Asian America

Pawan Dhingra, Robyn Magalit Rodriguez

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781509534302
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Demography
• Index: Social Sciences

Asian Americans are the fastest growing minority population in the country. Moreover, they provide a unique lens on the wider experiences of immigrants and minorities in the United States, both historically and today. Pawan Dhingra and Robyn Magalit Rodriguez's acclaimed introduction to understanding this diverse group is here updated in a thoroughly revised new edition. Incorporating cutting-edge thinking and discussion of the latest current events, the authors critically examine key topics in the Asian-American experience, including education and work, family and culture, media and politics, and social hierarchies of race, gender, and sexuality.

Through vivid examples and clear discussion of a broad range of theories, the authors explore the contributions ofAsian American Studies, sociology, psychology, history, and other fields to understanding Asian Americans, and vice versa. The new edition includes further pedagogical elements to help readers apply the core theoretical and analytical frameworks encountered. In addition, the book takes readers beyond the boundaries of the United States to cultivate a comparative understanding of the Asian experience as it has become increasingly global and diasporic.

This engaging text will continue to be a welcome resource for those looking for arich and systematic overview of Asian America, as well as forundergraduate and graduate courses on immigration, race, American society, and Asian American Studies.

Part I
Framing Asian America

1
Introduction

Asian Americans are overrepresented among college graduates, with 50% of Asian Americans age 25 and older having gained at least a bachelor’s degree, compared to a quarter of the US population as a whole.¹ They are accomplished professionals in fields ranging from the sciences to the arts. They have a high rate of small-business ownership. They are seen as model workers. At the same time, a greater percentage of Asian Americans than non-Hispanic whites live in poverty, and Asian Americans are more likely than the US population overall to be uninsured.² A range of Asian Americans rely on public welfare programs, work in low-wage and in ethnic enclaves (e.g. Chinatown, Koreatown, Little Saigon), encounter racial stereotypes as foreigners, suffer from untreated mental health illnesses, are undocumented, and/or are victims of hate crimes.³

Yet, even with all of these variations and contradictions, it is not the multifaceted lives of Asian Americans alone that make them necessary subjects of study. The experiences of Asian Americans speak to more than just this group. Their lives provide insight into a host of broader topics that have been the key focus of academic and popular concern. These topics include how race shapes people’s lives; how immigrants gradually assimilate – or do not – to their surroundings; how war and empire building impact families; how transnationalism influences people’s social and economic opportunities; how small groups come together or engage in conflict; how people self-identify; what leads to academic success and failure; and more. The goal of the book is to shed light on such general sociological questions through the experiences of Asian Americans.

Learning how Asian Americans experience these and other issues, moreover, tells us about the United States as a nation, for the nation is well understood based on how it treats its newcomers and minorities. According to the United States’ self-proclaimed creed as a nation of immigrants, all persons are welcome to make a new life here. But is there true equality in schools, the workplace, media, and elsewhere for all persons, regardless of country of origin, religion, gender, or other social categories? Can the nation become truly multicultural, or will the cultural definition of the United States remain Anglo-Saxon and Christian? What do the hate crimes against Asian Americans in response to the coronavirus reveal about the country? Do immigration laws give immigrants control over their lives upon entering the United States, or do they privilege the interests of others? Does growing economic globalization create more transnational lives? How have racism and colonialism been key parts of American history and contemporary life? In other words, the challenges and opportunities that Asian Americans face inform the true nature of the nation, and these are central issues that this book grapples with.

And of course, the study of Asian Americans matters to Asian Americans and those who are interested in our well-being. A text that centers on the lives of Asian Americans affirms their experiences while also informing the human social condition more broadly.

Who are Asian Americans?

Asian Americans refers to individuals living in the United States who immigrated from (e.g. first-generation immigrants) or whose ancestors (e.g. second-generation immigrants and beyond) immigrated from Asian countries and Asian diasporas (i.e. settlements in other countries). Asian Americans consist of Bangladeshi, Burmese, Chinese, Cambodian, Filipinx, Hmong, Indian, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Nepalese, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Taiwanese, Thai, and Vietnamese Americans, among others originating from Asia. As discussed in chapter 3, “Arrival and History,” Asians have lived in the United States in large numbers since the 1800s. Historically, scholarship on Asian Americans focused on the largest groups to first immigrate, namely Chinese and Japanese Americans. The descendants of these early immigrants drove the Asian-American movement of the 1960s, which gave rise to Asian American Studies and increased research and writing about the Asian-American experience. The Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 altered the demographics of the United States and precipitated a much larger immigration of Asians after decades of anti-Asian immigration policies limited their entry into the country. Asian-American demographics have continued to change since then with continued voluntary immigration and also due to war and imperialism. Southeast Asians have arrived mostly since the 1970s as refugees and as family members sponsored by those refugees.

The number of Asian Americans has been increasing at a quick pace due to both continued immigration and to children born in the United States. According to the 2010 US Census, “The Asian alone population and the Asian alone-or-in-combination population both grew substantially from 2000 to 2010, increasing in size by 43 percent and 46 percent, respectively. These populations grew more than any other race group in 2010.”⁴ There were over 20 million Asian Americans, not even including multiracial Asian Americans, as of 2017, comprising 6.3% of the US population. As Table 1.1 indicates, Asian-American groups range widely in their numbers, with most listed groups (Chinese, Indian, Filipinx, Vietnamese, and Korean) numbering well over a million or even near or over three million individuals each as of 2010.

Table 1.1 Asian-American population

Source: US Census Bureau, 2015–2019 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates and 1-Year Estimates, Table ID B02018; generated by Pawan Dhingra, using American FactFinder

Group	Population, 2019
Asian (alone or with other races)	22,191,093
Chinese	4,993,935
Asian Indian	4,318,046
Filipinx	4,014,408
Vietnamese	2,086,017
Korean	1,859,653
Japanese	1,477,579
Other Asian	692,723

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Discussion question

• When you think of someone who is Asian American, what do they look like? What countries/ethnicities do they identify with?

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Online resources: For updated demographic information on the Asian-American population, including helpful infographics, see AAPI Data, https://aapidata.com/. Another important resource on demographic information on immigration more generally, including the Asian-American population, is the Pew Research Center. The Pew Research Center describes itself as a “nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. We conduct public opinion polling, demographic research, content analysis and other data-driven social science research. We do not take policy positions.” Many academics and media outlets use immigration data generated by the Pew Research Center. It is generally considered a reputable source: https://www.pewresearch.org/topics/asian-americans/

Defining terms

The term “Asian American” is often extended to be “Asian American and Pacific Islanders” in order to indicate their connections to each other. However, it is important to not conflate these groups. In this book, we use the term “Asian American” and mean it in an expansive way. Pacific Islanders receive attention in this book, although not to the same degree as other Asian Americans. Arab Americans also receive attention, even though they are not traditionally considered as Asian American. The definitions of racial groups change over time, with some groups included and other groups excluded, depending on social and political contexts. For instance, South Asian Americans were classified as nonwhite in the US Census over the decades until 1970 when they were classified as white, and then in 1980 they were classified newly as Asian American after political lobbying by the community. One aim of this book is to deepen an understanding of how the broad notion of “Asian Americans” has come to be constructed.

When one says “Asian American,” it often has little resonance to most people beyond some standard stereotypes: they are hard-working, strong in math and sciences, exotic (for women), asexual (for men), possibly threatening (economically), and foreigners. Yet, when one speaks of Chinese Americans, Filipinx Americans, Vietnamese Americans, and so on, more nuanced images come to mind. In this book, we will attend to both pan-ethnic (i.e. referring to trends across Asian-American ethnic groups) and ethnic-specific practices. While the differences between groups receive recognition, their similarities are emphasized because they too shape individuals’ lives and illustrate how Asian Americans experience key social aspects (e.g. migration, culture, race, employment, media, etc.) in comparable (not necessarily identical) ways, which in turn illustrates how Asian Americans and other groups are impacted by and in turn influence the nation and globalization.

Sociological and interdisciplinary approaches

To attend to the range of issues that Asian Americans inspire, we need to take a heterogeneous research approach. The book privileges the social sciences, in particular sociology, but also draws from other fields. In particular it is informed by the interdisciplinary field of Asian American Studies.

Sociology as a discipline refers to the study of the social causes of why and how humans think and behave. Why do we do what we do? Our biological instincts may guide us. Philosophical arguments about ethics perhaps suggest to us certain options over others as morally appropriate. Monetary constraints can often dictate our choices. But sociologists, more so than other social scientists and humanities scholars, focus primarily on social causes of our actions and attitudes. Social causes refer to how individuals, groups, and social processes – such as one’s family, the labor market, groups, the media, the nation, and so on – impact individuals and are impacted by us. Sociologists place us, everyday individuals, within a social context in order to understand how we interact with our environments, as well as how our environments came to be in the first place.

As we consider the social dimensions to people’s behavior, we build up what noted sociologist C. Wright Mills (1959) called the “sociological imagination.” According to Mills, the “sociological imagination” challenges us to see ourselves not simply as unique individuals with particular life histories. Instead, we should recognize that we are part of social groups and spaces and that we embody certain roles. We experience our families, for instance, through our roles as daughters, siblings, fathers, and so on rather than as individuals. Once we recognize this, we better appreciate the social environment that is outside of us but which influences our lives, and which we act back on.

Inequalities, institutions, and identities

As we develop our sociological imagination, sociologists concern themselves with three key, interconnected dimension of social life central to this book: inequalities, institutions, and identities. Social inequality occurs when resources are not distributed equally but instead tend to favor one group over another, due in part to historical and/or contemporary unfair treatment or opportunities. Sociologists attend to national, racial, gender, class, sexual, age, (dis)ability, and other bases of inequalities. Asian Americans, like African Americans, Latinxs, and Native Americans, can experience inequalities relative to whites. This can take place in the labor market, such as when Asian Americans encounter limited opportunities for upper management, despite ample experience and education (i.e. face the “glass ceiling” or “bamboo ceiling”). This can take place in the media, such as with limited and often stereotypical portrayals. This can take place in politics, such as when Asian Americans must defend themselves from attacks as being un-American by virtue of having Asian roots. And so on. Sociologists and scholars of Asian American Studies are committed to advancing social justice, which requires unearthing the causes and consequences of social inequality.

Online resource: Learn more about inequalities among actors at https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/t-magazine/asian-american-actors-representation.html

The ways that Asian Americans experience inequalities depends on their gender, sexuality, ethnicity, class, and other social statuses. Asian-American women encounter different stereotypes than men, for instance. Post-9/11, South Asian and Arab Americans have faced greater scrutiny than have other ethnic groups within Asian America. Economic status, such as differences in the labor market and school system, is fundamental to a group’s well-being. Asian Americans with different education levels and skill sets will have varying advantages and disadvantages.

Online resource: See comedian Hasan Minhaj talk about 9/11 at https://youtu.be/15dejlEUqDM

The primary way that sociologists analyze inequalities is within social institutions, as noted above. Social institutions refer to a society’s publicly agreed upon ways to take care of its members’ needs. One can t...