Acknowledge the breadth of the word ‘Asian’

By The Daily Illini Editorial Board

The overarching label of “Asian,” as seen in the 2020 census, fails to do justice to the scope of the Asian com munities in the United States.

Just this month, the Asian Ameri cans Advancing Justice, an advo cacy group calling for “fair and equal representation of Asian Americans in the media,” published an analysis of the 2020 census in response to the claim that Asian Americans were signif icantly overcounted by 2.6% in 2020.

Their analysis instead painted a more complex picture. The census actually undercounted — or left out — Asian Americans in Great Plains states while overcounting Asian popu lations in states on the East and West Coasts as well as the South.

This story was reported by NPR and included an interview with Paul Ong, an economist who heads the UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge. Ong warned that the undercounting of any group would lead to the misal location of federal funding for pub lic services. Among these public ser vices are health care, education and transportation.

Asian Americans are relatively less likely to fill out the census, according to The New York Times.

In an interview with Time, Lak shmi Sridaran, the executive direc tor at South Asian Americans Lead ing Together, argued that “good data should always be as disaggregated as possible.” Aggregating the data ignored the nuanced needs of individual groups that compose the monolithic title of “Asian.”

There is a large amount of variation within these populations, as analyzed by The Times.

For example, those of Indian descent are consistently wealthier and work jobs in prestigious fields while residents of Bhutanese descent have the lowest income and are unlikely to own a home. The largest Bhutanese community in the United States is in Columbus, lump every individual in these unique communities into a single category of “Asian” undervalues the vibrancy of cultural diversity of the continent of Asia and ignores their needs that are unique to their respective communities. versity of Illinois.

Many Americans fail to even register South Asians as Asian, assuming that Asian only refers to those of Chinese, Japanese or Korean descent. In reality, Indians and Filipinos make up a significant portion of Asians in the United States — the second and third largest Asian communities in the United States, respectively, according to Pew Research.

According to the University’s International Statistics from Fall 2022, there were 4,229 international students originating from Asia pursuing a bachelor’s degree, 3,117 pursuing a master’s degree and 2,369 pursuing a doctorate.

There’s a plethora of resources available to learn more about the vast Asian cultures on campus. You could visit the Asian American Cultural Center or the Japan House and participate in cultural events hosted by them.

If there is a particular culture you find interesting, there are many RSOs on campus that are tailored for specific cultures: Filipino, Mongolian, Taiwanese, Vietnamese as well as South Asian groups, like Hindu YUVA, which allow you to immerse yourself in that culture’s food, media and even deeper level concepts, like problems within their country and political literacy.

The Daily Illini Editorial Board invites you to challenge your worldview and recognize that there is so much more to Asia than what a single word may suggest.