Racial Reconciliation - Asian Americans
- Feb 6, 2006 - comment
- 11,868,980 Americans are of Asian (only) descent.
- 12,870,454 Americans are a mix of Asian and another racial group.
- 35 million Asians are projected to be living in the U.S. by 2050.
- The Asian American population is expected to grow 213 percent between 2000 and 2050. The entire American population is expected to grow by only 50 percent.
- The average personal income of Asian Americans is $24,900, the highest average personal income of any race.
- The median age of the Asian-only population is 33 years.
- 53.3 percent of Asian Americans over 25 years of age are married and live with their spouse.
- 95 percent of Asian Americans over 25 years of age live in metropolitan areas.
- 81 percent of Asian Americans say saving for a child’s education is extremely or very important compared with 76 percent of non-Asians.
“Far East Moves West,” American Demographics, October 2004, 56.
- Compared to all other groups, including Caucasians, Asians have the highest percentage of households in the $75,000 or above annual income range. (Source: US Census Bureau, Census 2000)
- Asians have the highest median home value among all ethnic groups (including Caucasians) in 48 states. (Source: US Census Bureau, Census 2000)
- As of 2000, and for the first time in history, Chinese is now the second most prevalent foreign language spoken in U.S. households. (Source: US Census Bureau, Census 2000)
- The overwhelming majority of Asians are foreign born and exhibit a corresponding strong preference for in-language communications. (Source: US Census Bureau, Census 2000)
- Asian American adolescent girls have the highest rates of depressive symptoms of all racial/ethnic and gender groups. (Source: The Commonwealth Fund Survey of the Health of Adolescent Girls, 1997)
- Heart Disease is the leading cause of death for Asian Indians, Filipinos, and Japanese. (Source: National Vital Statistics System, CDC, NCHS)
Adapted from “Asian American Market: Did You Know?” http://www.kanglee.com (Kang & Lee Advertising) [Accessed October 4, 2005]
“The growth and collective youth of the Asian-American population and the increase and concentration of the group’s buying power are driving an upswing in marketing activity . . . Asian-Americans constitute 4.2 percent of the U.S. population based on a December 2004 Census Bureau report, ‘We the People: Asians in the United States.’ That population is projected to grow by 2.1 million by 2009, reaching 14.1 million . . . compared with 7.3 million claiming Asian heritage in 1990. The group’s buying power is anticipated to surge 46 percent by 2009, to $528 billion from $363 billion in 2004, and by more than fourfold from $118 billion in 1990. Five states—California, New York, New Jersey, Texas and Hawaii—represented 77 percent of Asian-American buying power and 62 percent of the group’s population in 2004.
“A greater awareness of these facts, coupled with Asian-Americans’ average age of 31.6, compared with 35.3 in the broader U.S. population, spurred about $1 billion in spending last year on advertising aimed at Americans of Asian ancestry, which is quadruple the $250 million devoted to such efforts in 2001.”
Adapted from Valerie Seckler, “Marketers Focus on Asian-Americans,” Fairchild Publications, Inc., September 7, 2005
“At the Asian Youth conference last weekend in northeast Greensboro, a speaker asked a church hall full of teenagers to raise their hands if they had an adult role model who ‘looks like you’—in other words, an Asian American whose shoes they’d like to fill when they grow up.
“‘They all kind of looked at each other,’ immigrant outreach worker Kathy Hinshaw said. ‘I think maybe one or two raised their hands. What does that tell you?’
“It tells you what guidance counselors and social workers already know. The children of recent Asian immigrants live in one world—an English-speaking world of sneakers and cell phones. And their parents live in another—many patching together two and three low-wage jobs just to get by, with little time to spend at home, let alone at English classes.
“‘This is very hard,’ said Y-Hin Nie, refugee leader and Montagnard pastor who put on the conference. ‘The youth become more American. Sometimes parents don’t understand.’
“In 1995, a UNC study of 21,000 immigrant youth found that second-generation Asian Americans were losing their parents’ native language much faster than previous generations of immigrants, and faster than their Hispanic contemporaries.
“With that loss of language comes a communication gap. For people who have fled countries devastated by war and poverty—for instance, Vietnam, Cambodia and Korea—the survival instinct is key, and explains the long days many immigrants put in. But that’s not the frame of reference for their children, who might not fully understand their parents’ work ethic.”
Excerpted from Lorraine Ahearn, “Asian Sunrise: A New Culture, New Generation,” News & Record (Greensboro, NC), August 5, 2005
Further Learning
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