North Dakota has outpaced every other in growing its Asian American communities, even as California keeps its lead as the state with the largest Asian American population.
FARGO, N.D.
It was an unexpected twist that led the Rev. Yuanlai Zhang a minister who lived among 13 million others in the hot and humid Chinese city of Shenzhen to start a new life on the sparse and frigid prairie of North Dakota.
But Zhang has become a man of the plains. A Mandarin-language preacher who travels the state with a Bible and a pressed suit, he lives with his wife and toddler in suburban Fargo. He’s the first full-time pastor at the Red River Valley Chinese Christian Church, which was founded five years ago and whose 50-family congregation is the largest Chinese Christian flock in North Dakota.