Karthick Ramakrishnan & Jennifer Lee: "Asian Americans: [...]" | Talks at Google

I'm. Excited to introduce our, guests. And share a little bit more about the National asian-american, survey, so. The National Asian American survey or nas. Is. A scientific. And nonpartisan effort, to pull the opinions, of asian-americans, and Pacific Islanders, on issues. Such as public policy political, preferences, experiences. With discrimination and, race relations and here, with us today and we, have two of the principal investigators and. Researchers from. The NAS, Jennifer. Lee and Karthik, Ramakrishnan. Jennifer. Lee is a professor of sociology. At, Columbia, University, she, has written award-winning, articles, in books including, the Asian American achievement paradox. The, diversity, paradox, asian-american, youth and civility, in the city committed. To public engagement, she, has written for and been featured in a variety of media outlets including. The New York Times the San Francisco Chronicle CNN. And NPR, and then. Karthik Ramakrishna is an, associate, dean of the UC Riverside, School of Public Policy and, professor. Of public policy and, political science and he, directs the National asian-american. Survey and is the founder of AAPI datacom. Which, features demographic. Data and policy, research on asian-americans and, Pacific Islanders. He's, also written dozens, of op-eds and appeared in over a thousand, news stories, and many, many major outlets including, the New York Times The Economist, Los, Angeles, Times. And CNN so. Please welcome Jennifer. And Karthik, to the stage. Thank. You Amy and thank you everyone for, for. Being here both, in person, and, and. Remotely. There's. A lot of ground that we're gonna cover today and we'll have plenty of time for question and answers, I'll. Be presenting primarily. On, API. Data which as Amy, mentioned is a site that seeks to make data. And policy research on asian-americans and Pacific Islanders, more accessible, what. We found in the last four years is that we've had tremendous influence in terms of raising, the media profile, and. Awareness among journalists, of not. Only kind of general facts about Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, but, also some, of the complexity, that we'll go over today. Jennifer, will primarily be presenting, from our latest national. Asian-american, survey and, then I'll conclude with some, with, some final data points, so. First. Of all just. In the future if you're interested, in finding, out more please take a look at our website we. Have a lot there, we have infographics, we do a fair amount of work through. Our infographics. We also have a feature called quick stats which. Gives, people access to data, at. Various, levels of geography on, frequently, requested, tables, from, the Census Bureau given. All the talent in the room here I'd love to talk later about maybe ways that we can improve some. Of our quick. Stats features. With. The talent among, folks at Google. The. Main takeaways of my, portion of the talk is first. Of all to talk about the growing importance, of asian-americans, but. To show that that growth in it of itself is limited because, there's a big gap between what. Our numbers look like and where, we stand in terms of leadership and civic engagement, and. I'll submit to you that the problems, of leadership. And and mobility, within the corporate structure is related, to our, lack of visibility.

When It comes to civic engagement and the solutions, are linked as well, so. First of all in terms of talking about the growing importance, of, asian-americans. Some, of you may be familiar, with some of these statistics already. First. Is population growth whenever someone talks about why we. Need to pay attention to asian-americans and Pacific Islanders, we, are among the fastest, growing racial groups in the country this, was true from 2000, to 2010, and it's, been true since 2010. As well and much. Of this growth is fueled by immigration. So. What we've seen since. 2004. So over a decade, almost a decade and a half now there, have been more Asians, that, are coming in as legal permanent residents, than Latinos, coming in as legal. Permanent residents. Starting. 2007. A decade ago there have been more Asian foreign-born, coming, into the United States than. From any other region in the world, including. Mexico. And Central America. We've. Also seen a rapid, increase in the Asian undocumented, population, one. Of the things you may have seen this. Little factoid, that one out of every seven Asian, immigrants is undocumented. That's. Something that we had, done a lot of information. Work we did we produced, infographics, and I've done a lot of social. Media engagement on, that so, much so that that talking, point is now entering. Into the discourse in Congress among leaders. In the congressional, APA caucus, and. Then finally might not be surprising at all to folks in Silicon Valley that. Asian-americans. Are very dominant, in the h-1b visa category, which is very much in the news today, in. Terms of what the future of high-skilled. Immigration to the United, States will, look like and it's not just Silicon, Valley, when. The travel. Ban first went into place, not. Only Google, Apple. Microsoft and. Many tech companies. Had. A very strong reaction. Because. It would not, only disrupt, their business, but also when, against, the kind of core values of what. Inclusion meant, within. These corporate structures but, you also saw universities. Speaking. Up in ways that they had never spoken before and, quickly because. That also struck at the core of, PhD. Programs, postdoctoral, fellowships. And and, employment. And in, professorships. And other research positions, medicine. Too has been very strongly affected, by the kind of immigration, changes. Not only in terms of proposed legal changes by executive, actions that have happened in the last few months so. Needless, to say we, are now recognizing. That Asians, are an important part of the immigration story although when, it comes to undocumented, immigration most people still, don't think of, asian-americans, within their, general conception of who the undocumented, are please, go to our website we have a portion.

On Undocumented, immigration which which, has some of these numbers, in various states and also, by national origin. Asian-americans. Are also an increasing share of the foreign-born. So. Even though we've had more Asians, than Latinos, coming in in terms of inflows, the. The base population of who the foreign-born or who the immigrant population is. Is, still. Is. It still close to a majority Latino, but. That's going to change and by 2055. There'll, be more Asian, immigrants in the United States than Latino immigrants, in the United States. And. Asian Americans are also an important part of the immigrant vote this is something that I try, as often as I can when I speak to journalists, but even elected officials most, people when they think of immigrant, voters think Latinos. I can't, tell you the number of times in which people make that easy assumption, and switch between, saying Latino, and immigrant but. In fact most Latinos, in the United States no matter how you measure them in terms of the resident population in, terms, of the adult citizen population in terms, of the registered voter population, they're. Nowhere close to a majority immigrant. Right. Depending on the numbers you're talking about a two-thirds of the Latino population as. Native born by, contrast, asian-americans. Are a predominantly. Immigrant population. So. I keep saying when you talk about immigrants, you have to think about Asians, then people say well but. The Asian population is much smaller right so maybe it still makes sense when. You talk about the composition of immigrants, and immigrant voters, to. Talk about them as predominantly. Latino but. Even there the numbers show a very, different, story, right. Well we see at the national, level and. In states like and in states like California, it's it's, actually you have more Asian immigrant voters than. Latino voters, what. You find is they're about as many Asian, immigrant, voters as Latino, immigrant, voters so. If someone's going to be intellectually, honest and talk about the immigrant vote they, cannot just talk about the Latino vote by. The way there's a decent number of white immigrant voters nationally. As well about 1/4 of the. Immigrant population that, is registered to vote is non-hispanic, white what.

You'll See is a continuing, theme in this presentation is that we, need to go beyond stereotypes and, look at the data and to. Educate. And sometimes reeducate, ourselves, I can't tell you the number of times when even when I look at the data sometimes with different cuts, they surprised me because. I'm not used to thinking of some of these populations. In. The way that the data reveal themselves. Quite. Apart from looking at the, growing, proportion. Of asian-americans, and their share of the immigrant population, other, kinds, of data that people usually use to say pay attention to asian-americans, look at their purchasing, power so, asian-americans by 2020, are gonna be worth over 1 trillion in terms of purchasing power on, par, with the, African American and Latino populations. In the u.s. that, are much larger. If. You look at wealth generation. Asian. Americans, are expected, to reach parity, with the non-hispanic, white population in. About, 20 to 30 years and. In. Business formation you see a pretty significant, increase in the. Number of businesses. That are, owned by Asian Americans. So. For all these reasons we, can say that we're growing in importance, we're, becoming more visible we're, increasing, in terms of purchasing, power wealth, etc so what's the problem, right. Asian. Asian americans seem to be doing pretty well there does not seem to be a problem well, one problem is a model minority myth which, many of you may have heard right. What, I've shown you so far our, aggregate, statistics about, the Asian American community. Including. On wealth but if I showed you something on education, it would show you that Asian Americans actually, have higher levels, of educational, attainment than. The non-hispanic, white population. But. When you take that aggregated. Data at the level of racial group it, often masks. Disparities. And there's significant, disparities, within. The Asian category. This. Is what people call data disaggregation. Right. Whenever. You are able to get access to more fine-grained, data you, can make better inferences, this should be pretty self-evident, when you're when, you're talking, about. Scientific. Analysis, or social scientific analysis but as I'll say in a second it's actually become controversial, recently, but, without data we cannot make our case so.

If You look at educational, attainment. Even. Though Asians, on average, have the highest levels of educational, attainment in the country there, are huge differences, right. So at the top you have Taiwanese, and. Indian Americans, that, have the highest levels, of those. With a bachelor's degree higher, by the way Mongolian Americans have, pretty high levels of educational, attainment, and. At. The lower end of the spectrum you have what. Have tended to be predominantly, refugee, populations. Right. Vietnamese, Burmese, Hmong Cambodian. Laotian, and Bhutanese, and. The. Gap is just enormous, right, from the low teens to. About. Three-quarters. Of the population that has a bachelor's, degree or higher. Within. The Pacific. Islander population, there are less differences, but you'll snow tiss the scale has changed a bit but the highest level of bachelor's. Degree attainment or hires among, the Melanesian population. Which, is about, one in five have a bachelor's, degree right. Which is on the lower end of that scale when you're talking about Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, together this, is why data disaggregation is, so vital, it's, not just on educational, attainment if. You look at limited English proficiency. Right. Huge, differences, between, Indians. And Sri Lankans and Pakistanis, who do not have as high, language, needs, versus. Bhutanese, Burmese, Vietnamese, Thai etc, that. Have significant. Needs. For. Translation. And. Other kinds of assistance when it comes to. Dealing. With, officials. Dealing, with agencies that. Communicate. Predominantly, in English. Now. We know that disaggregation. Is important, and yet recently. We've. Seen this in Rhode Island this is something that is coming up in Massachusetts. It was a controversy, that raged in California, last year we're, seeing this as a controversy, coming up in Minnesota. Where. You've had asian-american, populations, that for decades have been pushing, for data disaggregation, so. They can get a better sense if you're talking about language. Assistance, in terms of schools dealing, with parents if. You're talking about language assistance, when it comes to hospitals, and what they need to provide at the local level data, disaggregation has, been central, to, advancing. An asian-american agenda. What. We found recently is. Predominantly. Chinese, immigrant population, that are mobilized, law. Through. WeChat, and other online networks, have. Had a very skewed, perspective, of what data disaggregation means, and this I, arose. Out of California. A couple of years ago where. Someone convinced. A bunch of people that if you're collecting, this disaggregated. Data it. Meant that you're gonna have quotas, and Chinese people in Berkeley. And Harvard. That. Is not the intent nor the consequence, of all of these data disaggregation pushes. These, data disaggregation pushes, were, intended. And designed and. Implemented, to. Help disadvantaged. Populations, like. The Hmong in silico in Central Valley right. Or the Cambodian, population in Long Beach but, somehow. This. Has gotten sucked into the affirmative action debate and that's something we can talk about later as well and, we've, had a very skewed perspective, so, this is from a protest, in. Rhode Island and we've seen this elsewhere and what's. Remarkable with these protests, is is the participants, are very convinced, of their cause without. Necessarily, understanding, what data disaggregation is about and. I find it a little sad actually and I'll editorialize, a little bit here to, bring. Little children holding up sign saying I am American, and don't.

Discriminate Against, me right. Whereas. The bill actually does nothing of the sort I'll. Just point to that teenager who looks very uncomfortable. And. A little girl in a stroller some. People say that this is great this is a sign of activism, this is a sign of the Asian American community empowering. Themselves I think. We need to re-examine what, empowerment, means it's. Not just simply speaking up it's. Actually having a sense of justice and knowing. Where we fit into the racial order I know, that some of these things will be controversial and I invite, conversation. And discussion. So. The lessons on data but one thing it does say. To us though when we look at data disaggregation is, that we cannot just assume but. Just because our communities have been fighting for this we've, been fighting for this for over 30 years to, try to get government agencies to get more fine-grained, data so we can have more effective, public policy just, because we've been fighting for it and convincing. Other people does not mean that the work is done. In fact after all these policy victories have occurred now. We're seeing a new set of challenges and we need to reach. Out both internally, within the Asian American Pacific. Islander population. But also externally. To continually. Make the case we, can't just assume that once we've set something that, people get it and. On. This I'll, quote, Judge Mike Quan who's a chinese-american in Utah who I think put it best in terms of some of the recent controversy because. Many of the activists, have been pushing hard against. Legislators, against, people like Jennifer. And hai and others. Saying. That we're we're. Out to. Exclude. Asians, that what we're doing will introduce a new Chinese Exclusion Act or, Japanese, internment, there, are people who have been advocating. For data disaggregation who've, been called Nazis or employing. Nazi tactics, now I'm not just using hyperbole, here these are verbatim, things, that you will hear on, WeChat on Twitter and elsewhere. And. I think judge Mike Wan put it best truth, is the greatest casualty, of the current times don't. Like the facts just call them fake and ignore them don't, like the messenger call them stupid Liars the. Simple truth that every community advocate who has ever sought funding for the community knows is that data equals dollars if. You cannot demonstrate through. Data that a particular, group is in need of assistance, they won't get any. So. I'll just leave those words and I'm again happy to talk about it more in the Q&A so, one we. Would talk about the story of Asian Americans growing numbers and and increasing, in their wealth it. Masks, this enormous, set of disparities, within the population, the. Other problem, is of low civic engagement. We. Generally do not vote. In nearly the same numbers as the rest of the population and it and it goes noticed, right. So if we don't participate our, economic. Contributions, are not recognized. We. Are seen as a perpetual foreigner, and our, leadership and talents, hit a bamboo ceiling. So. First when it comes to our economic contributions. It's. Not just, today that people recognize, that asian-americans, are vital, to to. Our country's economy so. These are photos, from. California. One. Is of a Chinese miner. Around. The time of the gold rush and the, other is of Chinese real Chinese immigrants who are railroad workers who, are essential, to building the western end of the Transcontinental, Railroad, the. Transcontinental, Railroad and and and, the benefits, to the American economy do not, do.

Not Become realized without the contribution, of Asian, immigrants, right so we're so vital, to, the economic history, of our country and. Yet, when you look at the, official portrait, of the Golden Spike that. United. The Western, and Eastern halves, of the Transcontinental, Railroad there's not a single Chinese, immigrant, in sight. All. Right so just because we're involved in the economy that we might be vital, to certain, sectors in the economy does. Not mean that we're gonna get that recognition unless, we're civically. Engaged. There's. Also a whole history of laws starting. Out in California, and then spreading to the rest of the country where. Asian Americans have been excluded. Including. Japanese-americans. Who were so vital, to the agricultural, sector in. California. California. Passed an alien land law excluding. Japanese, Indian, and other immigrants, from owning land and, as. We all know japanese-americans. Were interned in, California. And other parts of the United States because. Of their so-called perceived, security. Threat. But. This is not just history. Time. And again we've seen that when you have economic, anxiety and, scapegoating, we've. Seen an uptick in anti Asian violence. So. You have a you have an image there from anti-chinese, riots in, Denver in 1880. The. Vincent chin murderer that many. People especially within the asian-american community recognize. And commemorate, and most. Recently, the. Brutal murder of screening of us coach Ebola in Kansas. Which. The asian-american community still. We. Would argue not commemorating, quite with. The same fervor as we. Remember the Vincent chin incident, in fact if you look in 2017. This. This slide is actually based. On incidents, just in the first half of the year some. Very prominent, incidents, of of hate. Crimes against, asian-americans. Targeting. South. Asians. And. It's. Not just in terms of violence in society, all. Right so this is a very prominent, individual, no longer in the white house I don't, have people remember the. Context of this quote this was Steve Bannon, when. He was the, chief of Breitbart, and. Speaking. Would then candidate, Donald, Trump so. This is in December 2015, and when. Trump was saying that maybe not everyone should be sent back that. With some high-skilled immigrants, college, graduates, they should they, should remain in the country and Bannon, said well when two-thirds or three-quarters of CEOs, in Silicon Valley are from South Asia or from Asia first. Of all by the way that is totally, false it's. A miniscule, fraction of, Silicon Valley CEOs. That. That. Are Asian American let. Alone South Asian but. Here's another thing he says and. I think we should actually take this latter part very seriously. A country. Is more than an economy, we're. A Civic Society. Well. Bannon's mean means, by that is actually an ethnic nationalist, vision of what a Civic Society means, but, there is this larger, problem if, we're only seen, as economic, actors and not Civic actors, it, makes it very easy for those. In power to exclude us from the Civic sphere. And. We're. Seeing that we're, seeing that with the Rays Act which, proposes to cut family, visas now, many Asian Americans including Asian, Americans that. Are highly skilled might think you know what we're gonna be we're gonna be okay, because. We we have high skills and therefore Asian immigration is not going to be affected, well, over, half, of Asian immigrants coming to the United States on, legal, permanent resident visa has come in through family sponsorships.

So. It is going to affect us including, those that, have high skills many of them depend. On bringing. Relatives, over to make to, make a new life in the United States just. Recently, we put, out a blog post and API data and also create infographics, showing. How the proposed. Cuts to family visas would, affect different populations. And as, you can see it. Would affect. Close to a majority of most. Detailed. Asian origin groups including. Indian Americans Chinese Americans, Japanese Filipinos. Pakistanis. Mangas Asians and Vietnamese. All. Right so this is a this is an issue that is hot right now we have to be engaged in but. It is rare it is rare to see Asian Americans, out in the streets. The. Word set of actions that that. We helped, to catalyze. Last, week but, there were nowhere close to the kinds of actions that we've seen on the DREAM Act and other actions that Latinos have done on. Behalf of immigrant rights so, we absolutely need, to speak up participation. Is key it's. Key to building power its key its key to fighting racism and, quite. Honestly perceive, an it is key to being seen as American, for not there in the Civic sphere people are not going to see us as, part of the body politic, so. We've got a lot of work to do. This. Is part of the speech that Barack Obama gave in. 2016. And. People generally were in a celebratory. Mood including, the president he, said the API community's the fastest-growing minority in America but. It's still like everyone's like clapping you know everyone's excited well. That's good to cheer about but. It's still significantly. Underrepresented, at, the ballot box in. 2012. Just 56, percent of eligible APR voters were registered, to vote. Now. The president wasn't just saying that to be a downer. There's. A very realistic, sense, of where, we stand people know that we're important, people know that we're growing fast but. They also know, that we under participate, it's not a secret, right. This is one of the things you get with data people know and. Especially elected, officials know if you're a group that participates, and if, you're a group that not that that doesn't and. We've. Seen that we've seen that in voting data asian-americans. Vote. At much lower rates than. Non-hispanic. Whites and african-americans. It. Is also true and registration, so here's a different look at the data and. You see big differences, within the Asian category, in terms of what voting looks like and what registration, looks like Indian. Americans tend to participate more than others which is actually a little bit surprising, given the day are among the most recently arrived to, the United States and we can talk more in the Q&A about why that might be the case Chinese. Americans, have the lowest rates of voter, registration, and voter, turnout. But. It's not just voting. Asian. Americans as you'll see just below, just. Above the bottom there are much less likely than others to contact, public officials. They're. Also much less likely to engage in boycotts, and. They. Are the least likely to engage in protest, activity. So. Even though many of us including many Googlers might have been involved in the, various travel, ban protests, that occurred in, January. Of this year. Even. When it comes to protest behavior, where, so much of our interests, are at stake we, are much less likely to do so than, the rest of the population. So. To sum up we need to redefine Asian, success, many. Of us just think about, economic, success well first of all maybe even before economic, success many, of us are socialized. Into thinking about GPA, and academic. Achievement, and then maybe after, that wealth generation, but. We need to redefine weight redefine. Success to. Not only mean economic, advancement but. Also political participation. Civic. Participation and. Philanthropic. Activity. And. The success not only of our community, but also larger, society, depends. On it fortunately. We can draw upon the inspiration, of many Asian American heroes and Shiro's. So. For example wonky mark, in. 1898, helps, establish. The, bedrock, of birthright, citizenship, that, every immigrant depends, on right. Which is that if your. Child is born in the United States citizenship, cannot be denied to that child it, was an asian-american hook who helped establish that. The. First Asian American elected. To Congress congressman, Dileep Singh sound he, had fought for the right for, Indians and Filipinos, to naturalize, and within. Two years of getting naturalized, he runs as a judge and then. When he first and then and then after becoming a judge he, then runs for Congress and becomes the first asian-american elected, to Congress so we can draw upon all these inspiring stories. Right it is rare now when people get naturalized, ticking you know what I'm gonna vote in my, next election I'm gonna run for judge and we're gonna run for Congress but we should look to those examples.

Right. And we have heroes from a whole of our different communities this is one of the things many people think we know what our community is so diverse it's hopelessly, diverse we, can actually see diversity, as a strength because. Every one of our groups, have these inspiring, examples. Including. Fred Korematsu who, fought the. Constitutionality, of internment, or, Larry it Liang who. Is as important, as Cesar Chavez, to the establishment, of United. Farm Workers and. Finally. We. Should look for inspiration not only within our community, but, also with other marginalized, communities. Including, other people of color and. I loved this photo this is a photo of, Martin, Luther King in Selma. Wearing. Hawaiian leis. Right. And this was a gift that was sent by Reverend, takaka. To. Martin. Luther King to. Show the Solidarity. Of Pacific. Islanders with African Americans and this, solidarity remains, as vital, today as a dead during, the 1960 civil rights movement, it, is important for us to recognize that our fates are interlinked, that, if you talk about Asian American empowerment, it, is fundamentally. Linked to the empowerment, of other groups that are marginalized in this society. Thank. You for your time and I'll now switch it over to Jennifer Lee who will talk about the National asian-american survey. Thank. You Karthik I love that he added she rose to the hero label. Thank, you Amy for inviting, us and for organizing, this event and thank you all for being here for, those who are live-streaming we really appreciate, the audience and we'd love to hear your feedback what. I'm going to do is switch gears a bit and talk about the National asian-american, survey and some, of the data that's come from the National asian-american, survey and just to underscore a few points, it, was, funded, by a number of foundations, without, which it would not have launched so the National Science Foundation has, been in a strong. Contributor, as has the Russell Sage Foundation and, program, director is in the audience I exes, and Tron and I wanted to thank her personally, for her help I, wanted. To talk start, off by talking about, what makes, the National Asian American, survey unique, if you, read newspapers. And you see statistics, you see oftentimes, percentages. Of what whites support, policy. How what percentage of white. Americans, support a particular policy. What, percentage, African, Americans support, a policy or Latinos, what, you often see missing. Is data on Asian Americans and so what. The National Asian American does survey, does is help build the substantive void to. Provide data on Asian. Americans at the national, level what's. Unique about the Asian American survey is that rather than focusing on just a couple of Asian ethnic. Groups we. Choose 10 so, the six largest which. Are Asians. Asian. Indians Chinese. Filipinos. Koreans. Vietnamese, Japanese, we, also include, Cambodian. And Hmong and we, also include, for the first time Bangladeshis. And Pakistanis, who have never been included in a national, survey at all what's. Also unique about, the National Asian American survey is that we, conducted, the survey in both English, and in, an Asian ethnic, language, and why that's important, as karthick mentioned two-thirds, of the Asian American population is, foreign-born. And many. Have, are limited. In English language proficiency, the. Problem, is that a lot of surveys, that have been conducted in the past have focused, on Asian Americans were only available, in English what. That does is, then bias, the, results to. Those who are English fluent, and typically. Younger and so, we actually had, the survey translated. In a number of different languages. So. Let, me begin by, talking about, some of the problems, that Asian. Americans face as Karthik says some, of the rhetoric and some of the images of Asian Americans, is that we are a highly educated. Uniformly. Hayate highly, educated group, a high, achieving group with median household incomes were highly, employed we have high self employment rates that, we're doing just fine. We're assimilating. Just, fine and on the way to becoming, white or at least honorary, White's so. That is some of the dominant narrative right, and so what are some of the problems that. Asian Americans face so, we asked this question, and, so. At. The top of the list was affordability, of college the. Cost of medical care the, cost of elderly care and as you can see a number. Of problems, that Asian American, respondents. Explained. Our problems, and in the, actual in, our survey data we have it broken down by ethnic group if you're interested, I wanted. To point to a particular slide.

Which. Is bullying. So, bullying, apparently, is a particularly. Strong. Problem, among some. Asian, ethnic groups if you look at the Hmong for instance. 46. Percent of Hmong Americans. Have. Have. Listed. Bullying, as a very, serious, problem and. It's. Hmong Pakistani. Indian Bangladeshi, what's. The pattern here one, of the things we're seeing in our data is this divergence. Of experiences. Between. South Asians on the one hand and East, Asians on the other so, it's not as though Chinese Koreans, and Japanese. Don't. Experience, bullying but they're not experiencing. It nearly, at the same rate as South, Asian Americans, and this, gets, to another, point that, Karthik. And I found in our data that we actually are right we wrote about in an op-ed which is that when. We talk about Asian Americans. Oftentimes. Americans. Not. Only white Americans, black Americans, Latino Americans but also Asian Americans, seem. To have an idea of what Asian American is or who, an Asian American is, and oftentimes. We're, thinking about East Asians, exclusively. I mean, just to look, at this audience is, kind, of interesting because I think and I were remarking that this is a talk about Asian Americans but even this audience, the lie audience is predominantly. East Asian, so, there's something in the way we, conceive. Of Asian Americans there's something in the way that we're behaving. That is, creating. This division, and. Excluding. South. Asians, from the fold why, that's important, is because when, we talk about experiences. With. Discrimination, with bullying, we're, selecting. A particular narrative, and, excluding. Certain groups. On. That point I wanted to talk about some experiences, with discrimination. That have come up in our survey, so the first is with police, again. What. We see is, a, different, set of experiences between. Cambodian. Indian Hmong Pakistanis. Who. Are South Asians, versus. Koreans. Chinese Vietnamese, that. South Asians, are more likely to have had negative experiences, with the, police than, East Asians.

If. We look at the question of whether. Anyone. Has felt that they've been unfairly, denied, a promotion we, see a different, pattern emerging. We, see that among, Asian Americans more generally, 14, percent, a test. That they feel like they've been unfairly, denied a promotion but. If you look at the groups who. Respond. Even more highly it's Filipinos, and Indians and why this is interesting is that these, groups tend to be more likely represented. As white-collar, professionals. And so, is it possible that those. Who are more likely to be in, mixed. Settings in professional, settings are more. Likely to experience. The. Bamboo ceiling so to speak and so this is something that Karthik, and I are working on trying, to understand. Not. Only the, figures, about. Who gets who feels they've been unfairly denied, but, what are some of the mechanisms, that, are suppressing, advancement. Among Asian Americans and, just to give you a statistic, of. Among. Asian. American college-educated, males, when you hold all things, constant. Like. Where they went to school their major where, they lived all. All. Sorts of host, of factors they. Make a percent, less than white males who are comparable, on every scale Asian. American women earn. As much as white women but they're less likely to be in supervisory. Position, so they're less likely to, be, promoted to the managerial. Ranks so, even, when you attain, the, right degrees, even. If you go to the right school even if you have the right experience, that. For some reason we're not doing, as well in, the labor market, as we should. Another. Thing that came up about one-fifth, of Asian Americans report. That they receive, poor, service, in restaurants, and stores and, again you, see an interesting pattern with Filipino, among Indian, Bangladeshi are, more. Likely to report. This as a problem, than other Asian, ethnic groups. This. I think many of us have experienced. At one point in our lives, for, how many have, you received, a comment that, people are either surprised, that you speak English, or surprised, that you speak English well. So. That. Is at least half here. And you're, Googlers, so. I presume that all of you are fluent in English but, so about 30%. Of asian-american, respondents. Report. That, people, act as if they don't speak English and again. You see variation. Among, the groups and this is a theme, that Karthik and I will continue, to speak about that, on the whole there is tremendous, diversity, among, Asian Americans yet, at the same time there's, a similar, pattern that. Emerges. This. Is another thing that I think many of us have experienced. That you've had your name mispronounced. How, many people have had their name mispronounced. At some point in their lives. So. Much so that I'll just draw my own experience, so my first name is a Korean, name it's ji yong when. I became, naturalized, I don't even know if Karthik knows this story when, I became naturalized, I had the choice to add a middle. And so, I added Jennifer. Because, I was actually very tired, of, having. To say, my first name over and over again or have a substitute.

Teacher Come, in and stop. At my name and pause yet. If you think about ji-yong, it's not phonetically. Difficult, and if, you think about it we work, really hard to, say, white. Ethnic, names that, seem impossible, to. Pronounce yet, for some reason Asian. Ethnic names are, difficult. To pronounce and people don't even try so. Again. About. 2/3. Of Asian Americans have experienced, this particularly. Indians. And Japanese. This. Is another thing that I suspect, many people in the audience have experienced, that people assume, because you're Asian you're. Good at math and science and, so I'd love to see a show of hands of how many of experience this. So. Math and science are not my particular, forte, actually. But. I think, most people assume that. I'm good at math and science and people assume that, most Asians, are good at math and science again. These. Are, perceptions. And this might seem like a, positive. Stereotype in, some ways but, one of the things that Karthik and I will, write about and are writing about is that. In some, ways when you're perceived, to be so, good at technical skills. Oftentimes. You're also perceived, to lack social. Skills are so-called soft, skills that are needed for. Leadership. Positions I. Wanted. To go on and talk a little bit more about. Some of the opinion data so, oftentimes, asian-americans. Are perceived, as just caring. About education. Just getting into the top schools, but, we're actually we, have strong opinions, about public. Policies. We're, very strongly, against. A Muslim, ban and this is uniform. Across groups, about. Two-thirds. Of asian-americans, are against. A. Muslim, ban that, trump has proposed. Asian. Indians events, the strongest. Almost. 80% are. Against. The Muslim ban. We. Also strong, leads and some. Would agree, that, undocumented. Immigrants, should have a pathway to citizenship. That on, the question of undocumented, immigrants. Asian. Asian americans. Agree. That. There, should be a pathway and, our numbers, are very much in line with those, of white black, and latino americans latinos, a little bit higher actually. This. Is another slide that i thought was very important. To point out which is that one. Of the things that, oftentimes. Gets, a meshed in the debate about affirmative action is, this. Idea, that asian. Americans, only can't care about themselves, but one of the things we find is that. 72%. Strongly. Support, that the government do more to, ensure equal rights between black, and white americans, this. Is an incredibly. High percentage. And in some ways it even surprised, me but, i think this underscores the, point that, we are a multi-faceted, group, that, we care more, than just, about getting in the right colleges, we care more than about just getting the right jobs that. We have very, much very, diverse, set. Of interests, that are not oftentimes. Profiled. In the media. We're. Also very committed. To climate, change and environmental issues, again, which is something that the media does not. Particularly. Point, out about our population, since. I'm running out of time actually, just this perfect i'm going to hand it back over to Karthik who's going to talk about the presidential would vote choice and i'll just say this very quickly thank you jennifer we, also have data on how asian americans voted and. In fact it's different from what the exit polls show, which, were not done in asian languages is only done in english and spanish, and. And. And we will, get to that in a second one thing about 2016. Is that it was a record-setting year for asian americans so. We, doubled, our normal, increase in terms of the increase in asian, voters per presidential, cycle in terms of how Asian Americans voted across. The board Asian Americans favored, Clinton, over Trump although, there are some significant, differences before. We surveyed, Bangladesh, and Pakistan 'yes it used to be that Indian Americans were among the bluest of Asian. Americans but. Maybe. Not surprisingly, given the. Role of anti-muslim. Rhetoric in the election, this year and given, the fact that Bangladeshi, and Pakistani Americans are. Predominantly. Muslim population, here that, they showed the highest level of support for Clinton. Still. We have a fair, number of Asian Americans who do not identify as, either Democrat or Republican although. That's a 3-point partisan, scale what.

Political Scientists, do is they take. People who say that they're independent asked, them are you closer to the Republican, Party or the Democratic Party. Overall. We see that the Democratic, Party has a pretty strong advantage, except. Among Vietnamese, Chinese, and Cambodian, Americans. And among Chinese Americans actually we're seeing a drift. A shift, perhaps. Related to some of the conservative activism that we've seen in the last few years but, potentially are there broader demographic trends. In, which we're seeing a, rightward shift among, Chinese. American voters and then. Finally, even though Asian Americans are growing and they're getting more active we've, had a record. Increase. In asian-american voters Asian. Americans are still much less likely to be contacted, by parties, and this sets up a bit of a catch-22. Parties. Are more likely to contact those that are registered with the party, consistently. Vote and have strong party identification. Asian-americans. Tend to index look low on that compared, to the non-hispanic white and black populations, but. Party contact itself also increases, all of those things I suggest. Like you have a, virtuous. Cycle among. Whites, and african-americans where more contact, means more engagement. Asian-americans, seem so far to be trapped in a vicious cycle of less, contact, less engagement less, subsequent, contact, and we need to find out ways to break out of this cycle so, I'll end with that and if Jennifer can join me up here we'll we'll take some Q&A. This. Is kaya. But. You know the first question that I, kind. Of want to get a sense of is you, know you mentioned, that, you believe the model minority myth is one of the biggest challenges, facing our community what. Are some ways we can think about combating. It so. I'm gonna someone, actually tweeted, at me because I I tweeted. That we were speaking. At Google and so. This gets, to the model minority think this is something that Google good news so this is a this, is like civic engagement live, in action now, Jason Fong who by the way started. Blogging when he was a high schooler and he's a freshman, at Wesleyan now and, he says professor please tell Google that, his definition of Asian Americans as being chiefly, East Asian, is inaccurate if, you guys look up asian-american, definition, in google it, uses something I don't know from what dictionary, but it says actually. I'll read this out right now and it, says an American, who is of Asian and and then in parentheses, chiefly. East Asian, descent, hmm. This is important because if you look at the demographic, data. Less. Than 40 percent of the asian-american population now is East Asian the reason why I bring this up is that our, model. Minority myth but, also our, notion of who is Asian is kind of frozen. In time and very, very, stereotypical, and, it, in it and it hurts. It. Hurts us even though we think it might be a compliment, to be seen as good at math and science it, means, that people who have creative, talent are less likely to have that talent recognized, and, so I think what can be done, part, of it is changing, even. The stories we tell ourselves as. Asian Americans, but, also continually. Showing, that. Our complexity, and, not shying, away from, from, showing those parts of ourselves that, are not in. Line with that, I. Would say one other thing is that Karthik. And I wrote about. When. There. Was a shooting, of, chruch. Ebola, one of the things we both noticed, was that there wasn't the al cry among Asian Americans as, was with, Vincent, chin and Vincent chin his. Murder was 35, years ago and still every, year, that. Comes up and that becomes, heralded, as an issue that, in, some, ways unifies, us that. Didn't happen. Most recently, it hasn't, been happening when it comes to South Asians who are experiencing. Who are much more likely to experience hate crimes and discrimination. And here. I would think that we are much stronger when we unify across, ethnic, groups we, experience. Similar types of discrimination and, how much more powerful we can be if we. Decide. At. Least among ourselves and, also collectively. Show. A stronger collective. Unifying. Identity. That, Asian American includes, not, only East, Asian but also South Asian who are demographically. Actually. Becoming, a larger part of our population as. Karthik mentioned yeah one quick thing if I may just, to February. 2018. Let's. See what Google other, Silicon, Valley companies, and, asian-americans, throughout the country can do to commemorate, that anniversary, because. The effects of that still reverberate, so, his widow had. Her, visa status. Was in jeopardy because. Her her sponsorship, had expired. With. Her husband's death right so we need to this. This stuff is so powerful, and the fact that we are not rising up and speaking up actually.

Makes It more likely that policies, will get past that disadvantage, our communities, I, really. Appreciate the themes coming out of, you sharing around community. And coming together as, a community but. You know what we're also seeing are some very real nuances. In. The data around opinions, of different ethnic groups so I'm curious around your thoughts and, ideas for you know how do we move the move forward as a collective community, you. Know recognizing. As well the diversity that exists like the vast diversity. It's. All started, so. One of the you, know people who. Are not Asian kind, of get confused here like wait you say that you're you say that you're Asian but, then you also say we're very different and don't lump us all together and it's like it's, hard how can you be one and men at the same time and, the. Academics, and us would say it's complicated. But we can't just say that right so part, of it is contextual, but, so yes there are vast socio-economic. Differences but. When it comes to public opinion on, a bunch of public opinion data asian-americans. So for example on the Affordable Care Act on universal, health care on the. Muslim ban and a bunch of other issues are actually pretty unified, so, just because so. Data disaggregation does, not mean that these groups will never come together on anything but. It's only when you disaggregate, the data as you can tell what are the circumstances under which this group is very different from each other what, are the circumstances under, which they're unified, so, we need to have an evidence-based, approach to. This question and not something that's just based on stereotyping. I would, also say one other thing which is that if we look at the Latino community, there is enormous, diversity, among, Latinos, there. Are Cubans. There, are Mexicans they're, Guatemalan, Salvadorans, enormous. Ly different achievement. Outcomes. Enormous. Ly different migration experiences. Yet, as Latinos. They are a powerful. Political, force, and so, that's what, I think we're, missing as, Asian Americans we just. Because we, identify. As Asian and, we take, an inclusive approach does, not mean that we deny our ethnic origins, or national origins, but. The power, that. We have as, Asian Americans is much stronger as a collective, just, as Latino, is much stronger than Cuban. Thank. You. Hi. Thank you for the talk I was, just really curious about the. Sample, size that you collected to gather this data and how did you decide on the questions, that were prompted like if. You were bullied which which, are, you leaning, more towards Republican, or Democrat and all, of the questions that you mentioned so I'm just really curious the methodology. A little bit more excellent. Yeah so this is so. The I think the overall sample size is a little over 4,000, for asian-americans.

300. 300. We try to get at least. 300. Per group, just, in terms of the statistical, power that we need for most of the kind of differences that we see in, terms of the questions, it's it's layered some of it is repeating, questions that show up in other, major. Nationally, national, science funded surveys, like the American national election study and the, General Social Survey some. Of it is also questions, that we've asked in the past based on conversations. With community organizations. So, the question about bullying, is part of this larger set of questions about the challenges, that people face, with themselves and their families, and so we're repeating, some of those questions to track it over time. Yeah. And I would say that what's interesting is that when you have four people four principal, investigators. We. All have we come with different interests, and the. Three of them are actually political, scientists, and I'm a sociologist, than me that doesn't make a huge difference, to you, but we have very different ideas of what are important questions and like Karthik said part. Of Naz was, too, filled, a substantive, void people, were not serving, Asian Americans and so we had no idea how. Asian Americans, stood on certain issues so some. Of that is just the, questions, that were asked, of other Americans, but we're not asked to be asian-americans and then other questions were built, thinking. About the unique experiences. And challenges of, Asian Americans yeah. One thing I'll say by, the way is, not. Only in this survey but in Prior surveys, both that nas has done but also API, data has done we've, uncovered other issues and where our mentalism is one of them most people when they think about environmentalists. Don't think of asian-americans but we, actually index much higher than than, the u.s. average when it comes to pro-environment attitudes, gun, control we have some of the strongest attitudes, that are pro gun control but, Asian Americans rarely, get talked about like after Vegas how many people were asking where do the Asian Americans stand right, but the fact that we have this data hopefully can help change that narrative so. That we are written into the stories of what Americans, think about gun. Violence and gun, control. Thank. You for that question and I'd love to hear if there if there are notable differences, talking about survey data between, the first generation, and. Generation, not merged from from the NAS data if you saw any patterns there you know two young Asian American adults, differ in their views on policy issues then say you know compared to older adults. Actually. I'll start, off with that I think I'm so glad you asked that question because, we have so much more data than, we're able to present in, this short period, and if you're interested, you can look at the link, that's listed below one. Of the most interesting, things, is that if you break down the data, by, generational. Status so first generation. Meaning born, in a different country second, generation, born here, and also. If you break it down by age so, 25. And under verses 25 and up the, younger, second generation, are incredibly. More progressive, on all of these issues so asian-americans, are much more progressive on. All, of the issues that we, discussed. Which is oftentimes a, misperception. But. If you look at the 25. And under and if you look at the second generation they're, actually, even more progressive, about the Muslim ban they oppose it more strongly they're. More likely to support a pathway to citizenship. They're more likely to. Support. Climate, control. Gun. Control all of the issues, it's really actually quite. It. Feeds me with a sense of optimism, about, where we're going as a community, yeah, the one caveat I'll say though is. When. It comes to participation, so, all you Asian American Millennials, in the room and online, we. Need to step up our game right it used to be so, when we were looking at this, puzzle Asian. Americans on average tending, to have among, the highest levels, of educational attainment but. The lowest levels, of political participation that's, a huge puzzle the, political, science and sociology literature, would not predict, that so what accounts for that generally.

We Found immigration, related factors turns, out that most people got their college degrees in Asia, they, were not socialized, into politics in the same way they. Don't understand, the party system they don't understand, the issues that are not as engaged so. That should mean that the people born here who went to college here, who. Are progressive and often these days or even maybe they're conservative, on but they have strong opinions on issues they, should be engaged and. An asian-american, Millennials. Asian-american, native born have, among the lowest rates, of, political. And civic participation that. Really, concerns me if we think about what especially, in a state like California if, you look at the future of California and. Especially. Its professional. Upper-middle. Class population it's. More and more going to be asian-american, what. Are we doing, to, hold, up our end of the civic commitment, to the state of California to the neighborhoods we live in and to our country I think it's a big question it's a big challenge and it's something hopefully, that all of us can have a role in helping. To shape the future certainly. Hope so, so. We'll take one more live question, and, then I want to be respectful of everyone's time so I know we're a couple minutes over but what I give space for this one last question thank you thank, you both for coming today and sharing all this illuminating information, related. To the last question. Instead. Of just being participants, in terms of like accepting, this information, and kind of letting it sink in um what, are two or three actions, that we can take to, all be, part of that change that you've mentioned today. Yeah. I mean I this, is this is hard work I mean so we tried. Working. With different community organizations through. The country to say you know what Asian Americans especially on something like immigration. Not. Just on daca and dreamers but. With the proposed cuts to legal immigration that the president just announced we. Should be up in arms we're, so heavily engaged in digital media we should be flooding, Twitter. Facebook Instagram, and snapchat with. What we think, many. Of us would not be in this country given, the new kind of qualifications, are talking about under the Rays Act so. One of the simple, things we can do so we had come up with this hashtag called AAPI, action. And. I would humbly, suggest maybe, not maybe that hashtag may be something else but, let's start getting organized, digitally, because we're so heavily indexed, in terms of digital participation. But, let's go beyond consumption. Right, of like, our YouTube stars and like questions, about who we are like these identity, questions are important, but, we have to be engaged in digital, and, social media so that's why Jackson, right here I think one. Of the things is you may have seen a lot of hashtags, about. Hollywood. Is so white and we, are up in arms about, the. Lack of diversity in Hollywood in, movies, and TV, the lack of asian-american, representation. If we. Could channel, that energy, to. Some political causes as you mentioned, how, much stronger would we be how much more seriously, would we be taken, and. The last thing I would say is let's. See what we can do in February 2018 I'm serious here that, would be a good and we have, several.

Months Of lead time, right. This is the end of one year anniversary of, spring of us Kochi boatloads murder it. Was also the one year anniversary of the. Gentleman who helped save his life right so it also shows you the, power of cross. Racial coalition's. And standing up for each other let's. See what we can do because I think that will be a good test of we. Have enough lead time to organize this, is someone who is an engineer so. That should be a cause that should be near and dear to the heart of engineers everywhere, right. But, even beyond engineers and this is something that all api's should rally. Around because it shows you the power of anti-immigrant. Rhetoric racist. Rhetoric and, nativism. And how, it can affect all, of us in very, dangerous ways, and it's important, for us to not, only commemorate, but to make sure that things like this don't happen again, so, I'll leave it at that as one. Potential. Test to what what what our power could be both. In terms of online activism, as well as offline, thank. You so much both, of you for being here and thank you all for coming appreciate. Your. Attendance and engagement, thank you, thank you Amy. You.

2017-11-27 11:40

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