Ethnicity data is critical to address the diverse needs of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders

By Karthick Ramakrishnan and Janelle Wong. Cross-Posted from AAPI Data.



Karthick Ramakrishnan, director, and Janelle Wong, senior researcher, wrote this letter with respect to H3361, a bill in Massachusetts that seeks to improve state data collection on Asian Americans

We write as the Executive Director and Senior Researcher, respectively, at AAPI Data—the leading repository for data on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States. We are also professors with over four decades of collective experience with original survey data collections on Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) populations and analyses of demographic and administrative data collected at the national and state levels.

Our research findings, as well as those in dozens of other studies, have shown that there are critical differences in life chances among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders that track by detailed origin. Thus, for example, Southeast Asian refugee populations have a distinct set of mental health needs that derive from wartime experiences of individuals and family members. Also, population health risks such as chronic Hepatitis B, childhood obesity, and cardiovascular disease vary significantly by detailed Asian origin. Importantly, language needs also vary dramatically by Asian detailed origin, with some groups such as Indian Americans and Filipino Americans having relatively high levels of English proficiency, and other groups such as Vietnamese, Chinese, and Korean Americans have the relatively low levels of English proficiency.

They Call Us Bruce - Episode 12: They Call Us Asian American

Jeff Yang and Phil Yu present an unfiltered conversation about what's happening in Asian America.



What's up, podcast listeners? We've got another episode of our podcast They Call Us Bruce. Each week, my good friend, writer/columnist Jeff Yang and I host an unfiltered conversation about what's happening in Asian America, with a strong focus on media, entertainment and popular culture.

This week, we celebrated Heritage Month, ahem, eleven months early, discussing the complexities of Asian American identity and community with Professors Karthick Ramakrishnan and Jennifer Lee of the National Asian American Survey.

Announcing Elevate: AAPI Data Challenge

Guest Post by Doua Thor and Karthick Ramakrishnan



Quick... fill in the blank.

Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are ________.

   a) the fastest-growing racial groups in the United States
   b) incredibly diverse with respect to income and educational attainment
   c) poised to reach $1 trillion in buying power by 2018
   d) the ones most likely to enroll in remedial education
   e) all of the above

The answer is e) all of the above.

There are so many ways we can talk about the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community. AAPIs represent the fastest-growing racial group in the country, increasing over four times as rapidly as the total U.S. population and are expected to double to more than 50 million by 2060.

AAPIs are diverse on matters related to life experiences, socioeconomic status, and health outcomes. This includes factors such as holding advanced degrees and living in poverty, as well as factors like immigration and refugee experiences, languages spoken at home, English proficiency, unemployment rates, and a higher incidence to particular diseases such as Hepatitis B. In the past decade, there have been significant improvements in the availability of data on AAPIs, on issues ranging from socioeconomic status to education, health, and civic participation.

Asian American Voters Will Punish Candidates with Anti-Immigrant Views

By Karthick Ramakrishnan. Cross-posted from AAPI Data.



Last week, Jeb Bush and Carly Fiorina came under fire for their offensive comments on Asian immigrants. Bush noted in his visit to border city McAllen, TX, that the phenomenon of so-called "anchor babies" was "frankly, more related to Asian people," while Fiorina called in Le Mars, Iowa for the urgent resolution of "festering problems" like the Chinese birth tourism industry in the United States.

This brings up an important question of whether anti-immigrant rhetoric could hurt candidates among Asian American voters. In the 2014 APIAVote & Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC 2014 Voter Survey of registered Asian American voters, for which AAPI Data provided research support, respondents were asked:

"If a political candidate expressed strongly anti-immigrant views, but you agreed with him or her on other issues, would you still vote for that candidate, or would you vote for someone else?"

Asian Birth Tourism, Numbers In Perspective

By Karthick Ramakrishnan. Cross-posted from AAPI Data.


Photo Credit: New York Times
In a recent press conference, Jeb Bush clumsily (and erroneously) said that the phenomenon of so-called "anchor babies" was "frankly, more related to Asian people."

As others have noted, the phenomenon of birth tourism is distinct from most conventional understandings of the offensive term "anchor baby," which tends to imply that people use birthright citizenship from their children to avoid deportation or eventually gain U.S. citizenship for themselves.

There has been a fair amount of sensationalist reporting on birth tourism by Chinese immigrants, with little understanding of the number of estimated "birth tourists," and how they compare to the overall number of Chinese immigrants or visitors to the United States. Below, we provide some numbers in perspective.

Most Asian Americans Oppose Affirmative Action? That is incorrect.

Guest Post by Karthick Ramakrishnan



Two weeks ago, my survey group released a report on affirmative action that analyzed whether Asian Americans (and others in California) were opposed to affirmative action. Turns out that, contrary to all the noise we heard in March 2014, there are more Asian Americans who support affirmative action than those who oppose them. Many more, like 69% for and 13% against, with the rest expressing no opinion.

Angry Reader of the Week: Karthick Ramakrishnan

Here we go again. Friends, it is time meet the Angry Reader of the Week, spotlighting you, the very special readers of this website. Over the years, I've been able to connect with a lot of cool folks, and this is a way of showing some appreciation and attention to the people who help make this blog what it is. This week's Angry Reader is Karthick Ramakrishnan.

Asian Americans: Yes, we're slackers. No, it's not a good thing.

Guest Post by Karthick Ramakrishnan



Hey, folks! I'm on vacation, taking a much-needed blog break. Some batteries need recharging. But don't worry -- I've enlisted the generous help of some great guest bloggers to keep things fresh around here while I'm gone. Here's Karthick Ramakrishnan on the dangers of Asian American slackerdom.

First, let me clarify that I'm not against all slackerdom. The model minority myth continues to have a powerful hold on our society, and it doesn't help when news organizations and research institutes continue to perpetuate them. And slacker exemplars like Harold and Kumar have single (double?) handedly taken down the myth by a few notches. And that's a good thing. There's very little good that comes out of seeing all of us as monolithic, hyper-ambitious, over-achieving, over-qualified. I get it.