Kanwal Irfan chatted with employees at the check-out counter of the Asian Market on Thursday morning as they loaded plastic bags with yogurt, tea and Indian snacks for her kids.
The mother is a regular customer at the Sugar Land grocery off Texas 6, where the aisles are stocked with items such as bulk basmati rice, medjool dates and masala-flavored Lay’s chips. She moved to a nearby subdivision seven years ago for its good schools and proximity to shops, restaurants and mosques where she can familiarize her children with Pakistani culture.
“You find a lot of these Indian Pakistani stores, a lot of these restaurants, halal meat — all of this is convenient,” Irfan said.
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Such amenities and a sense of community are drawing throngs of Asian Americans to Houston’s suburbs. Recent figures from the 2020 Census confirm that the region is continuing to become more diverse — and that Asian Americans are driving much of the population growth. They flock to the outskirts of the city for good schools, new housing developments and career opportunities, of course, but demographers say existing diversity is also a major attraction.
“There's this networking process that occurs both in immigration but also in domestic migration,” said Lloyd Potter, state demographer of Texas. “If you’re somebody who has a language and a culture, you probably want to be close to people that have similar language and culture.”
In the last decade, the Asian American population grew faster than any other racial or ethnic group in the counties of Harris, Fort Bend, Montgomery, Galveston, Brazoria, Chambers and Waller, the Census Bureau reported. Though Harris County gained more Asian American residents in sheer numbers, the adjacent counties each reported a greater percentage change in the population.
Asian Americans account for a larger share of the population in Fort Bend than in any other county in Texas, cementing its status as one of the most ethnically diverse places in the United States. The population grew 83.7 percent from 2010 to 2020, with additional 83,167 people. Asian residents now comprise 22.2 percent of the county population, up from 17 percent in 2010.
Indian Americans account for nearly half of Fort Bend’s Asian population, according to 2019 population estimates from the American Community Survey. The second- and third-largest groups are Chinese and Vietnamese, respectively.
Meanwhile, the Black population grew 35.9 percent and the Hispanic population grew 42.9 percent over the same time period. The white population shrank by 4.8%.
The diverse county west of Houston has the opportunity to set the standard for the rest of the country, said Fort Bend County Judge KP George, an Indian American who became the first person of color to serve in the post after he was elected in 2018. Since then, he has been the target of racist messages and behavior, especially as he implemented pandemic restrictions.
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“Diversity is something either you could embrace it, or you could resent it,” said George, a Democrat. “Change is going to happen — and the more you embrace, you will see there’s a lot of commonality among people.”
Fort Bend’s explosive growth — its population rose by more than 40 percent in a decade — comes with challenges, he said, including mobility, drainage and providing services to greater numbers of people. But despite the rapid demographic changes, the Sugar Land resident mostly sees people living in harmony.
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George believes newcomers have been attracted by strong schools, public safety, job opportunities and the local response to COVID-19. The county has successfully implemented strong public health measures to control the spread and boost vaccination rates.
The county’s ethnic diversity is also a draw, said George, who grew up in the south Indian state of Kerala. Immigrants typically seek out familiar places and faces in order to feel comfortable, he said.
“They’re looking for people who look like them,” George said. “If a Muslim person comes, he’s looking for a mosque. A Hindu (person) comes, he’s looking for a temple.”
For example, George said, nearly two dozen churches for his own community of Christians from South India are spread across the 875-square-mile county.
Diversity provides ‘rich’ environment
In Fort Bend, the Asian population has grown in areas such as Sugar Land, Missouri City, Mission Bend, Cinco Ranch and Katy, said Jie Wu, director of research operations at Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research.
There are also growing numbers of Asian Americans in The Woodlands, north of Houston, Wu said. Montgomery County’s Asian American population surged 128.7 percent in the last decade with an increase of 12,284 residents. The group now accounts for 3.5 percent of the county’s population, which remains predominantly white.
In Harris County, the Asian American population grew 38 percent over the decade, with 96,236 more people, according to census data. The west and northwest sides of the county experienced the most growth, Wu said.
Wu said the region can no longer be called a “melting pot” — which implies that people lose their identity as they blends into a homogeneous culture — but instead a “salad bowl.” In the latter scenario, each group maintains its own culture and identity while living alongside others.
For example, there are more Chinese restaurants and Asian grocery stores in her Pearland neighborhood than when she moved there two decades ago, Wu said. It’s convenient and lets her expose her daughter to her Chinese culture.
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Meanwhile, Wu’s neighbors are Vietnamese, Egyptian and Latino; her daughter’s school hosts international festivities. Wu said she enjoys making friends with people from different backgrounds and watching her daughter learn about other cultures.
“It just feels (like a) very rich environment,” she said. “I’m happy to have my kid living in this kind of community. Her friends, her classmates, they have different cultures, they celebrate different holidays. So we have the chance to talk through all of that.”
In 2019, Alice Chen became the first Asian American woman elected to the Stafford City Council. Last year, Robin Elackatt become the first India native to be elected mayor of Missouri City. Both communities are mostly in Fort Bend with parts in Harris County.
Voters like to elect a representative who understands their culture, language, needs and wants, Chen said. As Fort Bend’s demographics shift, Chen said, she believes its political landscape will, too.
The councilwoman overcame language and cultural barriers when she moved to the U.S. to attend a master’s program on a full scholarship, she said. Now, it is her passion to serve the community that she has watched grow and change into a hub of diversity.
“We bring all the best from all over the world to be here together, to build Fort Bend County, to be an international city,” Chen said. “That’s the future of America.”
Marketplace, new temple offer glimpse of home
There is ample evidence of the community’s diverse population in restaurants, shops and places of worship scattered across the suburbs.
Ramesh Chittur, owner of Asian Market in Sugar Land, bought the shop in 2009 when he moved from California to Texas for his son’s education in petroleum engineering. Customers and neighbors have become like family to the longtime shop owner — they bring him sweets on holidays.
While the store has many regular customers, Chittur has noticed plenty of new shoppers, too.
“I can feel that it is growing everyday,” Chittur said. “You see a lot of new faces — people moving from California, people moving from the East Coast, Midwest.”
A few miles west of Chittur’s shop, members of the Vadtal Dham Shree Swaminarayan Hindu Temple are building a new temple and community center to meet the needs of a congregation that has grown tenfold in the last decade, to roughly 500 people, said Madan Patel, a leader among the religious group.
The group purchased an 8-acre plot of land where it intends to construct a large temple, event space and medical clinic to serve as a community hub.
The land is adjacent to the master-planned subdivision of Aliana, home to many Indian Americans, and wedged between Sugar Land and Katy. The location is close enough to major roads and highways for easy access, Patel said, but far enough away that the temple will offer a peaceful environment for yoga classes and spiritual growth.
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The first phase of the long-term project, a 12,000-square-foot community center, is expected to be finished early next year.
For now, the community gathers on Saturday nights for prayer, dinner and socializing at a small temporary temple on the property. On holidays, they host festivities with music, dancing and food under tents in the gravel parking lot.
The temple serves as a home for seniors from India who face challenges in the U.S. and miss their homeland, Patel said. During the early days of the pandemic, for example, younger members brought food to their doorsteps and made calls to check on their mental health.
It’s also a community where Indian immigrants can expose their children to their beliefs, values and heritage, even as they raise them in America with Christmas and Halloween. Patel said kids learn about volunteering, nonviolence and respecting others.
“We feel like we’re living near our own home country,” said Meet Patel, a contractor who moved from India to Texas for business opportunities. “We get that feeling when we come to temple.”
anna.bauman@chron.com
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