Asian Americans are American citizens of Asian descent whose origin relates to persons of original people of South East Asia and the Indian subcontinent. Contrary to perceptions in some parts of the United States, Asian Americans are the fastest-growing ethnic group according to a recent data from the United States Census Bureau. In this case, their populations grew yearly by 2.9% to reach more than 18.9 million. In the past years, Asian American groups have been referred to Filipinos and the Koreans. The study shows there are certainly several unique characteristics and differences arising within the diverse Asian American community. Asian Americans include all those people who point out their race or races as Asian on the census. Therefore, entries such as Korean, Asian Indian, Thai, Japanese, Filipino, Vietnamese and so fo
...rth are considered are under the category of Asian Americans. The Asian Americans who have no other ancestry consist of 4.8% of the whole population in the United States. In addition, people who are purely Asian or with a combination of at least one more comprise 5.6% ( Hsia & Jayjia 29).
There are several challenges that the Asian Americans go through. For starters, poverty is one of these issues. Asian Americans who are below the poverty line consist of 12.6%. The poverty rates of the Hmong stands at 37.8%, the Vietnamese 16.6%, Cambodian at 29.3% and Laotian at 18.5 %( Hsia & Jayjia 81). The data tells a lot especially on the living standards of the Asian Americans. There is also the issue of health. It is apparent that Asian Americans lack English proficiency and this stands as an obstacle especially when it is
a matter of achieving good health. Asian Americans face a difficult time when communicating with the health providers. It is established that cancer is the major cause of death for the Asian American. In addition, there are several cases of cervical cancer in the U.S which are highest among Vietnamese, Cambodian, Samoan and Laotian women. Hepatitis B infects approximately 1.3-1.5 million individuals and apparently the Asian Americans account for more than half of this chronic disease resulting in high mortality rates (Hsia & Jayjia 81).
Education is also another challenge that Asian Americans face. Nearly 1 out of 4 Asian American students have problems with English proficiency and live in linguistically isolated house characterized by parents lacking proficiency in English. It is also important to note that there is the high rate of school drop-outs among the Asian Americans.
Gallup poll established that 30%-31% of the Asian American that were surveyed reported cases of employment discrimination; this is the largest of all the groups that were surveyed. The African-Americans were the second highest at 26 %( Wong & Sau-ling 25). A study undertaken by US department of Housing and Urban Development established that in every five Asian Americans one of them has experienced discrimination in the home buying or rental process. The Asian American community has also suffered the highest percentage decline in terms of home ownership among all the racial groups.
The Asian Americans are actually a distinctive group; their population is no way monolith. The group is made up of either descendants or immigrants from the various countries in South East Asia, Far East as well as Indian sub-continent. Each of these groups comprising the Asian
American community has their own unique history, language, culture and even pathway to the US. While that is the case the challenges that they face are much similar.
Work cited
- Wong, Sau-ling C. "Denationalization reconsidered: Asian American cultural criticism at a theoretical crossroads." Amerasia Journal 21.1-2 (1995): 1-27.
- Hsia, Jayjia. Asian Americans in higher education and at work. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc, 1988.
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