Asian Representation in the US Census

Don Kaing
Section A01
Reading Reflection #1

The facts and statistics on "API Census 2010" are very interesting, because despite the fact that there are 17.3 million Asian Americans and 1.2 Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders represented/reported on the 2010 US Census, there are many discrepancies, because APIs are not just one unified group, but they are in fact comprised of several different ethnic groups, all with different morals and values. This creates many discrepancies, because although APIs are represented, the data is biased and skewed, as it only shows APIs as a whole, but not as different groups. If we went more in depth and broke down the statistics into separate ethnic groups, we would see that not all Asian Americans are well off in academic and financial achievements. Instead, we would see that many South East Asian families, particularly in many Hmong, Mien, Vietnamese, and Cambodian households have not attained the same level of academic and financial achievement as their East Asian peers. This is not due to their individual culture or intellectual capability, but it is due to the fact that many South East Asian countries were subject to violent Communist wars during the late 20th century, thus leading to many refugees fleeing their native countries to the United States. Hence, many SEA groups are relatively new to the US compared to their East Asian counterparts who have been here for many generations, and thus have many educational, financial, and social problems that have still not yet been resolved. Now despite the fact that many Asian Americans are living in poverty and have many problems, this "grouping" of Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders into one large group is a huge disadvantage, as it gives people a misrepresented view of Asian Americans as a whole. Thus, many people tend to overlook and ignore the problems that Asian Americans face, due to these statistics, making the Asian American a "model minority," despite our many problems.

Questions:
Why wont the United States break down the US census by individual ethnic groups to give a better, more fair representation of the people?

Do you think that despite being labeled as a "model minority," Asian Americans still face many problems compared to other minorities?