Asian growth tops in nation

Saturday, Sept. 9, 2000 | 2:56 a.m.

The signs are everywhere: Asian-oriented restaurants, churches, clinics and stores are springing up on street corners throughout the metropolitan area, evidence of a powerful population movement affecting Nevada and the Las Vegas Valley.

Other signs of the trend are less obvious. Many professional offices, from real estate to travel, are hiring multilingual staff to tap the economic force of the new immigrants to the state and region.

One thing all agree on: A record number of Asians are flocking here in search of economic opportunity, a share of a booming economy, cheap real estate and a market hungry for workers.

According to recent U.S. Census Bureau estimates, the number of people with Pacific Island or Asian heritage jumped nearly 124 percent in Nevada since 1990, the biggest increase in the nation. In Clark County alone, the number rose more than 139 percent, to 64,636 people.

Asians are still a relatively small minority within the county and state. The Census Bureau estimates there are 128,000 blacks in Clark County and 140,000 in the state. Hispanics make up the largest minority group in Nevada at 304,000, with 219,000 of them in Clark County.

Statewide, the bureau estimated that there were 88,208 people of Pacific Island or Asian heritage in July 1999. Nationally, the number of Asian Americans grew by 43 percent to just under 11 million. The state with the largest number of Asian Americans remains California with 4 million, but the growth rate there was about 37 percent.

While the latest numbers suggest that the in-migration to the state and country is accelerating, it isn't a new phenomenon. Asians have had an impact on the development of the American West since before the Civil War.

Chinese workers came to the Western United States by the thousands to work at mining camps and to build railroads in the mid-1800s.

Sixty years later, Chinese and Japanese immigrants helped build Las Vegas, said Sue Fawn Chung, UNLV associate professor of history.

Then as now the immigrants sought economic opportunity, she said. Their presence here dates to at least 1905, when the city was founded.

The Tomiyasu family began farming hundreds of acres in the Las Vegas Valley in 1915, she said. The name is familiar to hundreds of valley schoolchildren who go to Tomiyasu Elementary School.

"Some of them worked for the railroad, some opened restaurants and laundries, eventually some were hired by hotels," Chung said. By the 1960s, casinos were hiring Asian Americans as card dealers, she said.

One of Southern Nevada's first department stores, the National Dollar Store, was owned by Joe Shoong. His son-in-law, Richard Tam, was a successful real estate developer in the post-World War II era, she said.

Of Chinese heritage, Tam came to Las Vegas from Hawaii. A contributor to UNLV, Tam's name is over the school's Alumni Center.

Others of Pacific Island and Asian heritage have helped develop the region's unions, medicine and public education, she said.

"They're making contributions in many occupations," Chung said.

One word above all others characterizes the Asian experience in the United States and Nevada, say those that live and work here: diversity.

The term "Asian" can refer to someone from India or Pakistan, to a person from the Pacific island of Samoa or someone born and raised in the United States.

Many of those classified by the Census Bureau as "Asian" are thoroughly Americanized, with families that have been here for generations.

Indeed, intermarriage with people of European heritage is common, Chung said.

"There's an amazing increase in interracial marriages," she said. "The children of these marriages -- I see them sitting in front of me in the classrooms."

Chung said the issues facing those young people are rarely studied.

"Here's a whole group of people that need to be thought about," she said.

With the increasing numbers of Asian Americans in the Las Vegas Valley comes power, both with their dollars and their votes.

The Philippine Chamber of Commerce, representing small businesses owned by people of that descent, had four officers running for various political posts across the valley in Tuesday's primary.

Chamber President Geny Del Rosario, running as a Republican for Assembly District 12, did not have any opposition and will take on Democratic incumbent Genie Ohrenschall in November.

"We've been very active in the political arena," Del Rosario said.

The orientation of the political activists in the chamber goes beyond "Asian" issues, although that it an important component of their work, especially in the social sphere, she said.

But because many families in the Filipino community are small entrepreneurs, the chamber and its leadership have to champion small business issues, Del Rosario said.

"Business and politics go hand-in-hand," she said.

Del Rosario and other Filipinos have a built-in constituency. Although perhaps not the most visible of the Asian groups in Southern Nevada, Filipinos have the biggest numbers.

Observers say that more than half of those in Southern Nevada counted as Pacific Islanders or Asians by the Census Bureau claim Filipino heritage. Del Rosario said many Filipinos are missed by the census counts, and the actual number could be over 50,000 in the Las Vegas area.

Asians with other national origins also are getting into politics. James Yu, vice president of the Las Vegas Asian Chamber of Commerce, said much of the political work is low-key -- but it is happening.

This year, the group created a political action committee, which has endorsed Clark County Commission incumbents Mary Kincaid and Yvonne Atkinson Gates, and Democratic candidate Lois Tarkanian, Yu said.

"We do vote now," agreed Rozita Lee, chairwoman of the Asian-Pacific Forum, a Las Vegas group bringing together people from a half-dozen national origins to discuss community problems and solutions. "This has become a very important factor in our community."

The forum has been active in politics since it was formed in 1992. In 1994 the forum supported the re-election of Gov. Bob Miller, a Democrat.

Lee's credentials in politics go back further. She served as Miller's personal assistant from 1989 to 1991.

Lee said one trend she sees is that politicians are increasingly seeking backing from the Asian community. Some, such as Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., are winning that support.

Noting Reid's slim margin of victory of 401 votes in 1998, Lee said Asian voters made the critical difference.

Yu said the impact of Asian American voters will only grow, and his organization will work to get more people naturalized, then registered to vote.

"We'd like to do more and more," he said.

Yu shares a common experience with thousands of other Asian Americans in the Las Vegas Valley. He moved here from Korea to study at UNLV, then made the valley his home.

Almost 10 percent of the students at UNLV are of Asian or Pacific Island background, said Tom Flagg, a university spokesman.

Vicki Holmes, English Language Center director, finds many of those students in her English language classes.

She said the largest national bloc is of students from Korea. But groups from all over Asia, and from Hawaii and California, are represented, she said.

Most students are here to learn hotel management, Holmes said, but other popular majors include business, engineering and the sciences.

Since James Yu graduated from UNLV in 1981, he has become a professional accountant, settling in Las Vegas along with his wife and three children.

Many of his clients also have an Asian background, and many are opening up small businesses -- a traditional way of seeking the American Dream for immigrants for two centuries.

"Every tax season I get a lot of newcomers," he said.

Yu noted a trend closely followed by demographers.

"In the last few years, a lot of Koreans, Japanese are moving from Hawaii," he said. "More so in the last few years, a lot of Asians are moving here from Southern California."

Often the immigrants begin their lives in Southern Nevada by working in hotels or at Asian American-owned businesses, Yu said. But by saving up a nest egg, some open their own business within a few years.

The immigrants are seeking more control over their lives by working for themselves, Yu said.

While first-generation immigrants often stay in small, family-owned retail shops or restaurants, second and third generations are fully integrated into the American experience, Yu said. For the children of immigrants, there are few barriers to entering professional or corporate careers.

UNLV's Chung agreed. She said the model follows a traditional course of acculturation.

Similar patterns -- the first generation in small, family-run businesses, then open doors for later generations -- affected immigrant waves from Europe, she said.

Perhaps a typical newcomer is Harry Chang, a Realtor at United Pacific Realty in the Chinatown Plaza on Spring Mountain Road. He works out of a small office in the mall, which caters primarily to Asians in the Las Vegas area with services ranging from an Asian-oriented market to financial advisers.

Chang arrived in Las Vegas in 1992. He came from Taiwan and lived for about a year in California. That gave him time to check out other cities around the country, including Dallas, Houston, Atlanta and Boston.

"Finally I decided to stay in Las Vegas, because it is a nice city, a boom town," he said. "A lot of opportunity."

Although most of his real estate clients are Asians, Chang said he welcomes all customers.

"I don't segregate by race. Whoever comes in, I serve them," he said with a smile.

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