California is facing the end of an era as Asian immigrants have begun to come to California faster than Latino immigrants.
"This is a pretty astounding change over a short period of time," Hans Johnson, co-director of the Public Policy Institute of California, told the Sacremento Bee, citing census data.
In 2001, 42 percent of immigrants coming to California were from Latin America, primarily Mexico, while 37 percent were from Asia, the Bee reports. In 2011, 57 percent of new immigrants were from Asia, and just 22 percent were from Latin America.
The demographic breakdown of California's swearing-in of new citizens Wednesday was as follows:
450 from Asia (100 from India, 94 from the Philippines, 63 from Vietnam, 33 from China, 29 from Laos)
160 from Latin America (119 people from Mexico)
35 from Ukraine
Click here to see which countries immigrants to California came from in 2011.
Johneric Concordia, a restaurant owner in LA's Filipinotown, told NBC that he is optimistic that the state's new immigration trend will mean more Asian political candidates, loans and scholarships.
One hurdle that Asians face in advocating for such access, however, is the diversity of Asian languages -- whereas most Latinos speak Spanish.
Doreena Wong of the Los Angeles Asian Pacific American Legal Center, told ABC that a lot of Asian immigrants are highly-educated and employable. "There are a lot of students from overseas countries in Asia and then they come here and get jobs," Wong said.
But this immigration change doesn't mean that the number of Asians in California is about to surpass the number of Latinos.
In fact, Latinos are expected to become California's largest ethnic group sometime this year, which is a couple of years earlier than demographers predicted. That's partially because California's birthrate is declining, as is migration from other states and nations.