The Sweeping Term of “Asian American”
By Sachi Akmal, Wisteria Magazine
Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month was in May, and as a person of South Asian descent, it was a time to examine my place in this country. During the month and shortly after, I witnessed several conversations questioning who the month was really for, particularly from the South Asian community.
The #StopAsianHate movement brings up an example of why the term and blanket identity of "Asian American" can be harmful. It's clear that East Asian phenotypic features made so many victims in a wave of violence in the West. The Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in specific struggles that are unique to the East Asian community. But different Asian communities have faced distinctly different struggles in the West since immigration from Asia to Western countries began; hyper-feminization of East Asians, hyper-masculinization of South Asians, more frequent colorism against South and West Asians, and other countless nuances in discrimination that stem from cultural, religious, and phenotypic differences within the Asian community. To use a term that blankets such a large and diverse group of people who experience large and diverse struggles and issues when addressing only one region is harmful and does not serve its smaller communities.
Asian Americans are the fastest-growing racial group in America, currently 5.6% of the US population but projected to be 14% by 2065, according to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. While ongoing issues remain to be solved with the overall Western treatment of Asians, there is a greater opportunity for these communities to examine their unique internal problems.
Asian American solidarity is still crucial.
The significance of this term in advancing rights for Asian Americans has to be acknowledged. It was first used in 1968 by UC Berkeley student activists Emma Gee and Yuji Ichioka. "Asian American," although considered a radical term at first, was preferable to its commonly-used derogatory alternative, "Oriental." Expanding the term's application to Asian American and Pacific Islander, or AAPI, in the 80s and 90s proved to be just as contentious. Their idea was to create a more powerful protest bloc by uniting different Asian communities that would have been weaker on their own — necessary because Asians were 0.5% of the US population at the time. The Black Power movement inspired this approach and made it easier to work alongside other activist movements.
Even as the diversity within the Asian American community increases, solidarity is still as vital as it was when the term was first coined. Thanks to the way Pangea happened to split, the inhabitants of the supercontinent have been interacting for millennia, allowing for several cultural similarities. But the most significant similarity among Asians is the outsider treatment in the West.
"We share [...] a continued history of being scapegoated for America's ills — literally and figuratively — and never being accepted as full and equal members of society," Karen Umemoto, the director of the Asian American Studies Center at UCLA, told Vox.
Issues regarding immigration and xenophobia serve as the common thread for such an expansive group, requiring the largest collective to be addressed. Even for struggles that don't directly affect the entire Asian American community, showing solidarity within the community benefits everyone. Just as we saw South Asians show up to #StopAsianHate rallies, denouncing actions that predominantly affect East Asians, reciprocity can be expected for South and Southeast Asians when the time arises.
Activism for your community and all of Asian America are not mutually exclusive. You'll hear the word intersectionality a lot, and for a good reason: certain nationalities and ethnicities do not fall cleanly under a category and even the growing multiracial population in the US.
It's all about data
"There has long been a problem of lumping all of the groups together, which makes Asian Americans look well-off by some measures when averaged out as a sociopolitical group," says Umemoto. "But we're a bifurcated community, with wide differences in well-being within and across ethnic groups."
Accurate, disaggregated data is vital to get the government and various organizations to recognize the unique needs and challenges of the roughly 50 ethnic groups that make up the Asian diaspora. According to the NCRC, the income gaps among different Asian American ethnic groups are the widest of any racial group. For example, while Indian Americans have the highest median income of $100,000, Burmese Americans have the lowest, at $36,000. There are also significant disparities regarding educational attainment and health care.
Data disaggregation would mean that in addition to gathering data about Asian Americans as a group, the government and institutes also collect data by ethnic group. Policymakers are better able to measure disparities and appropriately target their responses.
An extent of disaggregation was visible on the 2020 census, which enabled people to identify as other ethnic categories, including Chinese, Filipino, Asian Indian, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, and "other." However, several groups are left out, including some who face the highest poverty and unemployment rates — Cambodian, Hmong, and Bhutanese Americans.
"Our ideal solution is that all 50-plus communities have checkboxes," Quyen Dinh of the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center told Vox.
Ticking the "Asian" box
As someone of Indian descent, it is common to feel absurd while checking off the "Asian" box. Something along the lines of, "Well, I'm not really Asian." The miseducation of the public causes the term to be associated almost exclusively with East Asians. But there isn't much to gain for those trying to be considered “Asian” by the West. The result of referring to everyone who descends from the vastest continent the same is just further erasure of smaller communities. It flattens out the range of problems faced by different Asian Americans and distracts from issues that need to be solved internally.
So yes, I'm Asian American, but I'm also a second-generation Indian American, and I strive to help both of my communities.
