Washington is ethnically and racially heterogeneous. As of 2000, foreign-born Washingtonians made up 10.4% of the state's population (614,457), up from 6.6% in 1990. The largest minority group consists of Hispanics and Latinos, numbering 441,509, or 7.5% of the state population, according to the 2000 census, more than double the 1990 figure of 215,000. Most of the state's Spanish-speaking residents have arrived since World War II. Black Americans numbered 190,267 in 2000. Black immigration dates largely from World War II and postwar recruitment for defense-related industries.
Japanese-Americans have been farmers and small merchants in Washington throughout the 20th century. During World War II, the Nisei (Japanese Americans) of Washington were deported to internment camps. Chinese-Americans, imported as laborers in the mid-1800s, endured a wave of mob violence during the 1880s. As of 2000, the Asian population was estimated at 322,335, up from 281,000 in 1996. According to the 1990 census, there were 65,373 Filipinos, 35,985 Japanese, 59,914 Chinese, 46,880 Koreans, and 46,149 Vietnamese, up from 17,004 in 1990. Pacific Islanders numbered 23,953 in 2000, including 8,049 Samoans and 4,883 native Hawaiians. Immigration from Southeast Asia was an importan demographic factor during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
There were 93,301 American Indians, Eskimos, and Aleuts living in Washington in 2000, the eighth-highest total in the nation. Indian lands in the state cover some 2.5 million acres (1 million hectares). The Yakama reservation had a population of 31,799 in 2000. A dispute developed in the 1970s over Indian fishing rights in the Puget Sound area; a decision in 1974 by US District Judge George Boldt that two 120-year-old treaties guaranteed the Indians 50% of the salmon catch in certain rivers was essentially upheld by the US Supreme Court in 1979.