Asian American Psychology

Current Perspectives

Nita Tewari, Alvin N. Alvarez, Nita Tewari, Alvin N. Alvarez

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781136678028
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This is the first textbook written to welcome those who are new to Asian American psychology. Concepts and theories come to life by relating the material to everyday experiences and by including activities, discussion questions, exercises, clinical case studies, and internet resources. Contributions from the leading experts and emerging scholars an

1

Who Are Asian Americans?

An Overview of History, Immigration, and Communities

CINDY H. LIU, JESSICA MURAKAMI, SOPAGNA EAP, and GORDON C. NAGAYAMA HALL

OUTLINE OF CHAPTER

Introduction

Background

History and Immigration

Socioeconomic Status

The “Model Minority”?

References

Gannen-mono. Paper son. Manong. Pau hana. Gum sahn. Mountain of Gold. Tengoku. Illegals. Labor contract. Kanyaku-imin. Ticket dance. Runaway. Picture bride. Chinese Exclusion Act. Executive Order 9066. “I am Chinese.” Flips. Juk Sing. “. . . fight to prove our loyalty.” F.O.B. No-No Boy. Manzanar. The Golden Spike. “. . . your slanty-eyed, Korean ass. . . ” Citizenship. Chinatown. Assimilation. Heritage. Homeland. Gooks. Boat People. “Success Story: Outwhiting the Whites.” Hmong quilt. The “Community.” Ancestors. Vincent Chin. Homeland. Hawaii Calls. HR 442. haiku. Panoum. Cababayan. Greengrocer. Cleaners. Dogeaters. Diploma. Diaspora. Asian American. Song, Encarnacion, Shahid Ali. Ai. Aiieeeee! The Woman Warrior. Bruce Lee. Immigration attorney. Kearny Street. International Hotel. Berkeley quota. Wharton School. Chancellor. Tenure. Oneand-a-half. Mainland. Homeland. . .

Introduction

The passage above contains most of the word-cloud by Japanese American poet Garrett Hongo in his introduction to The Open Boat: Poems from Asian America, a collection of poems by Asian Americans. Hongo continues, “For the thirty writers here emerge out of more than a hundred years of immigration, sojourning, settlement, misconception, stereotyping, and soul-searching” (Hongo, 1993, pp. xviii–xix). Indeed, the history of Asian Americans in the United States is rich, varied, and often troubling. In this introductory chapter, we provide a brief overview of the history of Asian Americans from the first wave of Asian immigration until the “model minority” image of today. Who are Asian Americans? What does it mean to be Asian American? The focus of this chapter is on the first question, which is much more straightforward than the latter. For now, let us note that what it means to be Asian American varies from person to person, and that the experiences of Asian Americans living in the United States are incredibly diverse, influenced by a number of factors, such as the level of acculturation, country of origin, socioeconomic status, and geographic location.

Background

When I was a kid back in the 1940s, I was always asked, “Are you Chinese or Japanese?” as if there could be no other options. There are over sixty different Asian groups in the United States today, from origins as diverse as Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Laos, Myanmar, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, as well as the islands of Polynesia—each with its own history, language, and culture. Some segments have been in the United States since the 1850s; others arrived only last week.

–Elaine H. Kim (2003)

Asian Americans are descendents of immigrants from any part of Asia, or are themselves immigrants from Asia to the United States. Countries of origin include East Asian countries (China, Japan, and Korea), Southeast Asian countries (e.g., Cambodia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia), and South Asian countries (India, Nepal, and Pakistan). Consisting of more than 17 million square miles, Asia is the largest continent on earth, and makes up approximately one-third of the earth's land. More than 60% of the world's population resides in Asia, while approximately 5% of the world's population can be found in the United States.

Within the United States, Asian Americans are the fastest-growing minority group (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000). According to the 2000 Census, Asian Americans number 11,070,913 individuals (3.9% of the U.S. population). This is a sharp increase from the results of the 1990 Census, when Asian Americans numbered 6,908,638 (2.8% of the U.S. population). Chinese Americans make up the largest Asian group in the United States at 0.9% of the country's population, followed by Filipino Americans (0.7%), Asian Indians (0.6%), Korean Americans (0.4%), and Japanese Americans (0.3%). Table 1.1 displays the populations of each Asian ethnic group in the United States. Interestingly, 3,916,204 Asian Americans (1.4% of the U.S. population) identified themselves as “other Asian,” which includes other Asian groups and/or mixed heritage. A relatively high percentage of Asian Americans marry outside of their ethnicity. Intermarriage rates among Asian Americans from the 2000 Census indicate that 12% of Asian men and 23% of Asian women are currently married to non-Asians. It has become increasingly common to see (and be a part of) an interracial couple. More and more often, Asian American men and women are marrying outside of their particular Asian group to other Asians (e.g., a Chinese American man marrying a Filipino American woman) and non-Asians (e.g., European Americans, African Americans, and Native Hawaiians).

Until the 2000 U.S. Census, Pacific Islanders were grouped together with Asian Americans. Pacific Islanders are immigrants or descendents of immigrants from one of the Pacific Islands to the United States, including Hawaii, Samoa, Fiji, Guam, and the islands of Micronesia. The term Asian American often assumes the inclusion of Pacific Islanders, although more recently the term Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AA/PI) has been adopted to explicitly acknowledge the grouping of American Pacific Islanders with Asian Americans. Approximately 0.1% of the American population self-identifies as Pacific Islanders (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000).

According to a census taken in March 2002, 12.5 million Americans identify themselves as AA/PI (4.4% of the population; Reeves & Bennett, 2003). In general, AA/PIs are younger than non-Hispanic Whites. Twenty-six percent of AA/PIs in March 2002 were under the age of 18, while it is estimated that the number of AA/PI youth will increase to 74% by 2015 (Snyder & Sickmund, 1999). Depending on where you grew up, these numbers may be surprising. In cities such as Honolulu, Asian Americans made up 61.8% of the population in 2000. According to the census taken in March 2002, over half of the AA/PI population resides in the West (51%), 19% in the South, and 12% in the Midwest, while the remaining 19% lives in the Northeast. Ninety-five percent of AA/PIs reside in metropolitan areas, compared to 78% of the non-Hispanic Caucasian population.

Table 1.1 Population of Asian Ethnic Groups

Ethnic group	Asian alone	Two Asian ethnicities	Asian and at least one other race	Total population alone or in any combination
Chinese	2,314, 537	130, 826	289,478	2,734,841
Filipino	1,850,314	57,811	456,690	2,364,815
Asian Indian	1,678,765	40,013	180,821	1,899,599
Korean	1,076,872	22,550	129,005	1,228,427
Vietnamese	1,122,528	47,144	54,064	1,223,736
Japanese	769,700	55,537	296,695	1,148,932
Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders
Islanders				874,414
Cambodian	171,937	11,832	22,283	206,052
Pakistani	153,533	11,095	39,681	204,309
Laotian	168,707	10,396	19,100	198,203
Hmong	169,428	5,284	11,598	186,310
Thai	112,989	7,929	29,365	150,293
Taiwanese	118,048	14,096	12,651	144,795
Indonesian	39,757	4,429	18,887	63,073
Bangladeshi	41,280	5,625	10,507	57,412

Source: U.S. Census Bureau. (2000). Census 2000. Washington, DC.

Whereas a large percentage of AA/PIs were born in the United States, approximately 69% of Asian Americans (not including Pacific Islanders) are foreign born (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000). As with many other characteristics (e.g., average years of education and income levels), this percentage varies dramatically depending on what particular Asian group is being considered. For example, 40% of Japanese Americans versus approximately 75% of Korean Americans are foreign born. About one-quarter of the foreign-born population in the United States was born in Asia. Of these 7.2 million people, the majority immigrated after 1980, following previous generations of Asian immigrants and adding to the diverse cultural landscape of a growing country.

History and Immigration

The study of Asian Americans often begins with a study of their immigration history. Alongside Europeans, hundreds of thousands of Chinese, Japanese, South Asians, Koreans, Filipinos, Southeast Asians, and Pacific Islanders arrived in the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries. The reasons behind the immigration for each Asian group across the generations differed based on the political and economic landscapes of the United States and of the Asian country from which they came. Alongside the laws created to affect their immigration (see Table 1.2), the reactions of the European American majority played a role in the reception of Asian immigrants. These circumstances colored the immigrants’ prospects of being American and their experiences in American culture.

Table 1.2 Major Congressional Acts and Judicial Rulings on Asian American Immigration and Naturalization

1882	Chinese Exclusion Law suspends immigration of Chinese American laborers for 10 years
1898	Wong Kim Ark v. U.S. decides that Chinese born in the U.S. cannot be stripped of their citizenship
1917	Asiatic Barred Zone Act defines a geographic “barred zone” (including India); immigration from Asia ceases
1922	Takao Ozawa v. U.S. declares Japanese ineligible for naturalized citizenship
1923	U.S. v. Bhagat Singh Thind declares Asian Indians ineligible for naturalized citizenship, after ruling Indians as being Asian and non-White
1943	Magnuson Act repeals all Chinese exclusion laws, grants right of naturalization and a small immigration quota to Chinese
1946	Luce–Celler Bill grants right of naturalization and small immigration quotas to Asian Indians and Filipinos, allowing a quota of 100 Indians and 100 Filipinos to immigrate to the United States
1965	Immigration and Nationality Services (INS) Act of 1965 abolishes “national origins” as a basis for allocating immigration quotas to various countries—Asian countries now on equal footing

Source: Chan, S. (1991). Asian Americans: An interpretive history. CT: Twayne Publishers.

Chinese Americans

The Chinese were among the earliest wave of East Asian immigrants to arrive. By the mid-1800s, high taxes, peasant rebellions, and family feuds led to poverty and starvation in China, which prompted thousands of Chinese to flee to countries around the world (Loo, 1998; Hoobler & Hoobler, 1994). This period of strife coincided with the onset of the California gold rush. Dreams of wealth led to the immigration of young Chinese men to the American West, encouraged by stories they heard about America. One young man wrote about America to his brother:

Oh! Very rich country.. . . They find gold very quickly so I hear.. . . I feel as if I should like to go there very much. I think I shall go to California next summer. (Takaki, 1998, p. 34)

As sojourners, these men planned to return to China after earning enough money to support their families (Kitano & Daniels, 1995). These early Chinese Americans emigrated to escape the suffering endured in China, only to encounter it again in America. The hardships, however, were of a different quality. Although the government and public in California initially welcomed the Chinese, White American miners began to feel threatened by their presence (Hing, 1993; Takaki, 1998). Within 6 months of the initial welcome, the California government claimed that the customs, language, and education of the Asiatic races “threatened the well-being of the mining districts” (Takaki, 1998, p. 81). The government then imposed the foreign miners’ license tax, the first of many taxes to discourage Chinese immigration (Hing, 1993).

Chinese Americans in the late 1800s often filled the void of low-paying jobs in the growing industries of America. They used their knowledge of agriculture to cultivate farms in the West, and they labored in mining and land development. Approximately 15,000 Chinese Americans played a notable, yet often uncelebrated, role as railroad workers who created the first transcontinental railroad in America (e.g., Loo, 1998; Takaki, 1998; Hoobler & Hoobler, 1994).

During the 1870s, working-class European Americans, incited by an Irish immigrant, Denis Kearney, rallied against the Chinese Americans. Their anti-Chinese movement exploited the Chinese Americans as scapegoats for the economic hardship at that time, and demanded “The Chinese Must GO” (Hoobler & Hoobler, 1994). Not everyone shared the anti-Chinese sentiment, but the movement still grew, and ultimately led t...