Asians outpace other residents in Jericho and Hicksville, census shows

Growth in Asian populations helped fuel demographic shifts in Jericho and Hicksville that has made them majority-minority communities in the town of Oyster Bay, U.S. census data shows.

In Jericho, minorities — who include Blacks, Hispanics and other ethnicities — grew to 57% of the population in 2020 from 31.5% in 2010, according to census data. During that time period, the percentage of minorities in Hicksville increased to 56.5% from 38.4%. In both places, the Asian populations grew faster than the population as a whole while the white populations declined.

The category of "Asian," according to the U.S. Census Bureau website, includes people with origins in "the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent" such as Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand and Vietnam.

Oyster Bay remained a majority white town as its population increased to 301,332 in 2020 from 293,214 in the previous census, but its white population shrank to 69.2% from 80%. Whites were the only group to shrink — both in number and as a percentage of the population — as Blacks, Hispanics, Asians and "Other" all increased, census data shows.

In Jericho, the Asian population more than doubled, increasing to 7,168 from 3,442 between the two censuses. Asians grew to become the largest group in Jericho, making up 48.4% of the population of 14,808 in 2020.

Gordon Zhang, president of the Long Island Chinese American Association, said Chinese Americans have been moving to Nassau County from New York City in search of safe neighborhoods and better schools.

"Nassau County welcomes Asians," Zhang said of the growth in Jericho and other communities. "It’s not just because Jericho is [a] top school district; the majority is the overall environment, the diverse environment."

The website Niche.com ranks the Jericho school district as the best in New York State and the second best in the United States in 2021.

Efforts by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to change the admissions process to the city’s specialized high schools has been a factor in many New York City Asian American parents’ decision to move to Long Island, he said.

"That [shook] the confidence of many Asian American parents and that pushed them to move," Zhang said.

In recent years, the Asian population in Oyster Bay has increasingly organized to make its concerns heard by policymakers, including an unsuccessful attempt to stop the town from approving a new hotel to be built next to the Milleridge Inn in Jericho.

In Hicksville, where South Asian grocery stores, clothing shops and restaurants dot the streetscape, the Asian population grew to 14,178 in 2020 from 8,139 a decade earlier, according to census data. Asians are the second largest group, comprising 32.3% of the population compared with 43.5% for whites.

Shashi Malik, president of the India Association of Long Island, said Hicksville has become a second Jackson Heights, Queens, for Indian Americans leaving their apartments in the city to buy houses in the suburbs.

"It is becoming a hub," Malik said, adding that Indian Americans’ religious, economic, financial and cultural needs can all be met "right around the corner."

"The basic needs of any Indian community, or minority needs, it’s all here in the Hicksville area," Malik said.

Malik said that politically, the community is becoming more engaged but that politicians tend to show up right before elections.

"That is not enough," she said.