Clark County’s Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) population, most of whom are foreign-born, has an unusual demographic profile. The largest group is Filipino, but there are also significant and growing populations of Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian and Native Hawaiians.
Asian Americans are “changing the tastes, looks and smells of this city in a way that is reimagining Las Vegas, beyond the Strip and the buffets,” says Constancio Arnaldo, a professor of Asian and Asian American studies at the University of Las Vegas.
According to the 2020 census, Asian Americans make up 13 percent of Clark County’s population — 237,000 people — but even that current number is out of date: Catherine Francisco, president of the Nevada AAPI Chamber of Commerce, says the strongest growth has occurred in the past four years.
“A lot of the traffic to Chinatown comes from California,” says Francisco, who used to live in California herself.
Nevada has no state income tax and property taxes are less than half the national average, attracting wealthy residents who want to keep more of their capital, but also those looking for a larger home, cheaper rent or lower startup costs for their business.
The Chinatowns of Las Vegas may look familiar to those who have spent time in the Chinese quarters of Los Angeles.
Thirty years ago, I had to drive to LA to get good Chinese food. I think I stopped doing that sometime around the year 2000.
The old Chinatown west of the Strip has a more traditional feel, with its neon lights and ornate entrance arch. The newer Asian community in the Spring Valley neighborhood is more like the San Gabriel Valley in Los Angeles: dense development with huge parking lots concentrated on a few main boulevards just off a main street in the southwest part of the city.
In 1995, Southern California entrepreneur James Chen and two partners built Chinatown Plaza, Las Vegas’ first major Asian shopping center.
The commercial complex, which will center on a 99 Ranch grocery store, looks like a larger, more elaborate version of San Gabriel’s Focus Plaza. Both were designed by the same San Gabriel architectural firm.
Chen and his partners saw an opportunity in the many Asian families and tourists from Southern California who regularly visited Las Vegas, says Vida Lin, president of the Asian Community Development Council.
Lin, who came to Las Vegas from San Francisco, says many Chinese investors want to try out their ideas in a place with lower taxes.
In Southern California, it has long been tradition for Chinese families who don’t have an appetite for turkey or eggnog to spend the holidays in Las Vegas instead.
Travel agencies in the San Gabriel Valley regularly send Chinese tourists to Las Vegas. And cheap bus fleets transport Asian retirees between their favorite casinos almost every day.
The fact that Chinese people like to gamble is not just a stereotype: According to the journal International Psychiatry, 2.5 to 4 percent of the adult population in China are addicted to gambling, whereas in most Western countries the figure is only 1 percent.
This influx of people and capital has also spurred development along the route between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. On a recent visit to Chinatown Plaza in Las Vegas, I noticed an advertisement announcing the opening of the Barstow Asian Food Court.
Lin, who came to Las Vegas in 1994, has her own way of measuring growth.
“Thirty years ago, I had to drive to LA to get good Chinese food,” says Lin. “I think I stopped doing that sometime around 2000.”
Although most of the population arrived recently, Asian Americans have long been a part of Las Vegas, Lin says.
Chinese and Filipino workers built the railroads that made Las Vegas possible. Filipino designer Rudy Chrisotomo created the famous neon signs at the Sands, the Dunes, the Circus Circus, the Luxor and the Rio.
Chinese entrepreneurs popularized games like Keno and Pai Gow. And in the 1940s, Asian Americans opened nightclubs to attract black businessmen who were turned away from the Strip.
The Asian neighborhoods of Las Vegas have the indefatigable energy of the San Gabriel Valley of a decade ago. The economic dynamism is well known, but so are the problems that arise when an area suddenly experiences a surge in the number of immigrants.
In the San Gabriel Valley, these frictions manifested themselves in disputes over the cultural offerings of grocery stores and in bitter debates over the requirement of English on public signs that went far beyond public safety.
These disputes revealed xenophobia and racism, but the debates also highlighted how unprepared some local governments were to accommodate large non-English speaking populations.
It’s a newer city. It’s quite open-minded. That’s actually what I like about it.
Such frictions exist, says Jim Fong, a real estate agent and investor in Las Vegas. For example, he has found that garden gnome statues never require approval from the homeowners association, but Chinese lion statues of the same size often require paperwork and separate permits.
But overall, he’s confident Las Vegas will be different, especially for his children, who are biracial.
“It’s a newer city. It’s pretty open-minded. That’s actually what I like about it,” says Fong.
Stakeholders in the city’s Chinatowns are even talking about adopting a new name that better reflects the diverse AAPI population, such as “Asia Town” or “International District.”
“It’s an important conversation,” says Lin.
