Asia
Regions that Contribute to our Local Population
Asia
VIETNAM: The Vietnamese are the largest single refugee population to be resettled in the US in the last 40 years. About 4,000 have resettled in the Greensboro area since 1979 as refugees or secondary migrants. They are a diverse population and not organized through any broad based agency.
CAMBODIA: In the early 1980’s, the first Cambodian refugees were resettled in Greensboro. About 60 large families representing about 600 people are closely affiliated with the Greensboro Buddhist Center. An additional 800 Cambodians live in Davidson County.
LAOS: Greensboro was not an initial resettlement site for Laotians. However, since the mid 1980’s many families came as secondary migrants from other states, and now the Laotian population is estimated at about 1000 people.
HIGHLANDS of VIETNAM: The Montagnards (French for “mountain people”) are people from a number of different tribes from the Highlands of Vietnam. They had been isolated mountain farmers and hunter-gatherers until the Vietnam War when the US government recruited them as front line soldiers for the US Army Special Forces. Over 9,000 have now settled in Guilford County, making this the largest Montagnard community outside Southeast Asia. Over 3000 live in the Charlotte and Raleigh areas combined. A few hundred Nung, a tribal group from northern Vietnam, have been resettled here too and are often grouped with the Montagnard tribes.
HIGHLANDS of LAOS: North Carolina has a few thousand hill tribe refugees from Laos, mostly Hmong, who migrated from other states to rural areas of North Carolina. Few live in Guilford County except for college students but about 12,000 have resettled further west in the Piedmont areas of the state. Other hill tribe populations in Guilford include approximately 200 Khmu refugees as well as small groups of other tribes.
KOREA: Over 2,000 Korean immigrants, many well established, are represented in Guilford County. An additional 2,000 live in the extended Triad area.
INDIA: An Indian immigrant population of over 1000 is well established in the Guilford area, is growing, and has a long history here. Many are connected with university and medical communities.
PAKISTAN: There are an estimated 1000 Pakistanis living in Guilford County.
CHINA: Ethnic Chinese are part of many Asian countries. The local Chinese population includes mainland Chinese, Taiwan, and Singapore and has several hundred people.
PALESTINE: There are an estimated 1,000 Palestinians in the Guilford County area, many have been here for a long period of time.
