 4 year, Phd = 5 year) are probably on F1 status and have not moved to H1b yet. That’s another 250K. If half of them have IBD spouses, total exceeds 1M. And we have not counted pre-90 immigration, business visa holders, family-based immigration, IBDs without visas.
Interesting how the hot spots remain almost the same across all the nations’ immigrants.
What’s up, Dallas.
I presume that this data is for Indian residents and doesn’t include students ? Does this also include Indian born Americans ? Nevertheless the big bubbles have to be clustered around the major/famous universities and places where economic opportunities are open to immigrants.
It would be interesting to see this map in conjunction with Indian-Americans (born in USA) assuming the govt. allows census based on race.
Its interesting to see immigration waves, like the Italians peaking around early 20th century, the Irish born population steadily declining, the Russian born increasing after the end of Cold War, or the sharp drop in the German Born after World War I
dipanjan, the most recent census figures of Indian born U.S. residents dates from 2007 and it lists 1,501,782 people born in India residing in the U.S. Your back of the envelope estimates are too high and are ignoring those that are leaving the U.S. after the terms of their student visa or H1B are over.
Looking at the census data in depth reveals some rather startling figures. Did you know that there is a massive and I do mean massive socio-economic schism between ethnic Indian residents of American born in India and ethnic Indian residents of America born either in the U.S. or elsewhere? For example, individual per capita income in 2007 inflation adjusted dollars for American residents born in India (that 1501782 figure) is $49,694, significantly above the $26,688 that is the U.S. standard. However, per capita income in 2007 inflation adjusted dollars for all ethnic Indian American residents is $36,491. Here is the kicker though, a little simple arithmetic reveals that the per capita income of ethnic Indians born in the U.S. or born abroad elsewhere other than India is a mere $17,956.
This is a fascinating tool – I’m really interested in Koschei’s comments about the socio-economic data and how that might mesh with the geographic data when it comes to supporting social services for South Asian Americans, nonprofits by and for us, and philanthropy in general.
easily explained by age. Heaps of older DBDs with higher incomes move the figure upward whilst the ABDs tend to be younger – hence less income.
Map shows around 6K in Minneapolis metro region & surrounding places. This is plain incorrect. The local temple & the older gen – place the number at around 30K.
i want to crash the SWIA (southern wyoming indian assoc.) holi party… more bhang all around i bet.
check out the time lapse option. in 1970 LA was the american center for brown folk. 1960s counterculture?
I found it interesting that the Indian population decreased between 1970 and 1980 in three cities – Detroit, Los Angeles, and Brooklyn. I’m thinking they entered post-1965, finished school, left for the suburbs once income levels rose.
wyoming needs some brown.
3 · Janeofalltrades said
Um, ACTUALLY the bunker is in NORTH Dakota.
Melbourne Desi, I had the same idea, but the age cohort of the working population I feel is not enough to explain away the near 3 to 1 gap in earning potential, at least not entirely. The median age of all ethnic Indians in America is 32.2 while that of ethnic Indians in America of Indian birth is 37.2. Since these are median ages, its not possible to draw an exact figure for the remainder of the population, but it should be in the mid to late 20’s. I think age is partially a factor, but there are also two other considerations. One is a regression towards the mean affect of Indians born in America and second is quite likely the unrepresentative nature of the ethnic Indian immigrants from India. Over 74.1% of that population have university degrees with over 40% possessing graduate degrees. I am not sure if even one percent of Indians in Indian possess a graduate degree. The reason I bring this up is because I am surprised that the Indian socio-economic mix in the U.S. is more akin to Singapore than I had originally expected from anecdotal information. I am not sure if anyone is familiar with Singapore, but in that country there are stark class differences that split the Indian community there between the majority population native to Singapore and a significant minority of Indians that have arrived post 1990. I’m sure this is a topic that Razib would probably be interested in.
This map may not be so accurate. Somehow, Blair County, PA had 88 Indian-born residents in 1970, 0 in 1980, and 68 in 1990. I’m from there, and I know a number of people who’ve lived there continuously since the late 60s.
That lonely Indian family in Idaho needs company.
Thats’s my cousin.
Koschei @16,
1 Million total IBD in 2000 still seems low to me. Note that I was not discounting returning F1 students. Given the duration of BS/MS/Phd programs, at any point, students entering US within last 3-4 years should remain on F1(J1) status regardless of whether students who came prior to that period returned or not.
H1-b visas are sponsored by two types of companies – large US companies hiring permanent employees most of whom eventually get green cards, and Indian consulting companies hiring IBDs on short-term projects, and then reusing alloted H1b visas for future projects. Very few, if any, H1-bs alloted to India-based consulting companies remain unused at any point of time. Since bulk of H1-bs with six-year expiration period were sponsored during the second half of 90s, you would expect the visa holders to be in US in 2000.
1.5 Million in 2005 I can believe. But now the numbers appear internally inconsistent – 50% growth between 2000 and 2007 seems high given H1b quote and .com boom peaked during 99-00.
Not that we have any better source than census.
Here is another data point – Rediff.com is a top 5,000 site that reaches over 1.1 million U.S. people monthly. (Quantcast) If there are more IBDs who do not visit rediff than non-IBDs who do, both 1M and 1.5M seem low.
Interesting.
Let the brownification of Montana and Wyoming begin! 🙂