Asian-American Movement Activists

Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous peoples of the continent of Asia, the usage of the term "Asian" by the United States Census Bureau only includes people with origins or ancestry from the Far East, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent and excludes people with ethnic origins in certain parts of Asia, including West Asia who are now categorized as Middle Eastern Americans. The "Asian" census category includes people who indicate their race(s) on the census as "Asian" or reported entries such as "Chinese, Indian, Filipino, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Korean, Japanese, Pakistani, Malaysian, and Other Asian". In 2020, Americans who identified as Asian alone (19,886,049) or in combination with other races (4,114,949) made up 7.2% of the U.S. population.

Chinese, Indian, and Filipino Americans make up the largest share of the Asian American population with 5 million, 4.3 million, and 4 million people respectively. These numbers equal 23%, 20%, and 18% of the total Asian American population, or 1.5% and 1.2% of the total U.S. population.

Although migrants from Asia have been in parts of the contemporary United States since the 17th century, large-scale immigration did not begin until the mid-19th century. Nativist immigration laws during the 1880s–1920s excluded various Asian groups, eventually prohibiting almost all Asian immigration to the continental United States. After immigration laws were reformed during the 1940s–1960s, abolishing national origins quotas, Asian immigration increased rapidly. Analyses of the 2010 census have shown that Asian Americans are the fastest-growing racial group in the United States.

Terminology

As with other racial and ethnicity-based terms, formal and common usage have changed markedly through the short history of this term. Prior to the late 1960s, people of Asian ancestry were usually referred to as ''Yellow'', ''Oriental'', ''Asiatic'', or ''Mongoloid''. Additionally, the American definition of 'Asian' originally included West Asian ethnic groups, particularly Turkish Americans, Armenian Americans, Assyrian Americans, Iranian Americans, Kurdish Americans, Jewish Americans, and certain Arab Americans, although in modern times, these groups are now considered Middle Eastern American.

The term "Asian American" was coined by historian-activists Yuji Ichioka and Emma Gee in 1968 during the founding of the Asian American Political Alliance, and they were also credited with popularizing the term, which meant to be used to frame a new "inter-ethnic-pan-Asian American self-defining political group". This effort was part of New Left antiwar and anti-imperialist activism, directly opposing what was viewed as an unjust Vietnam War.

Prior to being included in the "Asian" category in the 1980s, many Americans of South Asian descent usually classified themselves as ''Caucasian'' or ''other''. Changing patterns of immigration and an extensive period of exclusion of Asian immigrants have resulted in demographic changes that have in turn affected the formal and common understandings of what defines Asian American. For example, since the removal of restrictive "national origins" quotas in 1965, the Asian-American population has diversified greatly to include more of the peoples with ancestry from various parts of Asia.

Today, "Asian American" is the accepted term for most formal purposes, such as government and academic research, although it is often shortened to ''Asian'' in common usage. The most commonly used definition of Asian American is the U.S. Census Bureau definition, which includes all people with origins in the Far East, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent.U.S. Census Bureau,
Census 2000 Summary File 1 Technical Documentation
'', 2001, at Appendix B-14. "A person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam. It includes ''Asian Indian'', ''Chinese'', ''Filipino'', ''Korean'', ''Japanese'', ''Vietnamese'', and ''Other Asian''." This is chiefly because the census definitions determine many governmental classifications, notably for equal opportunity programs and measurements.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "Asian person" in the United States is most often thought of as a person of East Asian descent. In vernacular usage, "Asian" is usually used to refer to those of East Asian descent or anyone else of Asian descent with epicanthic eyefolds. This differs from the U.S. Census definition and the Asian American Studies departments in many universities consider all those of East, South or Southeast Asian descent to be "Asian".

Census definition

In the U.S. census, people with origins or ancestry in the Far East, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent are classified as part of the Asian race; while those with origins or ancestry in West Asia (Israelis, Turks, Persians, Kurds, Assyrians, Arabs, etc.), and the Caucasus (Georgians, Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Chechens, Circassians, etc.) are classified as "white" or "Middle Eastern",U.S. Census Bureau, 2000 Census of Population, Public Law 94-171 Redistricting Data File.. (archived fro
the original
on November 3, 2001). and those with origins from Central Asia (Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Turkmens, Tajiks, Kyrgyz, Afghans, etc.) are not mentioned in racial definitions provided by the United States Census Bureau. As such, "Asian" and "African" ancestry are seen as racial categories only for the purpose of the census, with the definition referring to ancestry from parts of the Asian and African continents outside of West Asia, North Africa, and Central Asia.

In 1980 and before, census forms listed particular Asian ancestries as separate groups, along with ''white'' and ''black or negro''. Asian Americans had also been classified as "other".Lee, Gordon. ''Hyphen'' magazine. . 2003. January 28, 2007 (archived fro
the original
on March 17, 2008). In 1977, the federal Office of Management and Budget issued a directive requiring government agencies to maintain statistics on racial groups, including on "Asian or Pacific Islander". By the 1990 census, "Asian or Pacific Islander (API)" was included as an explicit category, although respondents had to select one particular ancestry as a subcategory. Beginning with the 2000 census, two separate categories were used: "Asian American" and "Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander".

Debates and criticism

The definition of ''Asian American'' has variations that derive from the use of the word ''American'' in different contexts. Immigration status, citizenship (by birthright and by naturalization), acculturation, and language ability are some variables that are used to define ''American'' for various purposes and may vary in formal and everyday usage. For example, restricting ''American'' to include only U.S. citizens conflicts with discussions of Asian American businesses, which generally refer both to citizen and non-citizen owners.

In a PBS interview from 2004, a panel of Asian American writers discussed how some groups include people of Middle Eastern descent in the Asian American category. Asian American author Stewart Ikeda has noted, "The definition of 'Asian American' also frequently depends on who's asking, who's defining, in what context, and why... the possible definitions of 'Asian-Pacific American' are many, complex, and shifting... some scholars in Asian American Studies conferences suggest that Russians, Iranians, and Israelis all might fit the field's subject of study." Jeff Yang, of ''The Wall Street Journal'', writes that the panethnic definition of Asian American is a unique American construct, and as an identity is "in beta". The majority of Asian Americans feel ambivalence about the term "Asian American" as a term by which to identify themselves. Pyong Gap Min, a sociologist and Professor of Sociology at Queens College, has stated the term is merely political, used by Asian-American activists and further reinforced by the government. Beyond that, he feels that South Asians and East Asians do not have commonalities in "culture, physical characteristics, or pre-migrant historical experiences".

Scholars have grappled with the accuracy, correctness, and usefulness of the term Asian American. The term "Asian" in Asian American most often comes under fire for only encompassing some of the diverse peoples of Asia, and for being considered a racial category instead of a non-racial "ethnic" category. This is namely due to the categorization of the racially different South Asians and East Asians as part of the same "race". Furthermore, it has been noted that West Asians (whom are not considered "Asian" under the U.S census) share some cultural similarities with Indians but very little with East Asians, with the latter two groups being classified as "Asian". Scholars have also found it difficult to determine why Asian Americans are considered a "race" while Americans of Hispanic and Latino heritage are a non-racial "ethnic group", given how the category of Asian Americans similarly comprises people with diverse origins.Lee, S.S., Mountain, J. & Koenig, B.A. (2001). The Meanings of Race in the New Genomics: Implications for Health Disparities Research. '' Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law, and Ethics 1,'' (1). Pages 43, 44, & 45
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However, it has been argued that South Asians and East Asians can be "justifiably" grouped together because of Buddhism's origins in South Asia.

In contrast, leading social sciences and humanities scholars of race and Asian American identity point out that because of the racial constructions in the United States, including the social attitudes toward race and those of Asian ancestry, Asian Americans have a "shared racial experience". Because of this shared experience, the term Asian American is argued as still being a useful panethnic category because of the similarity of some experiences among Asian Americans, including stereotypes specific to people in this category. Despite this, others have stated that many Americans do not treat all Asian Americans equally, highlighting the fact that "Asian American" is generally synonymous with people of East Asian descent, thereby excluding people of Southeast Asian and South Asian origin. Some South and Southeast Asian Americans may not identify with the Asian American label, instead describing themselves as "Brown Asians" or simply "Brown", due to the perceived racial and cultural differences between them and East Asian Americans.

Demographics

The demographics of Asian Americans describe a heterogeneous group of people in the United States who can trace their ancestry to one or more countries in East, South, or Southeast Asia. Because they compose 7.3% of the entire U.S. population, the diversity of the group is often disregarded in media and news discussions of "Asians" or of "Asian Americans". While there are some commonalities across ethnic subgroups, there are significant differences among different Asian ethnicities that are related to each group's history. The Asian American population is greatly urbanized, with nearly three-quarters of them living in metropolitan areas with population greater than 2.5 million. , California had the largest population of Asian Americans of any state, and Hawaii was the only state where Asian Americans were the majority of the population.

The demographics of Asian Americans can further be subdivided into, as listed in alphabetical order:
* East Asian Americans, including Chinese Americans, Hong Kong Americans, Japanese Americans, Korean Americans, Macanese Americans, Mongolian Americans, Ryukyuan Americans, Taiwanese Americans, and Tibetan Americans.
* South Asian Americans, including Bangladeshi Americans, Bhutanese Americans, Indian Americans, Indo-Caribbean Americans, Indo-Fijian Americans, Maldivian Americans, Nepalese Americans, Pakistani Americans, and Sri Lankan Americans.
* Southeast Asian Americans, including Bruneian Americans, Burmese Americans, Cambodian Americans, Filipino Americans, Hmong Americans, Indonesian Americans, Iu Mien Americans, Karen Americans, Laotian Americans, Malaysian Americans, Singaporean Americans, Thai Americans, Timorese Americans, and Vietnamese Americans.

This grouping is by country of origin before immigration to the United States, and not necessarily by ethnicity, as for example (nonexclusive), Singaporean Americans may be of Chinese, Indian, or Malay descent.

Asian Americans include multiracial or mixed race persons with origins or ancestry in both the above groups and another race, or multiple of the above groups.

Language

In 2010, there were 2.8 million people (age 5 and older) who spoke one of the Chinese languages at home; after the Spanish language, it is the third most common language in the United States. Other sizeable Asian languages are Tagalog, Vietnamese, and Korean, with all three having more than 1 million speakers in the United States.

In 2012, Alaska, California, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Texas, and Washington were publishing election material in Asian languages in accordance with the Voting Rights Act; these languages include Tagalog, Mandarin Chinese, Vietnamese, Spanish, Hindi, and Bengali. Election materials were also available in Gujarati, Japanese, Khmer, Korean, and Thai. A 2013 poll found that 48 percent of Asian Americans considered media in their native language as their primary news source.

The 2000 census found the more prominent languages of the Asian American community to include the Chinese languages (Cantonese, Taishanese, and Hokkien), Tagalog, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, Hindi, Urdu