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Some interesting hegemonic taxonomy coming from the recent Pew study on Asian Americans, which reinforces some old racial stereotypes that create ethnic heroes and villains.

Excellent piece from Colorlines:

“Our community is one of stark contrasts, with significant disparities within and between various subgroups. The ‘Asian Pacific American’ umbrella includes over 45 distinct ethnicities speaking over 100 language dialects, and many of the groups that were excluded from this report are also the ones with the greatest needs,” said Congresswoman Judy Chu, chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. Chu

More than a third of all Hmong, Cambodian and Laotian Americans over the age of 25 don’t have a high school degree, for instance. While some Asians may report incomes at or higher than whites, Cambodian and Laotian Americans report poverty rates as high as, and higher than, the poverty rate of African Americans, according to the 2010 census. Even among those that Pew included in its study, like Chinese and Vietnamese Americans, these groups report a below average attainment of high school diplomas, said Dan Ichinose, director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center’s Demographic Research Project. The more complex and far less exciting explanation for Asian-Americans relatively high rates of education has more to do with immigration policy, which has driven selectivity about who gets to come to the U.S. and who doesn’t, said Ichinose. But a focus only on those in the upper echelons of the community renders everyone else invisible.

At the start of the recession, Asian Americans may have been more well-situated to ride out the worst of it, but as the recession has stretched on, Asian Americans have actually suffered the worst from long-term unemployment, the Economic Policy Institute found earlier this year. And 2.3 million Asian Americans are uninsured, said Deepa Iyer, head of the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans and executive director of South Asian Americans Leading Together.

Other indicators that supposedly show that Asian Americans are comparatively well-off can be misleading, Ichinose said. While Pew used median household income to measure the community’s economic power, APALC prefers to go by per capita income. Asian American households tend to be larger, with more workers and several generations living under one roof. This can skew perceptions about a household’s income. With per capita income measures, some Asian American communities start looking more like Latinos than non-Hispanic whites in terms of their income, he said.

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