The Los Angeles Times [registration required] publishes and in-depth article on census data released Wednesday, about the Asian American community. The full 24 page report can be found at the Census Bureau’s website and is titled, “We the People: Asians in the United States.”
From the LA times article:
Indian Americans have surged forward as the most successful Asian minority in the United States, reporting top levels of income, education, professional job status and English-language ability, even though three-fourths were foreign-born, according to U.S. census data released Wednesday.
The striking success of Asian Americans who trace their heritage to India contrasted with data showing struggles among Cambodian, Laotian and Hmong immigrants. Those three groups reported continued significant poverty rates, low job skills and limited English-language ability since their flight from war and political turmoil.
The report, “We the People: Asians in the United States,” was based on 2000 census data and underscored the enormous socioeconomic diversity among the nation’s 10 million Asian Americans, more than one third of whom live in California, the state with their largest population.
The reasons for the disparity in sucess between Asian populations is an interesting question. Here is one particular take on it:
Max Niedzwiecki, executive director of the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center in Washington, D.C., said the differences stemmed in part from different histories. Many Southeast Asian Americans came here as refugees with less formal education and with memories of traumatic experiences stemming from the Vietnam War and the murderous Khmer Rouge reign in Cambodia, he said.
In contrast, many Asians Indians emigrated voluntarily from a relatively peaceful homeland and were equipped with strong English skills to pursue higher academic degrees or business opportunities. Between 1990 and 2000, they doubled their population to 1.6 million and now rank as the third-largest Asian American group after Chinese and Filipinos.
However the cenus data may not be as thorough as one might think:
I decided to analyze the census data in the report for myself to see if there was any practical use. If I am reading the following chart correctly (which is questionable), than there are more women in my age group than men. If THAT is the case then why am I single? Obviously the data is flawed.
the Census Bureau significantly undercounted lower-income Indian Americans
Most definitely…
there are more women in my age group than men. If THAT is the case then why am I single?
Maybe it’s a height issue, being vertically challenged I feel your pain…
Wait, wasn’t that supposed to be GC’s answer? 🙂
Just call me GCjr 😛
I’m not worthy, I’m not worthy!
don’t they always undercount the poor? assuming there was an undercount, would they undercount indians far more than the japanese because the former tend to be newer immigrants? (illegals?)
with memories of traumatic experiences stemming from the Vietnam War and the murderous Khmer Rouge reign in Cambodia,
might be a good explanation…except vietnamese americans (many of whom are involuntary) have incomes right around the american median.
http://www.latimes.com/media/graphic/2004-12/15483983.gif
and hmong median income has rapidly risen over the last few decades:
http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/001760.html
plus, in a totally different environment the uneducated chinese peasants in the russian far east have absolutely taken over in the face of open racism:
http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/001333.html
anyway, the point is that coming penniless does not mean you’ll stay penniless…
btw, don’t you just love how the reporter avoided using the “C” word for what went on in Vietnam and Cambodia? (as well as what caused all those people to flee to the US from China, and Korea, and Taiwan, and so on…)
Just a murderous regime, dontcha know. Not like Noam Chomsky went to bat for Communist murderers or anything…
They also don’t talk about how we backed the Khmer Rouge after the genocide, when it was fighting the Vietnamese.
” might be a good explanation…except vietnamese americans (many of whom are involuntary) have incomes right around the american median. “
The Vietnamese refugees in America received billions of dollars of assistance from the U.S. government and charities. It’s ridiculous to claim they became successful without any help from society.
It’s important to remember that most of these Vietnamese refugees are from Vietnam’s merchant class. Some also are very educated. This probably has given them an advantage in adapting to life in America.
Of course gang violence is a huge problem in many Vietnamese communities.
“and hmong median income has rapidly risen over the last few decades:”
With significant assistance from the government and highly agressive affirmative action programs. Even now their community faces problems like high dropout rates, low test scores, gang violence, teenage pregnancy, and lack of ambition among younger people.
“plus, in a totally different environment the uneducated chinese peasants in the russian far east have absolutely taken over in the face of open racism:”
How do you know that the Chinese that have “taken over” are uneducated peasants? Isn’t possible that the Chinese taking over are businessmen that have invested money into the region?
“anyway, the point is that coming penniless does not mean you’ll stay penniless…”
I agree, but why did you only use Asian examples? Haven’t Indians been able to overcome discrimination and hardship in many parts of the world?
The Gujaratis of East Africa were expelled and arrived in England with almost no possessions. They received little help and were viewed with hostility, but today they’re probably the most successful ethic group in England.
Just a murderous regime, dontcha know. Not like Noam Chomsky went to bat for Communist murderers or anything…
Oh yes, we know that no one has ever done anything bad in a democracy, or is it a representative republic. Gee golly wiz batman…raise the spectre of communists join it with socialist and what do you get? Liberals!! Wheee….
Tell me what about a writer who cogentially lies about anyone and everyone, but it’s alright if he mostly bashes liberals, especially the satanic Clinton for over a decade? Will you go to bat for Christopher Hitchens when he bashes Ghandi, Mother Theresa, and Dalai Lama
Will you go to bat for Christopher Hitchens when he bashes Ghandi, Mother Theresa, and Dalai Lama
sure, no one’s a saint. gandhi said pretty uncharitable things about “kafirs” early in his public life, mother teresa had nasty associations with brutal dictators and the dalai lama’s medieval idyll only looks good in comparison to the brutality of the cultural revolution.
Well, liberal pundit, I myself (a sort of conservative, no less) am rather put off by gc’s style, too. Highly amused, but mostly put off. Not that he should give a da*n what you or I think. Fiesty, that one.
But as for bashing one political stripe more than the other, well, there are plenty of snide remarks made against the conservatives by commenters and posters, alike. Reading abhi’s postings (and by the way, I love abhi. He’s smart, opinionated and writes beautifully) one would think that all Republicans are brown-bashers who want to create wealth by eating babies, or something. Ok, just kidding, abhi, just kidding!
Still, the day that I read one positive thing about the right that is not written by Vinod on this site, I think I will fall right down with a set of the vapors : ) Heavens me. As for the two being outside of mainstream desi opinion, well, isn’t that precisely why you should listen to them? Don’t minority opinions matter? Shouldn’t you want to engage with the ‘other’? One of the reasons I like sepia mutiny so much is that most of the people involved are of a different political stripe than I am. Good. I know my talking points already, I want to know yours.
Ok, auntie-style lecture over. Except for this: be nice people. You never know who you might be interacting with. I once had a little blog ‘dust up’ with a med student on a site frequented by medical types (nothing to it, really, but everything makes me feel guilty and I wanted to apologize) so I e-mailed this person using my real e-mail and I think this person was a bit startled by my title. As in, we might meet in person someday. In a work setting. So, just saying. Be nice. Be nice. I am telling this to myself as much as the next person.
And why or why don’t you have silly, girly emoticons on this site so I can properly decorate my girly ramblings…..
i’d say that making posters that mock liberal women and putting them in 10 separate posts is a great example of being “nice” and open to opposing views, wouldn’t you?
This might be off topic, but look at all these people insulting Indian-Americans as criminals on this internet forum.
http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2004/12/stark_contrasts.php
MD – thanks for the kind words!
Liberal Pundit – Get a grip & a sense of humor.
Can’t they please keep politics out of Sepia at least?
heh. Given his name, Sluggo aka “liberal pundit” evidently thinks that it’s only “politics” when someone objects to unreflective leftism. Reminds me of academia.
blast Arundhati Roy (favorite whipping toy of conservative desis) for refusing to condemn the murder of American soldiers and citizens in Iraq
Actually, I blasted Arundhati Roy because she is a Communist Holocaust denier:
Are you? Do you deny that the Communists killed more than 100 million people? If so, what do you think about someone who goes out of their way to proclaim their affinity for that ideology?
if Vinod/GC have ever condemned the deaths of innocent Iraqi citizens
Ummm, Arundhati Roy is supporting the Iraqi insurgents…the same guys who are slaughtering Iraqi civilians with car bombs and beheadings, and who seek to impose Islamic fundamentalism on Iraq:
That’s what Roy is defending.
You may think the Iraq invasion is a mistake without WMDs, as I do. But let’s be real: Arundhati Roy is a Communist Holocaust denier and an apologist for Islamic fundamentalism. And if you defend her, you are too.
why we need to keep listening to two conservatives who are so completely out of line with the desi mainstream.
First, the “desi mainstream” voted mostly for the Republican candidate as recently as 1996. It is campus leftism which has swung desis to the left in the past 8 years, but even today rightist desis are around 40% of the population. We’re hardly an insignificant voice, even judging from this comments section – vinod, me, razib, Kumar, MD, Punjabi Boy, and quite a few others are all more or less on the broad right.
I wonder why we need to keep listening
Second, this attitude is typical leftist totalitarianism. You can’t actually rebut the arguments on the merits – look at the ass-kicking you got in this thread – so you call for them to be silenced or banned. This reveals the leftist fetish with “minority rights” to be ploy rather than principle.
Anyway, the primary reason that young desis have turned to the left in the past few years is the stranglehold that the left has on academia. It’s amazing to me that so many American desis – people from one of the wealthiest and best educated ethnic groups in the nation – have become convinced that this is a “racist” country, and proof-positive to me of the effectiveness of leftist indoctrination tactics.
When your grade in college is based upon how well you recite socialist and Marxist propaganda, and how hostile you are to the surrounding society, this is not surprising.
However, the left’s presence in academia has waxed…and now it is going to wane. Finally, some attention is being paid to the shocking lack of rightists on the faculty…and academia is being hoist on its own petard.
Ideological diversity is the new name of the game. And as the nominal right controls all three branches of government, you’re going to be receiving a treat in the not too distant future: government intervention to promote ideological nondiscrimination in hiring. Even if Bush is a pseudo-rightist on preferences, illegal aliens, etc., he’s on the team for this one….and so is the Republican Senate.
It’s time to do to the academic left as they did unto us. Use the pretext of universalism – the academic Bill of Rights – to reclaim the academies, just as the pretext of universalism (racial, political, & gender quotas in hiring) was originally used to yank the universities to the left.
The richest aspect of this whole business is that the left is killing its golden goose. The same ethnic group that gave more than 50% of individual contributions to the Democratic party is now mercilessly slandered in academia as treasonous fifth columnists, so at least some of them are switching sides. It’s no surprise that the initial move towards legislating ideological diversity came because of leftist anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment.
Anyway, whine all you want. Sepia will be no leftist cocoon, and neither will American society at large. Leftism is rocking back on its heels after a century of victories, which began with the Communist murdering spree of 1917. 9/11 is part and parcel of the wholesale repudiation of leftism that began in 1989.
Lemme spell it out for you.
First came the repudiation of economic leftism as the communist monster came crashing down in Russia. During the 90’s, this defeat turned into a rout as India liberalized, Clinton proclaimed his affinity for capitalism, and the Sinos became CINO – Communist in name only. Only bitter dead-enders like yourself still reject capitalism.
Today we are seeing the collapse of cultural leftism as even Hillary speaks out against illegal aliens and even liberal Time puts the issue on its cover. Cultural leftism’s key precept – that all cultures are “equal” – is under siege in both America and Europe, as people start to realize that Islam is not like Christianity and that sharia is inferior to Western Democracy. Van Gogh’s murder – and the backlash it has provoked – may well be seen as the beginning of the end for cultural leftism.
Tomorrow? Well, as economic and cultural leftism collapse, I think there’s only one frontier left…biological leftism. Economic leftism maintained that all humans are equal in economic competence, and that any disparities in wealth distribution must be due to cheating/exploitation rather than differential effort/ability. Cultural leftism maintains that all cultures are equal, and that it is illegitimate to judge the culture of premodern savages and Islamic theocrats “inferior” to that of Western civilization.
Biological leftism is perhaps the most radical of the troika, as it maintains that the 6 billion humans spread across tens of thousands of microenvironments are actually biologically and behaviorally indistinguishable . The axiom of equality – the idea that human genetic differences are of no importance and have no influence on behavior – is in fact the root of both economic and cultural leftism, as both economic competence and cultural sophistication are in part a function of human biology.
This big lie will remain inaccessible to direct attack until the second branch – cultural leftism – is cleanly lopped off. At that point, let’s just say the biological axiom of equality, like its economic and cultural precursors, is slated for the dustbin of history.
Well, liberal pundit, I myself (a sort of conservative, no less) am rather put off by gc’s style, too. Highly amused, but mostly put off. Not that he should give a da*n what you or I think. Fiesty, that one.
Hey, MD – someone has to be the bad cop 🙂 For what it’s worth, I like your posts.
Thing is, I’ll compromise with people who are willing to meet me halfway. But people like “liberal pundit” are so steeped in the lies of Chomsky, Gould, Roy, and other communist-apologists** that it’s easier to crush them at the ballot box than convince them that they’re supporting a moribund ideology. It’s the difference between Euros and Japanese – who can be reasoned with – and NoKo Commies/Al Qaeda.
**- I don’t use the term lightly. Chomsky denied the Cambodian and genocide and apologized for Pol Pot. Gould said that he learned his Marxism at his daddy’s knee, and was best buddies with Lewontin – the guy who said that nothing in Lenin, Marx, or Mao could be in conflict with reality.
As for ArundHATEY Roy, well, we’ve gone over her love for Maoists and jihadis before. It’s funny…she can denounce the land of my birth in the most vitriolic terms at the most infelicitous times:
…yet fellas like liberal pundit act outraged when she gets a taste of her own medicine. I’ll tell ya this…if and when Arundhati or “liberal pundit” is blown up by a jihadist, I’ll shrug and say that “what goes around comes around”. They’d do the same for me and mine…heck, they already did.
This might be off topic, but look at all these people insulting Indian-Americans as criminals on this internet forum.
http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2004/12/stark_contrasts.php
What with all their ranting about “Indians stealing my job”, seems like a lot of them would be at home at Daily Kos or Atrios.
Liberal Pundit, Don’t worry, I will keep bringing the left. MD, I am on a personal mission to convert you 🙂