The United States had 3.5 million residents who identify as Middle Eastern or North African.
, from which MENA figures could be inferred, but the survey collects data only from 3.5 million households while census forms go to every U.S. household.
“This is a monumental change,” said Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute, a Washington-based advocacy group. “For us, it’s a wonderful indication of what is to come when we secure a MENA category.” According to the 2020 census, the two largest groups of people who identified as MENA, either alone or in combination with another group, were Lebanese, with more than 685,000 people, and Iranian with more than 568,000 people. The states with the largest MENA populations were California, Michigan and New York.Venezuelans were the fastest-growing Hispanic group.
“This shows, really, what is going on in Venezuela,” said Ernesto Ackerman, president of Independent Venezuelan American Citizens, an advocacy group in Miami. “There is nothing there and it’s getting worse.”temporary legal status to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who are already in the U.S. — quickly making them eligible to work.
Mexicans were, far and away, the largest Hispanic group in the U.S. with a population of 35.9 million people, followed by Puerto Ricans with 5.6 million people and Salvadorans at 2.3 million people.Among the census respondents who identified as white, English was the most common detailed group written down on the form where people were asked to elaborate on their backgrounds, with 46.6 million people saying they were English alone or in any combination.