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New data from the U.S. Census Bureau indicate a change in the flow of immigrants arriving here from around the world, and offer a look at what the nation will look like the future.

The political debate today in Washington remains focused on the status of Hispanic immigrants – people from Latin America still dominate the population of legal and undocumented immigrants in the US. But it's now China that sends more immigrants to the United States. According to the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, 147,000 Chinese arrived in 2013 — the last year for which full data is available. India is second; the source for 129,000 immigrants to the US. Mexico was the country of origin for 125,000 immigrants. Korea, the Philippines and Japan are also leading countries of origin. The data include undocumented immigrants.

The new numbers were presented last week the Population Association of America conference in San Diego.

According to Eric Jensen, Statistician/Demographer with the Census Bureau's Population Division, China's rise to the top comes amid a decade-long surge in Asian migration, and a simultaneous decline in people arriving from Mexico.

Jensen says the change in immigrant flows affects the racial and ethnic makeup of the United States.

"While Hispanics are still the largest racial or ethnic minority group, a larger percentage of the Asian population was foreign-born (65.4) compared with the Hispanic population (35.2) in 2013. Given the numbers above, it is likely that the contribution of immigration to overall population growth will be greater for Asians than for Hispanics," says Jensen.

The new numbers do not surprise demographers.

"We have continued employment opportunities in the United States for people in Asian countries, some in high-tech and engineering," said William Frey of the Brookings Institution. "Many come here to study in graduate schools and wind up staying here."

In Mexico, the economy has gradually improved and population growth is slowing, Frey said.

"On the other hand," he added, "a lot of the kinds of low-wage jobs that attracted people from Mexico and other Latin American countries to the United States have dried up due to the Great Recession and the word has gotten out."

Frey is the author of Diversity Explosion: How New Racial Demographics Are Remaking America. He says the diversity boom America will experience in the next few decades will be as important as the Baby Boom was in the last half of the 20th century.

"As the older, Anglo population grows older, we need all of these younger people from Latin America and Asia and elsewhere to build up our labor force. So this is a different country we're going to have," says Frey.

As a U.S. territory with tropical weather and beautiful beaches, Puerto Rico has a lot going for it. But there are downsides to living on an island. A big one is the cost of energy.

All the electricity on the island is distributed by the government-owned Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, also known as PREPA. Power on the island costs more than in any U.S. state, except Hawaii.

And that's not the biggest problem.

"PREPA is very damaged, very distressed," says Lisa Donahue, an expert on fixing utility companies that are in trouble. "PREPA needs a lot of work."

Puerto Rico is caught in a financial crisis and fixing the energy company is crucial to the island's economic future.

After years of borrowing to cover budget deficits, the U.S. territory is more than $70 billion in debt. The biggest chunk of the debt, more than $9 billion, is owed by PREPA.

Donahue is PREPA's chief restructuring officer. She was hired by the company's board to overhaul and modernize the power company.

She recently told skeptical members of the island's Senate, "We have one chance to do this right, and to set PREPA on the right path and to fix it for the future of Puerto Rico."

The high cost of electricity and the problems with the power company are a leading topic in the newspapers, cafes and on talk radio in Puerto Rico.

Sonia Vazquez met us outside the power company offices in San Juan, carrying a file of bills and correspondence some eight inches thick. She says her monthly power bills make no sense.

"Why am I paying so much?" Of her monthly statement, she says, "It's really difficult to understand it."

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Sonia Vazquez, residential energy customer in San Juan is fighting PREPA, the energy utility agency. Marisa Penaloza/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Marisa Penaloza/NPR

Sonia Vazquez, residential energy customer in San Juan is fighting PREPA, the energy utility agency.

Marisa Penaloza/NPR

Nearly four years ago, Vazquez began contesting part of her bill each month. The fearless 60-year-old now owes the power company nearly $10,000 and has no intention of paying.

"They're supposed to detail to me everything that they're charging me," she says. "Why am I paying something that I don't know what's contained in it?"

Many in Puerto Rico share Vazquez's dissatisfaction with the island's state-owned power company including, perhaps surprisingly, Jose Maeso, Puerto Rico's top energy official.

He says there are many problems with PREPA.

"We have about 50 percent more of the capacity than we need right now. Along with that," he says, "most of the plants are very old — 50, 60 years. The infrastructure is not prepared to be modern, to be competitive."

It's a grid and series of power plants built when Puerto Rico nurtured dreams of industrialization. Decades later, many power plants sit idle, but customers are still paying for them.

But only some of the customers are paying. Nearly a third of PREPA's accounts receive subsidized rates that require them to pay little or nothing. That includes many large users. City governments and hotels are officially exempt from paying.

Maeso says others, including the schools and the island's train system, simply don't pay. The rest of PREPA's customers pick up the tab.

"All of us are subsidizing whatever somebody else doesn't pay, even the government itself," he says. "But that definitely needs to stop in order for us to fix the whole system."

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An energy restructuring hearing in San Juan. Marisa Penaloza/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Marisa Penaloza/NPR

An energy restructuring hearing in San Juan.

Marisa Penaloza/NPR

After decades of mismanagement, for Puerto Rico's power company, time has run out.

It's $9 billion in debt and now unable to make scheduled payments to creditors. It's operating week to week under a series of temporary agreements with Wall Street firms. And some of those bondholders have said they want to raise rates.

Maeso is concerned about the impact higher rates would have on the island's economy, and its ability to retain factories and large employers who may consider moving elsewhere.

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As for residential customers, like Vazquez, Maeso says they'll adjust by turning off lights and not using their air conditioners.

It's advice that makes Vazquez angry.

"They don't really care about us," she says. "They just tell me, 'Don't use your dryer. Why don't you put your clothes outside?' They really think that the way we can do it is sacrificing, and paying more. But they subsidize everyone except the people that work."

Puerto Rico's energy problems may come to a head in July when the power authority is expected to default. If that happens, it will be another blow to the island's already staggering economy.

Puerto Rico

energy

financial crisis

The island of Puerto Rico is many things: a tropical paradise, a U.S. territory and an economic mess. After years of deficits, state-owned institutions in Puerto Rico owe investors some $73 billion. That's four times the debt that forced Detroit into bankruptcy two years ago. The bill is now due.

One of the most visible signs of the crisis is a tent city on the plaza in front of Puerto Rico's historic Capitol building in San Juan. For several weeks, a group of protesters has been camped out, with signs, rallies and music. The group is opposing plans by Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla to raise taxes to help cover Puerto Rico's crippling debt.

Labor organizer Javier Lopez says, "We want fair reform. Those who have more should pay more, not the working poor."

For months now, the financial crisis has been front page news in Puerto Rico, and people are getting angrier.

Sergio Marxuach, an analyst with the Center for a New Economy in San Juan, says he gets asked about it all the time, on the street and even in his local pharmacy. Marxuach says the pharmacist asked him, " 'Do you think, should I move to Miami? I got this offer to work at a pharmacy in Miami.' I said, 'Well, I have no idea what your financial situation is. I can tell you what's going on in Puerto Rico.' But people are very worried."

For 25 years, Puerto Rico has been caught in a debilitating economic spiral. Decades of recession and slow economic growth forced a succession of governments to take out loans to cover budget deficits.

"What we have been doing is basically borrowing to survive today," Marxuach says. "Unfortunately, our debt levels have gotten to a point where the rating agencies have downgraded our credit to below investment grade."

With a junk status rating, Puerto Rico is trying to negotiate a new bond sale with Wall Street investors. At the same time, the island's troubled energy company, PREPA, is desperately trying to stave off default.

As president of the Government Development Bank, Melba Acosta-Febo is Puerto Rico's point person on its economic crisis. For months, she has shuttled between the island, Washington, D.C., and New York City.

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Nearly 20 Wall Street bankers filed out of her office in San Juan just before her interview with NPR. They'd just finished grilling Acosta-Febo for more than an hour, but she was unruffled.

"In these meetings," she says, "most of the questions are very similar questions. I mean, about all issues — liquidity, finances."

Acosta-Febo says the Padilla administration inherited the huge debt and the troubled economy. But after years of mismanagement and borrowing, there aren't any easy solutions.

To deal with its debt, Puerto Rico passed a law that would allow troubled agencies like the state-owned power company to seek bankruptcy protection. A federal judge struck down the law, though, ruling it violated the federal Bankruptcy Code.

The commonwealth is appealing that decision. It's also pushing for a law in Congress to amend the Bankruptcy Code to include Puerto Rico.

In the meantime, the island needs to find money to pay its creditors. And that means raising taxes.

But in Puerto Rico, raising taxes is one thing — collecting them is another. Tax evasion is rampant. A recent study by consultant KPMG reported that Puerto Rico collects just 56 percent of the sales tax that's due.

Economist Marxuach says, "You could see doctors here who charge you on a cash basis only. We're talking people who went to Harvard Med, Johns Hopkins, you know. And would have this sign that said: No Checks, No Credit Cards, No ATM Cards. Just Cash."

To combat tax evasion, Puerto Rico recently passed a law requiring merchants to take some other payment in addition to cash. The Padilla administration also wants to adopt a value-added tax, a consumption tax that would be more difficult to evade.

Development bank head Acosta-Febo concedes that small businesses are likely to take the biggest hit from the new tax. But that's only fair, she says.

"Many of those people don't report the whole revenues or overreport expenses," she says. "So now suddenly, because they're paying consumption, they're paying more. But that's part of what we're doing to curtail tax evasion and to bring more money to the system."

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Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla (right) delivers his budget plan for Puerto Rico's upcoming fiscal year at the Capitol in San Juan on April 30. Legislators rejected his call to raise taxes as a way to compensate for the island's rampant tax evasion. Ricardo Arduengo/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Ricardo Arduengo/AP

Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla (right) delivers his budget plan for Puerto Rico's upcoming fiscal year at the Capitol in San Juan on April 30. Legislators rejected his call to raise taxes as a way to compensate for the island's rampant tax evasion.

Ricardo Arduengo/AP

Even some within Padilla's own party are skeptical about raising taxes to pay down the debt. Puerto Rico's House recently voted down his tax plan. San Juan Sen. Ramon Luis Nieves says he believes in the end, the commonwealth may simply be unable to pay its $73 billion debt in full.

"At some point," Nieves says, "we will have to decide either to pay for the debt service, or pay for our schools and hospitals, health care and social services for the poor. I don't want to reach that point."

But without enough money to pay its debts and with bankruptcy currently not an option, ultimately it may not be Puerto Rico, but bondholders on Wall Street who will decide the island's future.

Puerto Rico

financial overhaul

financial crisis

And when a policeman in Compton's grabbed a drag queen, she threw a cup of coffee in his face. The cafeteria "erupted," according to Susan Stryker, a historian who directed Screaming Queens. People flipped tables and threw cutlery. Sugar shakers crashed through the restaurant's windows and doors. Drag queens swung their heavy purses at officers. Outside on the street, dozens of people fought back as police forced them into paddy wagons. The crowd trashed a cop car and set a newsstand on fire.

"We just got tired of it," St. Jaymes told Stryker. "We got tired of being harassed. We got tired of being made to go into the men's room when we were dressed like women. We wanted our rights."

If the famous Stonewall riots in New York City were the origin of this nation's gay rights movement, the Tenderloin upheaval three years before was "the transgender community's debut on the stage of American political history," according to Stryker. "It was the first known instance of collective militant queer resistance to police harassment in United States history."

Stonewall is often thought of as an uprising of gay men. In reality, "it was drag queens, Black drag queens, who fought the police at the famous Stonewall Inn rebellion in 1969," wrote lesbian novelist and playwright Sarah Schulman in a 1985 novel. "Years later, a group of nouveau-respectable gays tried to construct a memorial to Stonewall in the park across from the old bar. The piece consisted of two white clone-like thin gay men and two white, young lesbians with perfect noses. They were made of a plaster-like substance, pasty and white as the people who paid for it."

While the legacy of Stonewall was whitewashed, the rage and resistance of the San Francisco group went largely unremarked — even among each other.

"We didn't think this was a big deal," Ching told me. "It was a natural thing for people to do back then, to protest."

Besides memories of police and patrons who were there that night, the only record of the riot that survived into the present is a short article by gay activist Raymond Broshears. He wrote it for the program of the first San Francisco gay pride parade, in 1972. Decades later, Stryker found his account and began to seek out the whole story. Her search for people who had been in the Tenderloin back then who spent time at Compton's or took part in the riot led her to Ching, St. Jaymes and another trans woman named Felicia Elizondo.

Courtesy of Tamara Ching

Ching grew up in San Francisco. She recalls hanging out with beatniks on Grant Avenue and began doing sex work as a teenager, in 1965. "My mom was an alcoholic and she let me run the streets and do my own thing."

Ching wasn't at the riot that night, but she knew Compton's well. "It was good to go and be seen and talk to people about what happened during the night. To make sure everybody's OK, everyone made their coins, everybody's coming down off drugs and didn't overdose, and that you didn't go to jail that night," she said.

"Compton's nourished people. People would sit there for days drinking a cup of coffee. I would buy a full meal. I don't cook and I loved eating at Compton's — it was like downtown."

The Tenderloin in the 1960s was a red light district and a residential ghetto. Stryker told me that the neighborhood was a particular destination and home to "young people who maybe had been kicked out by their families and were living on the street. And trans people who could lose a job at any moment or not be hired, who wouldn't be rented to, who had to live in crappy residential hotels in a bad part of town, and who had to do survival sex work to support themselves."

"We sold ourselves because we need to make a living but we sold ourselves because we wanted to be loved," Elizondo says in Stryker's film. Ching told me sex work in the Tenderloin empowered her. She had a job with the government but still worked the streets at night.

Whether for survival, pleasure or some combination of both, sex work left women vulnerable to violence and put them in closer contact with police. But even those who weren't hustling had frequent encounters with law enforcement. St. Jaymes, who ran the residential hotel, told Stryker she was arrested frequently, even though she wasn't a sex worker. "If we had lipstick on, if we had mascara on, if our hair was too long, we had to put it under a cap. If the buttons was on the wrong side, like a blouse, they would take you to jail because they felt it was female impersonation."

"The police could harass you at any time," Ching told me. "They would ask you for pieces of ID. You had to have your male ID if you were born male and didn't go through a sex change. They would pat you down, and while they're patting you down, of course they're feeling you up," she continued. "They would arrest you and put you in the big van, Big Bertha, and drive you around town. When they turned a corner they turned sharply, so people would fall. They'd go over a bump, fast down the hill and make you look a mess by the time you got to the booking station."

Police relations with the trans, drag and gay communities in the Tenderloin reached a boiling point in 1966. Across San Francisco resistance was in the air. Local anti-war protests were gaining momentum. Civil rights activists and religious leaders at a Tenderloin church organized to bring government anti-poverty resources to the neighborhood. A group of radical young queers calling themselves Vanguard started pushing back against discrimination by police and business owners. After Compton's management started kicking them out of the restaurant, they picketed outside on July 18, 1966. Viewed in the context of 1960s activism, identity politics and anti-poverty efforts, the riots that occurred a few weeks later seem inevitable.

Though it can take decades to understand motivations for a particular riot or movement of militant resistance in the streets, there are plenty of instances when a group's anger and frustration over injustice is later celebrated as a civil rights victory. We have a parade every year to commemorate the Stonewall riots — three nights when rioters burned down a bar and tried to overturn a paddy wagon. Now that Bruce Jenner has told Diane Sawyer, "I'm a woman," and Oprah interviewed Janet Mock, we can look at a charge like "female impersonation" and see the Compton's riot as another act of resistance against injustice. One day, history books, pundits and academics could very well talk about the recent unrest in Baltimore or Ferguson the same way.

Right after the Compton's episode, Ching heard about what had happened. "To me, nothing was out of the ordinary," she told me. "We lived to survive day to day. We didn't realize we'd made history."

Nicole Pasulka has contributed to Mother Jones, The Believer, BuzzFeed and Vice.