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THE Filipino American (Fil-Am) community is the second largest Asian American group in the United States behind the Chinese American community. Fil-Ams are Americans who trace their ancestry to the Philippines and have attained United States residency and/or citizenship.

Statistics from the United States Census in 2000 indicated that there are over 2.4 million who identified their ancestry as Filipino but it is speculated to be at 4 million by many Filipino-American and Asian-American organizations. More than half of the Filipino-American community is of American citizenship and the rest are Filipino nationals and/or dual citizens of the United States and the Philippines.

Migrants also
Filipinos are also the second-largest migrant population to the United States next to the Mexicans, with an average of 70,000 people migrating annually. About 75% consists of family-based sponsorships while the remainder is employment-oriented. A majority of this number prefer living in California, followed by Hawaii, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Washington, Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Nevada and Alaska.

Since the early 1900s, the Philippines has been heavily influenced by American culture. After the Spanish American War and during the course of the Philippine-American War, the Philippines was made into a United States territory and later a commonwealth from December 12, 1898 to July 4, 1946.

Despite race relations problems of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the American Northwest, most Filipino Americans today find it easy to integrate with American society. Filipino nationals have been living in an American-molded society since the early 1900s.

Where they are
A large number of Filipino Americans live in California, Washington, New York City and Hawaii. They also form the largest groups of Asians in Alaska, Maine, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Virginia and Wyoming. Fil-Ams are also the second largest group of Asians in Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Illinois, Maine, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia.

Among US territories, Filipinos are the largest ethnic group overall in the Northern Marianas Islands. They make up 29% of the total population. In Guam, they are the second largest ethnic group after the Chamorros. In American Samoa, Filipinos are the largest Asian group and the third largest ethnic group overall after Samoans and Tongans respectively.

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