In 1980, the Chinese-American community, with a population of 812,178, comprised the largest subpopulation of Asian/Pacific Islanders in the United States. During the 1980s, the population of Chinese Americans nearly doubled—1,618,973 according to the 1990 data from the U.S. Bureau of the Census (although the Filipino-American community had by then become the largest Asian subgroup). The largest numbers of Chinese Americans reported in the 1990 census are in the states of California (704,850), New York (284,144), Hawaii (68,804), Texas (63,232), New Jersey (59,084), Massachusetts (53,792), and Illinois (49,936). The Chinese-American ethnic community actually consists of people from many countries, and recent waves of immigration especially contribute to the heterogeneity of this ethnic group. Chinese immigrants have come to the United States from British Hong Kong, the People's Republic of China, the Republic of China (Taiwan), and from various countries in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and...