Data from the Survey of Income and Education, conducted nationwide by the Bureau of the Census and the National Center for Education Statistics, provided information on the birthplace and language characteristics of persons of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Pilipino, and Vietnamese origin in the spring of 1976. The largest single group within this total identified itself as Japanese--620,000. Though they live in the United States, 57 percent of those studied were born in Asia. The Japanese contrasted sharply with the other groups, since nearly three-fourths of them were born in the United States. Two-thirds of the people studied lived in households in which Asian languages were spoken. A person's birthplace was related to his or her current language exposure and usage. Among U.S.-born Asians, excluding the Japanese, about three out of five lived in households in which Asian languages were spoken. In contrast, more than four out of five Asians born abroad lived in such households. Fewer than a third of U.S.-born Japanese lived in Japanese-speaking households, but nearly 7 in 10 foreign-born Japanese did so. (SW)