This is a briefing for higher education professionals about Asian Americans. It is intended to offer an overview that is sympathetic, at the risk of generalizing. Although Asian Americans appear overrepresented on campuses by some measures, they also face challenges. Ironically, the very assumption of great success academically can cause complex problems socially and politically.
Most importantly, the Asians who are students and faculty span a range. Some are Californians whose forebears built the transcontinental railroad which was finished in 1869 or New Yorkers through and through who were born and raised in the same borough as where their parents ran a restaurant. Asians who are less assimilated call Asians who are more assimilated “bananas,” yellow on the outside, white on the inside — a term belonging to the category that does not have identical implications used on one’s self versus used by outsiders. Others are foreign nationals who would not wish to be deemed either “Asian” or “American,” because they have ethnic pride for a nation to which they will return when their studies are done. Still others are “fresh off the boat” in that pejorative phrase reclaimed thanks to a hit television show, or the so-called “1.5 generation” who came when they were young enough to adapt to a new environment but old enough to be influenced by the memories of an ancestral homeland.
None of this is unique. African, African immigrants and their American-born children, and African-Americans born of African-Americans whose roots date back before the Civil War may have dissimilar attitudes.
Thanks to globalization and technology, transnational identities and relationships are not rare. The population capable of true bilingualism, enough to pass as a native speaker in both tongues, is increasing. A student who moves to San Francisco for a semester of study can still keep up with a boyfriend back in Shenzhen. They belong to an ascendant Asia, newly empowered. Through social media, they can continue to enjoy one another’s company. They have choices about where to belong.
That means that the lines between Asians and Asian Americans can be blurred. Everyone can enjoy “K-Pop” and “gangnam style.”
The fastest growing minority group, Asian Americans are comprised of many ethnicities that might not have deemed themselves to share an interest but for the official designation. The most numerous half dozen origins are, in order: Chinese (about a quarter of all Asians in America), Indian, Filipino, Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese. There are many internal distinctions. Among Chinese, for example, the mainland, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, or elsewhere such as Australia, are all quite different starting points for immigration; and Mandarin and Cantonese languages, despite common characters for writing, are mutually incomprehensible when spoken. Filipinos include many Catholics; Koreans, Protestants.
Under the rubric Asian American are many sub groups. Thousands of adoptees, almost all female, have come from all over, raised in white families. They have “white” surnames, and it would not be unusual to have had a bat mitzvah, the Jewish coming-of-age ceremony. Thousands of “hapa,” a Hawaiian word for “half,” can boast of mixed lineage that in their grandparents’ generation might have been a source of shame. Afro-Asians or “Blasians” include communities such as the Jamaican Chinese.
