By HAYA El NASSER

USA TODAY

LAS VEGAS — Dozens of workers line up for a buffet catered by Satay Malaysian Grille, a popular Chinatown eatery here.

They carry plates piled high with Asian delicacies to nine rows of long tables facing a dais.

By the time the employees savor mango-sticky-rice treats, their luncheon speakers are introduced: a local TV reporter, a former school administrator, a bank founder, a magazine publisher, a chamber of commerce executive, a local politician.

Only one is Anglo. The rest: Chinese, Japanese, Thai — all Asian Americans.

This event isn't in Las Vegas' Chinatown district but in a meeting room at one of the pillars of the local business establishment: Nevada Power. The lunch, held so the utility's employees could hear voices from the Asian-American community, is a reflection of the explosive growth and rising clout of Asian Americans in Nevada and other inland Western states. They've become a powerful voting bloc that's being wooed by presidential candidates — and an economic force that businesses are catering to.

This decade, the Asian population has grown at a faster rate than that of the Hispanic population in 14 states — including Nevada, Arizona and Texas — as well as Washington, D.C.

In a surprising twist to historical settlement patterns, growing numbers of Asian Americans are beginning to bail from the places that have long been their main gateways to the West: California and Washington. Wearied by the same crushing home prices, poor schools, jammed freeways and persistent crime that have sent millions of other Californians packing, Asian Americans are moving to spots in the West they hope will produce better lifestyles — namely Las Vegas and Phoenix.

The Asian migration is fueling ethnic diversity in places that have been overwhelmingly white. Since 1990, Nevada has had the most rapid growth of any state in the number of Asians and Pacific Islanders.

The number jumped 174 percent in the 1990s and 67 percent so far this decade to about 211,000, according to 2007 Census Bureau estimates. Asians now make up about 8.2 percent of Nevada's 2.6 million people — a higher percentage than the national share of 5.4 percent. Most live here in Clark County, where Asians are the fastest-growing minority.

Arizona also is registering significant growth among Asians, a trend fueled largely by an exodus from California and Washington. They're leaving for lower cost of living, warm climates and better job markets, a reflection of the migration patterns that have made Nevada and Arizona the nation's fastest-growing states throughout much of the past two decades.

Asians are doing what middle-class whites have been doing for decades: moving to more affordable parts of the West, says William Frey, demographer at the Brookings Institution.

"California is losing Asians, and the main destinations are other states in the Mountain West," he says.

His analysis of Census data shows that since 2001, 86,000 more Asians left California for the inland mountain states than vice versa. "It started with whites, followed by Hispanics, and Asians are now continuing that trend," Frey says. "It means a place like Las Vegas is becoming a microcosm of growing America."

Pauline Ng Lee, a Chinese-American bankruptcy lawyer, moved 10 years ago from Los Angeles' Hollywood Hills section to Summerlin, an upscale community on Las Vegas' west side. "We moved into a neighborhood where more than 60 percent of the residents were from California, either southern or northern," she says. "We came out for two reasons: My husband had a great opportunity ... as a physician, and the cost of living was so much lower."

In the first quarter of this year, for example, the median sales price of existing single-family homes in the Las Vegas area was $247,600, compared with $459,400 in the Los Angeles area, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Visible signs of growth

Ten years ago, Las Vegas' Chinatown was less than three blocks long. Today, it stretches almost four miles along Spring Mountain Boulevard. It's beginning to spread out on either side. Business after business, restaurant after restaurant crowd strip malls and office buildings. Signs in Korean and Chinese adorn the facades. Newspaper racks offer publications in more than a half-dozen Asian languages.

"The traditional Chinatown area is really becoming an integral part of our broader community," says Maureen Peckman, executive director of The Council for a Better Nevada, a group of business and civic leaders concerned with quality-of-life issues. "That's the hallmark of a maturing community."

This neighborhood is one of the most visible signs of growth in the Asian American community here. There are others:

— Construction is scheduled to begin this year on the 180,000-square-foot Asia Town Center. The developers bill it as the Southwest's largest Asian shopping center.

"The fastest-growing demographic is Asian but this town doesn't have a major Asian center," says Chris Hardin, vice president of operations at DFG Development Corp., one of the developers.

The center will feature up to 10 of the West's most prominent Asian retailers. The anchor grocer, Hmart, will occupy 50,000 square feet and sell produce, meats, household wares and prepared foods at low prices.

It will be "like an Asian version of Whole Foods, except with Costco prices," DFG says.

— Las Vegas' first Asian bank opened last summer. Founded by local investors, First Asian Bank targets the financial, cultural and linguistic needs of the entire Asian community. Dee Mallas, owner of a real estate firm and co-owner of a mortgage funding company, is one of the bank's founders. She saw the void in banking services for the Asian community when dealing with Asian buyers.

"I saw the growth and I saw the need, but if you target only Chinese or only Korean, it's not big enough," says Mallas, who is Thai American.

That's why First Asian Bank's two branches cater to all Asian groups. The number "8," a symbol of prosperity, is the first number of the bank's branch numbers and all its customers' account numbers (the Beijing Olympics start on 8/8/08 for the same reason). Two Texas companies have since opened banks in Las Vegas to target the Asian market.

— The Asian Real Estate Association of America opened a Las Vegas chapter last year. John Fukuda, its founding president, is a third-generation Japanese American and another California transplant. A successful Internet entrepreneur, he now owns a mortgage company.

He knew there was a need for such an organization when giant homebuilder D.R. Horton Inc. asked for help targeting the Asian market. Relocation directors in pursuit of teachers and doctors also needed their help. "Membership went from eight to 800," he says. "Half of the membership is not Asian."

Real estate agents have organized "fly-and-buys" for Californians, offering them three days and two nights in Vegas to play and check out properties.

— The first national glossy magazine to target all Asian ethnicities is scheduled to be launched from Vegas in September. The monthly "AsianAm" will sell for $4.50, aim for an initial circulation of 700,000 and try to capture the attention of Asians ages 18 to 34, says Bessy Lee-Oh, CEO and publisher.

"Other magazines are small and niche-targeted or ethnic specific," says Lee-Oh, a Chinese American. "We are neither. We go from business to politics - the entire game. ... It was my dream."

— Chinese New Year, on the first day of the first lunar month in the Chinese calendar (Feb. 7 this year), is now the second-largest draw for casinos here - second only to the conventional New Year's holiday. At least four casinos, including the Gold Coast and Palace Station, have beefed up efforts to target the Asian market year-round.

Most hotels and casinos are careful not to offend Asian sensibilities. Fifteen years ago, when the MGM Grand HotelsCasino opened, guests had to enter through what appeared to be the mouth of a lion, the company's corporate logo. Many Asian patrons were not amused. They considered walking into the mouth of a beast bad luck and avoided the casino. MGM spent millions redesigning the entrance.

— The Asian Bar Association, formed in 2002 by three lawyers, including Lee, now has about 50 active members. "Ten years ago, I was one of the few if not the only Asian practicing regularly in bankruptcy court," says Lee, a Chinese American married to a Korean American.

"Asiatown,' not Chinatown

The influx of Asians has been widely accepted because Las Vegas is accustomed to new arrivals from everywhere, Peckman says. "We have over 7,000 people moving to southern Nevada every month, we add 100 cars to our roads on a daily basis. So, to say the Asian growth is visible, yes, it's visible but so is the growth in so many of our other demographic populations."

Laurie Kruse, 47, moved here from California 20 years ago. She began to see dramatic changes about three years ago in the pews of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, the Catholic Church she attends. More Filipinos were joining the congregation. Then there was the boom in Chinatown. "It's brought in a great aspect as far as I'm concerned," says Kruse, an administrator. "The way they worship is tremendous. ... It's brought a different culture into Las Vegas."

Filipinos are the largest Asian group here, at about 45 percent. Chinese are the next at 15 percent, Japanese and Koreans make up 9 percent each, Asian Indians and Vietnamese represent about 5 percent each, and other Asians make up 12 percent.

Because the Asian community is still relatively small in numbers, ethnic divisions are not as distinct as in places such as Los Angeles, San Francisco or New York.

Although it's officially called Chinatown, "it's really Asiatown," Fukuda says.

"A lot of it has to do with maximizing their political clout," Frey says. "They want to identify themselves as a pan-Asian group rather than segment themselves. ... It makes sense for Asians to band together."

California generates more Asian migrants than other states, but they're coming from elsewhere, too.

The owners of Satay Malaysian Grille moved from Seattle. Stan Saito, president of the Las Vegas Asian Chamber of Commerce, is a Japanese American who moved from Texas. Magazine publisher Lee-Oh moved from New York.

Los Angeles banker William Chu was still skeptical, however, when he was approached about heading First Asian Bank a couple of years ago. "Yes, there are a lot of Asians coming in but they're visitors to the Strip, I thought," he says. "Then they drove me around and I said, "Wow.' "

Chinese-American Chu made the move and now is the bank's president and CEO.

Las Vegas is luring Asians young and old, professional and service workers, native-born Americans and immigrants.

"It's somewhat of a bipolar community," says Jeremy Aguero, principal analyst at Applied Analysis, a Nevada business research and consulting firm. "There are professionals and those with limited skills."

There could be plenty of jobs for both groups. The first phase of MGM Mirage's CityCenter, a $9.2-billion, 68-acre project, is under construction on the Strip between the Bellagio and Monte Carlo hotels and casinos. It will need 12,500 employees, Aguero says. The Echelon, a $4.8 billion hotel project on 87 acres, is scheduled to open in 2010. It will need 12,000 workers.

"We're just yearning for talented human capital," Peckman says.

Despite Las Vegas' dubious distinction as the metropolitan area that has the most foreclosures, Aguero says job growth will continue and home ownership will climb again. The Asian population will grow because "people want to be close to family and friends, and there are more family and friends to be close to."