Indian Americans are citizens of the United States with ancestry from India. The terms Asian Indian and East Indian are used to avoid confusion with Native Americans in the United States, who are also referred to as "Indians" or "American Indians". With a population of more than 4.9 million, Indian Americans make up approximately 1.35% of the U.S. population and are the largest group of South Asian Americans, the largest Asian-alone group, and the largest group of Asian Americans after Chinese Americans. Indian Americans are the highest-earning ethnic group in the United States.
India Square, in the heart of Bombay, Jersey City, New Jersey, home to the highest concentration of Asian Indians in the Western Hemisphere, is one of at least 24 Indian-American enclaves characterized as a Little India which have emerged in the New York City Metropolitan Area, with the largest metropolitan Indian population outside Asia, as large-scale immigration from India continues into New York.
Image: Raja Kumari 2019 by Glenn Francis
Image: Sendhil Ramamurthy (1)
Members of the Nansemond tribe, descendant of East Indian, Native American, and African American people, c. 1900, Smithsonian Institution
South Asian Americans or Desi Americans are Americans of South Asian ancestry. The term refers to those who can trace back their heritage to South Asia, which includes the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The South Asian American diaspora also includes generations of South Asians from other areas in the world who then moved to the United States, areas such as Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, South Africa, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Mauritius, Singapore, Malaysia, Suriname, other parts of the Caribbean, etc. In the United States census, they are a subcategory of Asian Americans, although individual racial classification is based on self-identification and the categorization is "not an attempt to define race biologically, anthropologically, or genetically".
The New York City Metropolitan Area, including New York City, Central New Jersey, as well as Long Island in New York, is home to the largest South Asian American population.
Aerial view of exurban Monroe Township, Middlesex County, New Jersey housing tracts in 2010. Since then, significant new housing construction is rendering an increasingly affluent and suburban environment to Monroe Township, while maintaining the proximity to New York City sought by the South Asian diaspora in this township with the fastest-growing South Asian population in the Western Hemisphere.
