---
title: "More than 3.4M Americans trace their ancestry to the Philippines"
description: "Here's a data portrait of the Filipino-American community, drawn from the Pew Research Center's 2012 report on Asian Americans."
date: "2013-11-13"
authors:
  - name: "Drew DeSilver"
    job_title: "Senior Writer/Editor"
    link: "https://www.pewresearch.org/staff/drew-desilver/"
url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2013/11/13/more-than-3-4m-americans-trace-ancestry-to-philippines/"
categories:
  - "Asian Americans"
---

# More than 3.4M Americans trace their ancestry to the Philippines

[![](https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2013/10/FT_13.10.29_knightnonprofitnews2.png?w=197)](https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2013/10/FT_13.10.29_knightnonprofitnews2.png)

[![FilipinoAmericans_NewMap](https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2013/11/FilipinoAmericans_NewMap.png)](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/asianamericans-maps/#filipino)
*Where Filipino Americans live, according to 2010 Census data.*

As military and humanitarian aid struggles to make its way to the areas hit hardest by [Typhoon Haiyan](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/13/world/asia/concerns-grow-over-pace-of-aid-to-philippines.html?ref=asia), the Filipino American community is organizing [relief supplies and efforts to contact loved ones](http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/11/12/typhoon-haiyan-diaspora-fundraisers/3505153/) back home.

The Philippines was an American possession until 1946, and the two nations retain close economic, cultural and personal ties. Filipinos are the nation's second-largest Asian-American group -- more than 3.4 million (including 2.3 million adults) trace their ancestry there, according to the 2010 Census. Last year, Filipinos in the U.S. sent $10.6 billion back home; those payments accounted for 43% of all remittances received by the Philippines, according to [World Bank data](http://go.worldbank.org/092X1CHHD0). (The Pew Research Center will be releasing a new report on Latin American remittances later this week and a new report on global remittances later this year.)

Here's a data portrait of the Filipino-American community, drawn from the Pew Research Center's [2012 report on Asian Americans](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2012/06/19/the-rise-of-asian-americans/):

- Filipino Americans are [heavily concentrated in the West](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/asianamericans-maps/#filipino). Nearly a quarter of the entire Filipino-American population (24.1%, or more than 825,000 people) live in 10 Southern California counties. Almost 458,000, (13.4% of the total) live in the San Francisco Bay area, and 10% (about 342,000) live in Hawaii, where they make up a quarter of the state's population. Other metro areas with significant numbers of Filipinos: Las Vegas, Chicago, Sacramento and Seattle.
- More than two-thirds (69.1%) of Filipino-American adults were born overseas. However, three-quarters (77.4%) are now U.S. citizens.
-

[![filipino_education2](https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2013/11/filipino_education2.png)](https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2013/11/filipino_education2.png)

Nearly half (47%) of Filipino Americans ages 25 or older have earned at least a bachelor's degree, compared with 28.2% of all Americans in that age group.

- Median annual personal earnings for full-time, year-round workers was $43,000 among Filipinos, versus $40,000 for the overall population. Only 6.2% of Filipino-American adults were in poverty, compared with 12.8% of all U.S. adults.
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[![filipino_income3](https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2013/11/filipino_income3.png)](https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2013/11/filipino_income3.png)

The median annual income for households headed by a Filipino-American adult was $75,000, well above the average for all Asian Americans and the U.S. population at large. But Filipino Americans also have larger households on average: 3.4 persons, compared with 3.1 for all U.S. Asians and 2.6 for the overall U.S. population.

- Filipinos are the second-most likely Asian-American group (behind Japanese Americans) to describe themselves as "typical Americans" -- 49% do so.