But the new research also points to gaping income inequality among Asians in the US. The fastest-growing ethnic group in America, the Asian community includes both longtime residents as well as newcomers from East Asia, the Indian subcontinent and the Pacific Islands.

“You’re looking at different cultures and languages and characteristics and different motivations for coming to the US.” Rakesh Kochhar, senior researcher at Pew and co-author of the report, said. “Asians are often pictured as the highest-achieving group in America, but it’s clear they are in fact the most economically divided ethnic group.”

The gap between the highest- and lowest-earning Asians nearly doubled from 1970 to 2016, which Kochhar described as “connected entirely to the Asian immigrant experience.”

After the Vietnam War ended, thousands of refugees and displaced persons moved to the US. Compared to Asians already living in the US, a large share of the new immigrants had fewer skills and less education, Kochhar said. Changes in immigration policy that favoured highly skilled immigrants again shifted the demographics of more recent Asian arrivals.

Immigrants make up a majority of the 20 million Asians living in the US. In 2016, 78% of Asian adults in the US were foreign-born, up from 45%, according to a Pew study.

Income inequality is rising overall in the US. In 1970, people in the top 10% of the income distribution made 6.9 times more than people in the bottom 10%. By 2016, that gap had widened to 8.7 times.