The Dallas-Fort Worth area led the country in the growth of the Asian American population from 2022 to 2023, and Collin County anchored that increase, a recent report showed.

Those who work closely with Asian American and Pacific Islander communities in the region celebrate the increase but say there’s more work to be done to address the needs of the growing population, including language access and political participation.

The report was the first of three parts that Austin-based nonprofit Asian Texans for Justice is planning to release ahead of the presidential election, said the group’s executive director, Lily Trieu.

On Thursday, the organization released the second part of the report, which included testimonials from 50 voters from the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities and their attitudes toward voting, civic engagement and sources of information.

“You look at all of the think tanks and research organizations and universities across Texas, there really are very few that are doing meaningful work looking at the current Asian American community today,” Trieu said.

From 2022 to 2023, Texas led the nation in Asian population growth with 91,000, according to the report. The Dallas-Fort Worth area accounted for nearly 44,000 of that increase, with about 20,000, or almost 22%, being in Collin County.

The report found the largest subgroup of Asian American residents in Dallas-Fort Worth were Asian Indian — about 35% of all Asian residents. Vietnamese residents came in second at just over 15%.

Chanda Parbhoo said she’s not surprised at the findings; she first noticed it in 2018. Her organization, SAAVETX Education Fund, is a nonpartisan nonprofit that promotes voting in the South Asian community.

After Fort Bend County, near Houston, she consistently saw Collin County’s South Asian American votership grow in the past five years.

“Some of that growth is sort of maxing out a little bit in Collin County and is now filtering into Denton County,” she added.

When Parbhoo moved to North Texas in the 1980s, many in her community settled in Garland and Richardson. She now considers cities in Collin County, such as Murphy and Allen, among her target voter engagement areas.

She said she has sensed an excitement in her community related to former and current South Asian presidential candidates, Vice President Kamala Harris and Nikki Haley, to name a few.

Parbhoo is also encountering some who have recently gotten their citizenship and are looking to vote for the first time in the 2024 presidential election.

“A few people have told me that they’re really worried about the rhetoric against immigrants and they want to be anchored as a U.S. citizen to secure their position not to be deported,” she said.

Neither political party has done a sufficient job to reach out to South Asian voters in Texas, Parbhoo said.

“So the work that we’re doing is really bridging the gap of nobody calling our community to make sure that everybody understands the importance of this upcoming election,” she added.

Sushma Malhotra, president of India Association of North Texas, said she has seen a boom in participation at events and services hosted by the organization since the COVID-19 pandemic, including at the organization’s annual Anand Bazaar event — to which more than 15,000 people often turn out. The IANT was founded in 1962.

To address a growing number of regional and smaller Indian organizations popping up in the D-FW area, IANT began hosting a new event in 2022 to bring the groups together, she said. The annual event gives representatives of these groups the chance to introduce themselves to one another..

In recent years, Malhotra said she has also seen increased demands among North Texans for services provided by the Consulate General of India, based in Houston. According to the Asian Texans for Justice study, just under 43% of Indian residents in the D-FW are U.S. citizens, down about 14 points overall for all AAPI residents in the area.

The consulate general office occasionally hosts “Consular Camp,” she said, for residents who need help with administrative tasks, like renewing passports or applying for emergency visas.

Registration for these events will sometimes fill up within “10 to 15 minutes,” Malhotra said.

In a statement to The Dallas Morning News, Consul General of India D.C. Manjunath said he and other officials visit the “DFW region frequently,” including to attend cultural events by organizations like IANT.

“Although there are no immediate plans of establishing an independent office in the DFW region, options are currently being explored to set up a collection counter of the official outsourcing agency VFS to receive applications in the region at a centrally located place,” he said.

Multiple city officials in Dallas and surrounding areas told The News they are aware of the increase and have adjusted services and programs in response.

According to Christina da Silva, Dallas’ assistant director of the Office of Equity and Inclusion, “about 30 years ago,” Dallas provided naturalization ceremonies for residents who became citizens. The city began those services again in 2022 to account for a growing number of residents who wanted to become U.S. citizens.

“We know that our communities are growing,” da Silva said. “Our immigrant communities in general are growing, but, in particular, AAPI communities have been growing.”

A joint report by the American Immigration Council and the city published this spring found that 23.2% of Dallas residents in 2022 were immigrants. Of that figure, about 10% of residents identified themselves as Asian or Pacific Islander.

Jeff Timbs, the city of Allen’s director of library programs, said he has seen the growth of the Asian community in the city for the past 12 to 14 years. He described the growth as a “ripple effect” that started impacting the library’s services more.

“We started looking at some of the demographic data that Allen ISD had and found the school district was reporting that over 60 different languages were being spoken at the homes of the students,” Timbs said.

Timbs said the library started offering more books in languages other than English and Spanish, such as Hindi, Mandarin and Korean, to serve the growing Asian population in the area. It also started holding more events that highlighted different Asian cultures.

Michael Tieu, president of the National Association of Asian American Professionals’ DFW chapter, said economic factors could play a role in Asian American growth in the area. The chapter aims to provide resources and empower AAPI professionals, according to its website.

The expansion and opening of headquarters and offices in the area by large firms — like Toyota and JP Morgan Chase & Co. — are drawing new jobs to the area, he said.

The result has been increased participation in his organization’s events, Tieu said. For example, the organization’s number of participants has increased “anywhere from 150% to 250%” in the past few years.

To account for a higher number of chapter members, costs for the organization’s networking socials and professional development workshops have gone up, Tieu added.

Abhi Dube, president of the South Asian Bar Association of Dallas, said he moved to Southlake three years ago. Dube is a partner at Baker McKenzie.

Since he moved to North Texas, Dube said his organization’s membership has grown about 33 percent and has sensed “a tremendous appetite for being more involved.” Recently, his organization held a gala to benefit CHETNA DFW, a nonprofit that helps South Asian victims of domestic violence.

“We have a lot of members who are in Richardson. We have a lot of members who are up in Frisco, and they’re always saying, ‘Hey, you know, can you do more events out here?”

Asian American growth in the D-FW has also bolstered Asian-owned businesses.

India Bazaar’s first location was founded in 2004 by the Pabari family in Plano. Since then, the store has expanded into a chain with at least 10 locations in the D-FW. The Pabari family opened a new store in Carrollton last year and growth isn’t stopping, co-founder and president Anand Pabari told The News.

India Bazaar is looking to open six to eight more locations within the next three years, he said, due in part to increased demand from a growing South Asian community in North Texas.

It’s been a “360-degree change,” Pabari said, since his family moved to the area in 1998. Even with increased competition from other large Indian grocery chains, like Patel Brothers, business remains strong, he said

“I believe everyone is growing,” Pabari said. “It’s a healthy competition. At the same time, growth is there if you are doing something right.”

Mo Liang, 36, moved to North Texas in May 2023 to expand his business — Shoo Loong Kan Hot Pot. The first location opened in Richardson’s Chinatown earlier this month, and he expects a second location in Carrollton to open before the end of the year.

North Texas’ economic growth and its Asian American population were both factors in his decision to open a franchise location in Richardson, Liang said.

Liang, who has lived in large cities all his life, said he moved his family to Allen because he wanted a more suburban lifestyle.

“I’m not craving or crazy for city life. Right now, my priority is to have the best commute time, the best sleeping time, the best school zone for my children,” he said.

A portion of Asian Texans for Justice’s report showed that the median household income of Texans who identified as Asian was higher than those who identified as white, Black, Hispanic and Latino.

That doesn’t mean everyone in the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities is thriving, said Trieu of Asian Texans for Justice.

“In tough times where folks really are feeling kind of that squeeze in their wallets, it’s important to recognize that these public benefits programs also impact our community and state lawmakers are making proposals and changes to what benefits are available,” she said. “We want to dispel the minority myth. We really want to push back on this rhetoric that Asian Americans don’t really require support from their local and state government.”

John Jun, who is running as a Republican for Texas House District 115, said he saw an increase in the Asian American community’s civil engagement in Coppell, where he was a city council member for five years.

He said he doesn’t think the Asian American population is tied to any one political party. Jun, who helped establish the Korean American Society of DFW, said he collaborated with people from both sides of the aisle during his work with the civic engagement organization.

“This time, I threw myself in as a Republican candidate, but I always thought that I’m representing everyone in the district,” he said.

Tammy Meinershagen, the first woman of Korean descent elected to the Frisco City Council, said her campaign was not heavily focused on her identity as an Asian American.

She said she gained a greater appreciation for representation after being elected.

“All of a sudden, a lot of the different Asian organizations were reaching out saying, ‘Thank you so much for running,’” she recalled. “It wasn’t even just Frisco, and I suddenly was overwhelmed and thought, ‘Wow, that really means a lot to people that they feel represented.’”

She said she hopes to see more people in the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities run for public office.

“I think the first step for Asian Americans is to raise your hand to show up and have a seat at the table and make room for yourself,” she said.