The term Asian American currently includes U.S. residents of South Asian, Southeast Asian, and East Asian origin or ancestry. South Asians are mainly Asian Indians. Southeast Asians include Indochinese from Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Burma, and the Philippines. East Asians comprise Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in July 2008, an estimate of 15.5 million U.S. residents, about 5% of the American population, reported being Asian alone or Asian in combination with one or more other races. The Asian group has within it a diversity of ethnicities. Among this Asian population, Chinese Americans were the largest group at 3.62 million, followed by Filipinos (3.09 million), Asian Indians (2.73 million), Vietnamese (1.73 million), Koreans (1.61 million) and Japanese (1.30 million).

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