Hong Kong Americans or American Hong Kongers are Americans of Hong Kong ancestry. Hong Kong has since 1997 been a special administrative region of the People's Republic of China; from 1841 to 1997 it was a British crown colony.
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Many of the Hong Kong Americans hold both United States citizenship and right of abode in Hong Kong. Other than the US passport, many of them also hold HKSAR Passport and British National (Overseas) passport.
History
After the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, an influx of Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong immigrants settled in Chinatown, San Francisco, California, and Chinatown, Manhattan, New York. In Chinatown neighborhoods, many Hong Kong immigrants opened businesses such as Chinese restaurants and supermarkets.
During the 1980s and the 1990s, a large number of high-skilled Hong Kong immigrants settled in the San Francisco Bay Area, where many were employed by high-technology companies in Silicon Valley. Many of the Hong Kong immigrants in the Bay Area resided in suburban communities, such as Burlingame, South San Francisco, San Mateo, Fremont, and in the Richmond District and Sunset District in San Francisco. Many also settled in the New York Metropolitan area.
Population
As of 2012, there are 219,231 people in the United States who are born in Hong Kong. 96,281 of people born in Hong Kong live in the state of California. 39,523 of the people born in Hong Kong live in New York. New Jersey, Texas and Washington have 9,487, 8,671, and 8,191 Hong Kong-born residents, respectively. There is also a sizable community of Hong Kongese in the Greater Boston Area, especially in Quincy, Massachusetts. Massachusetts has 7,464 residents born in Hong Kong.