Talk:Asian American

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Archives
Talk Archive 1: 2004-June 2006 Talk Archive 2: June 2006-Sept. 2006 (not full)

Contents 1 Asian Americans Today 2 Formal usage (definitions) 3 Asian American culture 4 Education attainment 5 Tommy Chong 6 Comments 7 Terminology: Informal usage 8 Photos in Sports 8.1 In sports 9 Demographics: Health & Crime 10 Terminology: Restructuring 11 Demographics subsections 12 Style Guide development

[edit] Asian Americans Today

I substantially edited this section. The previous version of the section is now on a subpage called /notable. I completely removed the section "In Science and Technology" because it was entirely a list. In the other sections, I removed people who aren't "firsts" or, like state legislators, don't seem to fit any coherent pattern by themselves. We can and should note the increased participation by Asian Americans as political candidates, for example, but that should not occur by listing every Asian American elected to state and local offices.

Please note that all of the removed names are still included at List of notable Asian Americans.

Whether we favor summary style or news style, to help Asian American to be a better article, this section should provide several coherent themes. This section originally started as a jumping-off point to connect the history section to "today." However, there is no clear cut-off between "history" and "today," particularly when several "today" events pre-date some of the "historical" events.

Suggestions for themes and organization are welcome. --ishu 01:21, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

We should definitely plan on re-inserting a Science and Technology section though. At the very least, Dr. David Ho definitely deserves mention. The guy is influential both in and outside the Asian American community. And I can't believe this, there's actually no article on M.C. Chang. He's the freaking co-inventor of the birth control pill. That's it, I think I'm going to do a little research and start an article on him. --- Hong Qi Gong 01:39, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I think that influential both in and outside of one's field should be a guideline for an individual to be included in this section. David Ho is not only a scientist, but he has taken advocacy positions (leveraging his influence in the scientific community). So many of the Nobel laureates would not qualify, since their accomplishments, though significant, are confined to their field and profession. --ishu 02:08, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Alright, I have created the Min Chueh Chang article. We should discuss who to include in a re-created section for science and technology. I think we agreed on David Ho. I think Min Chueh Chang deserves mention for co-inventing the birth control pill. Who else? - Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 07:02, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure we should retain the topic-focused organization of the section. Not that these are unimportant, but I guess I'm thinking the section should be a discussion of the status and contributions of Asian Americans as a group, with select individuals called out as examples of the trends. In politics, the "firsts" are obvious individuals, but someone who "recently" did something might also be noteworthy e.g., Gary Locke). Outside of politics, when discussing individuals, I think it would be better to stick to people like, maybe David Ho, but more like Pierre Omidyar, for business and philanthropic contributions. (I know, he doesn't "qualify" under the current article definitions as Asian American, but people like him.) When looking at particular areas, we can use individuals to broaden a discussion beyond dry statistics.

But look what I just wrote: Maybe we can't escape the categories...? I just want to avoid the list-y-ness that plagues the current revision. --ishu 17:17, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I absolutely agree that we need to avoid making that section and its subsections read like lists. David Ho should be mentioned by name, and then maybe mention that a few Asian American scientists have been Nobel Prize winners, without necessarily naming any names. I also noticed that the arts and entertainment subsection reads like a list also. But it might be difficult to edit that without omitting some editor's favourite singer or actor, only to have him or her add it back in, in a one-or-two sentence mention. - Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 17:25, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

wait a second... how can you remove that whole sectoin. first, it isn't that big of a section and second it is the most important section in this whole article. What we could do is shorten the section and then have a list of notable asian americans. Steelhead 02:47, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I've shortened the science and technology section but i think we still need it. Steelhead 02:52, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

It wasn't to be removed permanently. If you'll notice the discussion here, we were planning on putting it back on, re-written. - Hong Qi Gong ^{(Talk - Contribs)} 03:34, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Please review this diff and you will see that several other sections were substantially reduced as well. --ishu 04:39, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Formal usage (definitions)

• Who is Larry Chrystal? A Google search of Chrystal+(anthropology or anthropologist) turns up no obvious matches, save for this page.
• Several of the footnotes don't seem to be relevant to the sentences. For example, note 5.
• The section about the census definition essentially says that the census definitions follow self-identification. This section is convoluted and heavily dependent on Chrystal's work, yet there are no citations. Can anyone provide citations?
• The last sentence of the first paragraph ("Some people still advocate use of...") is dangerously close to use of weasel words, since the citation provided is a first-person statement ("My racial identity is...") with no attribution to others whatsoever.

--ishu 21:23, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I recently deleted both references to Larry Chrystal, since there has been no response to these queries. --ishu 22:57, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Asian American culture

Someone has created an article (poorly written at that) called Asian American culture. The information contained theirin should be merged with this one and a redirect set up. If someone involved with this particular wiki-project could see to this, that would be great. I am not an expert in the area, I just noticed the page while doing some housekeeping. --Jayron32 04:34, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Education attainment

According to the wiki information, "Asian Americans are extremely well represented in the education sector, especially in the college level with the highest average college graduates at around 52% and the whole Asian people constitutes around 20% of Ivy League colleges."

I'm not so sure if those numbers are accurate. i believe that actual percentage of Asian Americans with college degrees is between 44 to 48%. Also, Asians as a whole do not make up 20% of the student population of Ivy League schools. Unless you count Russians and middle Eastern people in that percentage, I'm very sure that Asians DO NOT represent 20% of Ivy League colleges.

The only Ivy League school that meets and surpasses the 20% threshold is Penn, with approximately 22% of its undergraduates being Asian. Harvard has 17%, same with Columbia and Cornell. Yale has approximately 14%, Brown has around 15%, and Princeton and Dartmouth have about 12% Asian population.

[edit] Tommy Chong

From the article:

Asians continue to be overlooked [...] For example, in the 2006 animated film Cars, a low rider voiced by Hispanic actor and comedian Cheech Marin, but Marin's longtime partner Tommy Chong was not cast in his signature hippie role...

Given that we're talking about a Disney film, do you think that Chong's unabashed love and advocacy of marijuana might have had more to do with it than his ancestry? 209.92.136.131 18:58, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

They hired his partner Cheech Marin, and Filmore was played by the "words you can't say on the radio" guy. --Sugarcaddy 21:24, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

It's more likely Chong wasn't cast because he was doing a prison term at the time.

[edit] Comments

Is it really necessary to have a reference in the first sentence? And why is this page so long? I think this article needs some chopping. I ain't copyeditin' it till it's had some choppin'.

On a brief examination, I noticed many paragraphs have this form: X did this. Y did that. Z did this...Rintrah 14:10, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I think there are definitely people mentioned in this article that could be moved to List of notable Asian Americans instead. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 19:43, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Terminology: Informal usage

Some concerns I have:

1. The introductory section probably should be removed. The referenced work by Sharon Lee does not provide any evidence for the claim that "non-Asian Americans" equate the term with Chinese and Japanese. The rest of this section is basically redundant with other parts of this section and article.
2. This section is laden with weasel words such as many and some without any references. The references tag has been on this section for several months now and no support has been provided. Statements with weasel words should be rewritten or removed.
3. The section combines self-definition by Asian Americans with usage by non-Asians. While intertwined, these two usages need to be differentiated.

I will edit along these lines, but comments and assistance would be welcome. --ishu 23:12, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I removed the following:

Even though Asian American is now a very widely used term in the United States, it is mostly the younger generation of Asian Americans who refer to themselves this way. A simple analogy would be the use of terms Irish American and Italian American. The double allegiance represented in such denominations (Asian and American) was largely discouraged in the early twentieth century. Ford Motor Company, for instance, encouraged all recent immigrants to think of themselves as American and not as Irish American. The American Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s reintroduced the use of such dual-identifier terms of ethnicity. Today, many younger Asian Americans speak of Asian pride.

The first sentence ("younger generation") and last sentence ("Asian pride") have been unsourced despite a reference template on the entire section for months. For the "younger generation" statement to be true (as written), two things must be true: (1) that older generations do not refer to themselves as Asian American and (2) that younger generations do refer to themselves this way. We can restore the claim with adequate references. The "Asian pride" statement also is covered in its own section.

The term double-allegiance is highly misleading, and should be avoided, especially due to the misplaced allegations of disloyalty throughout Asian American history--and immigrant history in general. This entire section may be appropriate if expanded, but it is redundant as-is, and probably more appropriate for an article-length treatment of its own. Without enough context, it just doesn't fit here, and it needs a lot more context. --ishu 15:01, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Today I removed the following paragraph:

Some people consider it offensive to label an Asian person with a specific nationality without certainty. For example, labeling someone who looks South Asian as an "Indian" may be offensive to Pakistani Americans and other South Asians who do not consider themselves to be of Indian origin. Likewise, calling an East Asian "Chinese" without knowing his specific national origin can be offensive to Japanese Americans, Korean Americans, and other East Asians who consider themselves ethnically and culturally separate from the Chinese. If one is using racial or ethnic terms, it is more politically correct to use "South Asian," "Southeast Asian," "East Asian," or simply "Asian."

This etiquette lesson is, at best, arguably encyclopedic. --Ishu 04:26, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Photos in Sports

Three photos (Wie, Yamaguchi, Kwan) is too many for the size of the section. Do we have suggestions for which one to keep? --ishu 21:13, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

An amalgam of the three (similar to the four pictures in the lead info box) would be nice since each "represents" a different Asian ethnicity. If any of the three needs to be dropped, however, it should be Wie since she has not achieved a truly 'significant' victory (yet). Myasuda 02:16, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

If we drop the widths down to 120 px, the result isn't much better (see below). We shouldn't make the photos smaller. We need to keep only one with the amount of copy we have. --ishu 04:47, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm fine with either Yamaguchi or Kwan (or no picture). Yamaguchi has won at all levels in the sport; Kwan has more overall titles. As far as I'm concerned, they're both reasonable choices. Anyone else care to voice an opinion? Myasuda 03:27, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Demographics: Health & Crime

I'm not sure what these sections add, or how the existing copy can be expanded. As I see it, the sections can spin out to encompass all of the various subgroups, or these sections will be a hopeless, misrepresentative aggregation of data on different groups. I would appreciate comments from others. --ishu 21:07, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I say remove both sections. The first paragraph of crime can be moved to the "Asians as a model minority" section. Health can be removed altogether. Myasuda 03:41, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I deleted both sections and reworked the crime stat, but the Model Minority section is a mess, so it didn't fit in well at all. --ishu 22:22, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Terminology: Restructuring

I performed a major restructuring of the Terminology section. After significant downsizing, the Informal usage section was combined with the rest of the section.

The Formal usage section needs to be pared as well. My ultimate goal is to have minimal sub-divisions in the Terminology section--possibly none at all. I'll confess a fondness for the legal definitions paragraph (long-time editors already know this). However, it belongs somewhere else--possibly not even in this article. The Formal usage section should probably be restricted to a discussion of the evolution of the census categories and their effect on government programs, research, and policy development. That would make a good jumping off point for discussions of the development of communities, I think.

Input from others is welcome. --Ishu 05:08, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I removed the "Legal definitions" section and am placing it here for "safekeeping" until (if) a better place can be found.

Legal definitions of Asian American were developed in several key Supreme Court decisions that pertain to naturalized citizenship. Historically, the Naturalization Act of 1790 restricted naturalized citizenship to "free white persons". In the 1922 case Takao Ozawa v. United States, Mr. Ozawa, an immigrant from Japan, claimed to be eligible for naturalized citizenship on the logic that his skin complexion fit the definition of "white." The decision held that white referred exclusively to Caucasians, and so Japanese were not eligible for naturalized citizenship.^[1] The next year, in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, the court reversed this logic. Mr. Thind argued that South Asians should be eligible for naturalized citizenship because they were considered to be Caucasian, consistent with the Ozawa decision. Thind deployed a reverse logic in Thind, writing that "[I]t may be true that the blond Scandinavian and the brown Hindu have a common ancestor in the dim reaches of antiquity, but the average man knows perfectly well that there are unmistakable and profound differences between them to-day". This decision interpreted the term white persons in the Naturalization Act to refer only to people of European descent.^[2]

--Ishu 15:25, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I consider the major restructuring to be complete. I'm going to move on to the Asian Americans today section, as it now needs more attention. --Ishu 04:09, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Demographics subsections

All of the demographics subsections need to be treated very delicately. Aggregating the Asian sub-groups can lead to faulty conclusions about what may be a bimodal distribution. The Income section, for example, uses the median household income metric which does not count the number of income-earners within a household, which tends to be higher among Asians. The false impression is one of "wealthy" Asians, when you might have three adults earning moderate incomes living together in a small home.

Also, the link provided points to an AP report republished by MSNBC--but the underlying data are from the Census Bureau. We should link to the Census Bureau report since the data are public and the links are more likely to be stable. At some point I will be editing along these lines. --Ishu 21:32, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Style Guide development

I think we need to develop a style guide for this page. Two issues leap to mind, both related to individual Asian American ethnic groups. Let's please discuss any and all style issues.

• Links to individual groups: How often shall we link to an individual ethnic group? Perhaps a reasonable compromise would be only once within each major (level 1) topic.
• References to the ethnic group of individuals: This is stickier. Especially in the Asian Americans Today section, there's a lot of clutter. Much of this is the list-y nature of the section that I'm working on. But two sentences from In science are typical:

Chinese Americans Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang received the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work in particle physics. Indian American Har Gobind Khorana shared the 1968 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work in genetics and protein synthesis.

I suggest that we strike the ethnicity for people who have articles. If there is a theme of progression from one ethnic group to another, it's probably appropriate to mention the ethnic groups, but in general we should avoid it.

What thoughts do people have? --Ishu 13:18, 15 December 2006 (UTC)