Why Did Asian Immigrants Come to the U.S.?

Different groups of Asian immigrants in the U.S. have had different reasons for coming to the country, a survey by Pew Research Center has found. While there is of course some overlap, the most common reason varies between immigrants from China, India, Vietnam, the Philippines and South Korea,

While most Chinese immigrants - 38 percent - said they had come for educational opportunities, the biggest group of Indians at 42 percent said they had immigrated to the U.S. because of economic opportunities. This is in line with U.S. international student statistics, showing that Chinese students are the biggest group of foreign students in the country. Indian students are in rank 2 of the biggest U.S. international student nations and 29 percent of Indians said they had entered the U.S. for educational opportunity. For Chinese immigrant, the number 2 reason was to be with family (31 percent). According to the United Nations, there are around 1.1 million Chinese-born people living in the U.S., compared with 1.3 million Indian-born people.

Economic opportunity was also among the chief reasons for Filipinos to come to the United States. 41 percent of Filipinos said this, just as many as cited being with family as their reason. The third-largest U.S. immigrant group after Mexicans and Indians, Filipinos have immigrated to the United States since the early 20th century, when the United States annexed the country. South Korea and the United States also have a long shared history that intensified in the Korean War in the 1950s. South Koreans in the United States were most likely to say they came to be with family (38 percent), followed by educational opportunities (28 percent). Finally, most Vietnamese said they came to the country to escape conflict and persecution (44 percent). When the U.S. military pulled out of Vietnam in 1975, many Vietnamese with ties to the U.S. armed forces or threatened under the country's new Communist government came to the U.S. The second most citied reason among Vietnamese was to be with family (29 percent).

Almost three quarters of surveyed immigrants said they would come to the U.S. again. Among Indians, this number was lowest at two thirds of respondents, with 15 percent indicating they would stay in their home country if giving the chance again. Much fewer people from other major Asian immigrant nations said the same. Also around three quarters said that their standard of living was better than that of their parents, but only around half suspected their children to have a better standard of living than they themselves. Across all groups, Asian immigrants said that the strength of family ties was better in their home country, while rating the U.S. better for opportunity, freedom of speech, gender equality and conditions to raise children.