Dear Ms. Holly Ham,
Happy Chinese Lunar New Year! The census bureau released the draft race question in 2020 Census recently (details).
For Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI), we have multiple boxes to click, instead of other ethnicities such as Black, White, or American Indians with one write-in box. I believe these extra Asian boxes are harmful to the AAPI community in the following ways.
1. Continuing the legacy of the Chinese/Asian Exclusion Act. The Census started to have an Asian special race box in 1870. People of East and Southeast Asian descent were first all called “Chinese” regardless of whether they really came from Imperial China or not (the word Chinese first appeared in 1870 census). In later censuses, ethnicities based on country of origin such as Japanese (1890), Filipino (1930), and Korean (1930) were created and added, and each new category served a political reason or was used as a tool to practice immigrant exclusion before the civil right movement in the 1960s. Who added those “Asian disaggregated” boxes? The Asian people? No, it was xenophobic White supremacists. It is time to end this hurtful legacy and unites the AAPI community.
2. Casting the smaller AAPI communities as the Other. The current census question is alienating towards the AAPI community members who do not belong to the largest 9 groups. It is a way of hinting that some ethnicities are not as important as another ethnicities.
3. Hindering free self-expression of ethnic and cultural identity. In the current system, White people can write in Russian Jew, South European, or Arabic if their ancestors have complex migration history or are from different parts of the worlds. It is different for the AAPI community–you have to belong to either one box or a combination of a few boxes. For instance, a Chinese Vietnamese probably considered herself neither Chinese nor Vietnamese, but they are pressed to choose one box. Therefore, the census will miss critical information about many AAPI community members.
4. Perpetuating the stereotype of Asian Americans as “forever foreigners”. Asians are considered less American than Black, White, and Native Americans. This census race question again defines us differently from other racial groups.
Our suggestion:Make it equal-One Asian, One box.
We urge the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders to contact the Census Bureau to change the collection of data to be the same way that White, Black, Native American data is collected. This approach is more culturally sensitive and statistically meaningful. It will not increase cost in the census. It will also reduce the potential for confusion.
Undersigned,
Asian Americans for Equal Rights
Feb 17, 2018
Call for Ending the Legacy of Chinese/Asian Exclusion Act in Census
Asian ancestry registration is the new chinese exclusion act. It’s preparing for the new genocide.
Yes
Support AAER!