By Howard Koplowitz
Queens has grown more diverse over the last 10 years, with the Asian and Hispanic populations rising while whites and blacks are fleeing the borough, according to census data released last week.
The Asian population in Queens increased 57.4 percent between 2000 and 2010. The borough now has more than half a million Asians compared to 391,500 in 2000.
The census data released last Thursday only recorded six Asian ethnicities: Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, Japanese, Koreans and Vietnamese. Asians who did not fit into any of those six ethnicities represented the largest explosion in the Asian population, with a nearly 97 percent increase.
In 2000, “other Asians,” which include Bangladeshis, Cambodians, Laotians and Malaysians, among other ethnicities, comprised 41,545 residents of Queens while 81,821 were counted in last year’s census.
Among the six Asian ethnicities, the borough’s Chinese population grew the most with a 43 percent increase. Some 140,000 Chinese called Queens home in 2000 compared to 200,205 as of last year’s census.
Both the Japanese and Filipino populations in the borough increased by 25 percent.
The Korean population rose by more than 3 percent — from 62,130 residents in 2000 to 64,107 in 2010 — while the Vietnamese population rose by 9 percent from 3,269 to 3,566.
The Hispanic and Latino populations grew by 10 percent between 2000 and 2010, due to a large increase in the Mexican population.
There were 55,481 Mexicans living in Queens, according to the 2000 census, while 92,835 Mexicans now live in the borough — a 67 percent increase.
Both the borough’s Puerto Rican and Cuban populations decreased.
There were 108,661 Puerto Ricans in Queens in 2000 and 102,881 in 2010 — a 5.3 percent drop. The Cuban population decreased by nearly 14 percent from 12,793 residents in 2000 to 11,020 in 2010.
Queens residents who defined themselves as “other Hispanic or Latino” grew by more than 7 percent from 2000-10.
Hispanic or Latino residents who were not from Mexico, Puerto Rico or Cuba numbered 379,670 in 2000 compared to 407,014 in 2010.
Both the borough’s white and black populations dropped. Whites recorded the largest decrease, more than 16 percent, between 2000 and 2010. There are now fewer than a million whites in Queens — 886,053 — while in 2000 there were 1,057,128. The black population dropped 12.2 percent, from 486,197 residents in 2000 to 426,683 in 2010.
Reach reporter Howard Koplowitz by e-mail at hkoplowitz@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4573.
