Do you perk up when an Asian face or name appears in an American movie, TV show, public performance, book, magazine, newspaper or web page? If you're like me and like most Asian Americans I know, the answer is yes!

Asians of diverse ancestries identify with one another as intensely as members of any American ethnic groups.

White Americans are often puzzled by this phenomenon. They don't pay particular attention to a fellow WASP, German American, Irish American or Italian American, they argue in earnest, baffled tones. Or, if they pride themselves on being particularly knowledgeable about Asian culture, they may say something like, "But I thought Chinese, Japanese and Coreans hated each other." It's when we hear statements like that that we most feel the yawning chasm that separates us from non-Asian Americans -- and feel the deep bond with other Asian Americans, regardless or their family's particular national orgin.
For the benefit of non-Asians reading this, let me offer a clue. Imagine that you're a white person living in Japan, China or Corea. Imagine too that you speak the language as fluently as anyone, that your family has laid down roots there, maybe having lived there for two, three, four or even five generations. Your face remains caucasian, of course, but you are a loyal, taxpaying citizen of that Asian nation. In the event of hostilities, you or your family members will be called on to fight in its armed forces.

Take your imagination a big step farther and picture being surrounded by Asians on the streets, at work, in social situations. Every TV show, movie and magazine article shows Asian faces to depict the happy, healthy, sexy norm. Despite the general friendliness of those around you, you can't help being conscious of your physical difference. It may be triggered by an innocent remark about makeup or hair coloring. Or maybe by a fleeting look of surprise on the face of a colleague or client when they meet you in person and realize that they've been dealing with a caucasian. "But you sounded so Japanese on the phone," they might say in an expression of polite astonishment. It's more than physical. From time to time, you sense certain cultural differences in your responses to social situations. Maybe you laugh out loud, then notice that everyone else is keeping a straight face. Or you may innocently offer constructive criticism only to learn that the boss was deeply offended.

Can you be blamed for thinking, "I'm the only White here!"

Now make a final stretch of the imagination. You're watching your favorite TV sitcom and lo-and-behold! -- you see a white face! Or you're reading an article about eminent Japanese (or Chinese or Corean) scientists and see an obviously non-Japanese name. What would be your reaction? Would you distance yourself emotionally because the other white Japanese person you are watching or reading about is of German ancestry when yours is French and there is a history of hostilities between your respective ancestral homelands? Or would you feel a deep and instant bond toward that person for sharing with you the experience of being white in an Asian land?

You now have some sense of the instant empathy we Asian Americans feel toward one another, regardless of our specific ancestry. On the emotional level, we are at least as strongly united as any group in America. Frankly, I think we're far more deeply bound than most, simply because we are a small (4% of the population), racially distinct group.
Now that we're all on the same page, let's move the discussion from the emotional to the intellectual level.

We feel all the many ways in which we're alike as Asians living in America, but who among us hasn't noted the many subtle and not-so-subtle differences among us and wondered if there's some logic behind those differences, some meaningful distinctions, not to pigeonhole, but to better understand one another.

Let me start by describing my own background so I won't be accused of prejudices I don't have and to help you spot whatever prejudices I may unintentionally show.

My father is a second-generation Japanese American. My mother is a first-generation Chinese American. They met while studying in Tokyo during the late 50s. I am married to a Corean American whose family immigrated to the U.S. in 1970 when he was seven.

As you can imagine, for me parsing the peculiarities of Chinese, Japanese and Corean Americans has been more than an academic exercise -- it has been a strategy for retaining my sanity.

5 MAJOR SEGMENTS
Every classification scheme is founded on prejudices. What's more, it succeeds or fails depending on the vitality of those prejudices. Let me state mine.

When I think of Asian Americans, I don't include America's sizeable South Asian populations, specifically Indians and Pakistanis. To my knowledge there has never been much identification between South Asians and East Asians -- namely Chinese, Coreans and Japanese. There are many reasons for this. South Asians are generally members of the Aryan race, albeit with darker coloring than most Europeans. Their cultures aren't built around values rooted in Chinese confucianism. Their languages derive from the Indo-European rather than the Sino or Altaic family. They are generally of the Hindu and Islam faiths. Most importantly, there is little shared historical experience between the two groups, either in Asia or in the western hemisphere. For the same reasons, I also don't include West Asians like Persians, Armenians, Afganistanis and Kazakhs.

I do include Southeast Asians -- Vietnamese, Filipinos, Thais, Indonesians and Malaysians because immigrants from those nations are frequently members of the Chinese diaspora and often identify themselves as Chinese. They may speak fluent Vietnamese and Tagalog and go by non-Chinese surnames, but they often also speak Chinese and observe Chinese traditions and customs.

THE F.O.B. FACTOR
A very efficient blade with which to cross-section the Asian American population is the "F.O.B." factor. "Fresh-Off-the-Boat" was coined in the 70s by native-born Asian Americans to tag Asians coming over in the third and largest wave of Asian immigration. In those days second-, third- and fourth-generation Asian Americans reflexively distanced themselves from the Asian culture. You couldn't blame them. They had grown up painfully aware of living in a society with a record of mistreating its Asian citizens.

An important thread in the evolution of today's Asian American identity is the way native-born and immigrant Asian Americans came to understand, accept and even respect one another. But, sadly, during the 70s and much of the 80s, the sentiment that dominated interaction between the two groups was scorn. Native-born Asian Americans scorned the newcomers' broken English, odd clothing and alien practices. Recent immigrants fully returned the scorn, seeing native-born Asian Americans as descendants of low-class peasants who had originally come to America to slave as contract labor in cane and pineapple fields. What's more, in the eyes of newcomers, the native-born Asian Americans displayed the symptoms of having accepted their second-class status -- passivity, an apparent desire to minimize the importance of their ethnicities and ignorance of their heritages. Needless to say, relations between the two sides of the Asian population was based on an incomplete understanding of the achievements and tribulations of members of the other group.

In 1967 the U.S. lifted the stringent restrictions imposed around the turn of the century to stop Asian immigration. The first to enter under the relaxed laws were several thousand Japanese and Corean war brides, adoptees and family members. They were quickly followed by far larger numbers of Chinese and Coreans who had won visas under newly expanded quotas for qualified professionals and students. Among them were families who had once been China's elite landowners, merchants and government officials before fleeing the communists in the years following their 1949 victory. Most had first settled in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Some had settled in South America and took advantage of quotas assigned to nations like Brazil where they faced less intense competition for visas.

For those reasons, the F.O.B. ratio varies greatly among the various nationalities of Asian Americans. The relationship between that ratio and socio-economic status, however, isn't what many people would expect. Let's examine those factors among the five leading Asian American groups.

JAPANESE AMERICANS
The F.O.B. ratio is lowest among Japanese Americans for the simple reason that the first wave of Japanese immigration, which began around 1902, was by far the largest, accounting for over 78% of U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry. Unlike every other Asian American nationality, there was little Japanese immigration in the postwar years. This owes mainly to two factors. First, Japan was an enemy nation during World War II. The second, the Japanese economic boom that began in 1967 gave Japanese little incentive to endure the hardships of immigrating.

In the three decades after the end of World War II, only a trickle of war brides and students added to the wave of Japanese immigrants who had come between 1902 and 1939. Even that trickle was severely constricted by the anti-miscegenation laws that prevailed in most U.S. states until the late 1960s and early 70s and prevented U.S. servicement from legally marrying Japanese women. Most warbrides and adoptees entered the country during the 1960s and early 1970s.

The 1970s, 80s and 90s produced a small third wave of Japanese immigrants consisting mostly of free spirits who had experienced American life as students, expatriate execs or travelers and decided to relocate. Of course, currently the large numbers of U.S. subsidiaries of Japanese companies create a population of about 100,000 rotating expatriate executives and their families who typically put in three to five-year tours of duty. I don't consider them among the current Japanese American population of 820,000. Until the early 1970s, Japanese Americans ranked first among America's Asian populations. Today, they rank fifth after Chinese, Filipinos, Coreans and Vietnamese.

The fact that the Japanese American population boast the highest percentage of native-born Americans might lead one to suppose them to rank first in income and educational levels. In fact, they rank a close third behind Corean and Chinese Americans. This is due in large part to the fact that virtually all Japanese Americans are descended from rural peasant families with weaker educational traditions than the elite professional classes that made up the bulk of the big wave of Chinese and Corean immigration of the 70s and 80s. Another important factor is the severe economic and psychological trauma suffered by the large percentage of the Japanese American population who were subjected to internment between 1942 and 1945. Many of the 78,000 Japanese Americans who were affected had built up impressive fortunes as farmers and merchants but were forced to abandon their assets or fire-sale them at about three pennies on the dollar. Just as importantly, the aftermath of this terrible experience discouraged many talented Japanese Americans from rising to the kinds of positions they might otherwise have attained. Nevertheless, Japanese Americans today are considerably better educated and enjoy higher incomes than virtually every other non-Asian segment.

CHINESE AMERICANS
The most confusion exists with regard to Chinese Americans. That's because the 2.5 million people who make up this group run the widest gamut in terms of virtually every measure. For one thing, their ranks include the oldest as well as the newest elements of Asian immigration -- the laborers, adventurers and merchants who came over as early as 1849 all the way to the illegal aliens smuggled aboard fishing and cargo boats a few hours ago. During the 150-years in between, the U.S. has received every class of Chinese from practically every community of the farflung Chinese diaspora. Perhaps because there are more Chinese than any other race on earth, Chinese immigrants have exhibited the most ingenuity and determination in making it to American shores. The fast-swelling ranks of Chinese immigrants puts the Chinese Americans near the top in terms of the F.O.B. factor, with nearly a third having arrived during the past ten years. That's why the Chinese community includes the lion's share of the most affluent Asian Americans as well as the majority of those living in poverty.

Only about 25% of Chinese Americans are native-born Americans. Until 1970 they numbered under 500,000. But that doesn't mean 75% are F.O.B. Because of the high educational levels of the majority of Chinese immigrating between 1970 and 1980, 58% of even foreign-born Chinese Americans have now entered the mainstream -- speaking English as their primary language, working in English-speaking workplaces and living in middle-class neighborhoods instead of ethnic ghettoes.

Because of the large proportion who hail from elite professional-class families, Chinese Americans enjoy the third highest educational levels, just behind Coreans and Japanese. In sheer numbers they produce the most affluent people, accounting for 55% of Asian Americans earning over $100,000 a year, though their median income levels are dragged down by the 23%, mostly recent immigrants of less than 10 years, who live at or below the poverty level. The Asians you see driving Merces Benzes and BMWs are more likely than not Chinese Americans, as are the ones you see working on assembly lines at $7.50 an hour.

COREAN AMERICANS
In percentage terms Corean Americans are the most successful immigrant group ever to hit American shores. Several factors give them a statistical edge over Japanese and Chinese Americans. First, the number of Coreans who immigrated as peasant labor is relatively low. Corean immigration began in 1903 when three boatloads of peasants sailed to work in Hawaii's cane fields. Joining them during the next few year were several hundred patriotic students determined to keep alive Corean independence as Japan moved to make official its claim over the peninsula. The annexation of Corea in 1910 effectively ended the trickle of Corean immigration. In all, between 1903 and 1909 only about 3,700 Coreans immigrated to the U.S. Some stayed on in Hawaii, but most ultimately settled in California's Monterey Peninsula, though a sizeable number later moved down to Southern California.

No more Coreans came to the U.S. until anti-Asian-immigration laws were relaxed to allow several thousand orphans to be adopted by Americans following the end of the Corean War in 1953. By 1968 another 20,000 Coreans came over as war brides, adoptees and students. It wasn't until 1969 that Corean immigration began in significant numbers and the Corean American population began growing at the rate of about 34,000 per year. By 1997 it had grown to 1,100,000 though the rate of immigration had dropped below 15,000 per year. Nearly half settled in California, with Los Angeles becoming the largest overseas Corean community. Because of stringent immigration standards as well as generally high educational levels in Corea, Coreans were the best educated among Asian immigrants. And because of their strict observance of Confucian values built around education, Corean families made the most intensive sacrifices to send their children to elite universities.

As a result, by 1995 Corean Americans were already enjoying both the highest educational levels and highest median income levels among all American groups. But the source of success for first-generation Corean Americans was quite different from that of the better assimiliated Japanese Americans. Whereas Japanese Americans tend to work in professional and corporate positions, Corean heads of households, 84% of whom are foreign-born, earn their affluence by operating small businesses, typically groceries, liquor marts, laundries, gas stations and garages. Often they earn good profits by operating in high-risk areas. The Koreantown Riots of 1992 illustrated graphically the kinds of risks and losses that lie behind the affluence and educational achievements.

VIETNAMESE AMERICANS
Vietnamese immigration was little more than a trickle of warbrides and orphans until 1970 when it began building rapidly through the fall of Saigon in 1975. After that it swelled with tens of thousands admitted under refugee provisions enacted hastily to help save a half million South Vietnamese fleeing in tiny fishing boats. At its peak in the mid--to-late-70s, an average of 120,000 entered each year. By 1997 the number had dropped slightly below 40,000.

Because of the relatively brief timeline of Vietnamese immigration, the Vietnamese American population is the most geographically concentrated among Asian groups. The largest waves of refugees were processed through Camp Pendleton Marine Base in Oceanside, California, and the majority of these immigrants settled in the Westminster area of nearby Orange County. An area that had been mostly Japanese-American strawberry fields is today the home of Little Saigon, the largest Vietnamese American community with a population of 350,000 . San Jose, California, with about 125,000, has become the second largest. That's followed by Houston, Texas with about 100,000 and Los Angeles County where during the past decade Vietnamese merchants have largely displaced Chinese merchants in downtown L.A.'s old Chinatown. The Vietnamese American population totaled 1.4 million in 1998, making it the third largest Asian group after Chinese and Filipinos. Between a third and half of Vietnamese Americans are of Chinese ancestry and are likely to identify themselves as such.

Of the five major Asian American groups, Vietnamese have the highest F.O.B. ratio, 33% having immigrated during the past 10 years. As a consequence, 23% of Vietnamese households live below the poverty level, the highest rate among Asian groups. But 88% of families that had immigrated during the 1970s and 80s have graduated into the middle class and higher. Thanks to intense focus on education and achievement, a rapdily growing proportion of established Vietnamese Americans are now moving into professional, managerial and entrepreneurial positions, especially in the hi-tech sector. For the past five years Vietnamese have formed the backbone of Silicon Valley's engineering and skilled technical labor force.

For at least the next decade or two the recent normalization of U.S. relations with Vietnam and the poverty and lack of prospects in that nation will contribute to continued high levels of Vietnamese immigration. By 2010 Vietnamese Americans will surpass all Asian groups except Chinese in population. The downside of that rapid growth is that Vietnamese Americans will continue to have the largest share living below the poverty line.



FILIPINO AMERICANS
A few thousand Filipinos, mostly servants and sailors, came to the U.S. after the Spanish-American War when the Philippines became a U.S. possession. After World War II the U.S. made special provisions to admit several thousand former soldiers and their families as a recognition of their role in fighting the Japanese. As with Coreans and Vietnamese, mass immigration didn't begin until 1970. As in Vietnam, in the Philippines ethnic Chinese had long dominated the business and professional sector, and the majority of Filipino immigrants during the 1970s were ethnic Chinese. An advantage they enjoyed over other Asian immigrants was their English ability.
Currently Filipinos lead Asian immigration with just under 50,000 in 1997. That number has been declining slowly and will continue to decline due to continuing improvement in the Philippine economy. With a population of 2.2 million, immigrants classified as Filipinos are currently America's second largest Asian group after Chinese. Yet they have a far less visible presence than Vietnamese and Coreans. That's because the majority consider themselves Chinese and patronize the many large Chinese communities throughout North America.
By the late 1980s the number of qualified ethnic Chinese Filipinos seeking to immigrate had become depleted, leaving more slots for Tagalog-speaking native Filipinos. They have formed small Filipino enclaves in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle, often based on small clusters of establishments founded decades ago by the post-World-War II Filipino immigrants. Filipinos who identify themselves as Tagalog-speakers are believed to number around 1 million.
Another reason for the lack of a visible Filipino American presence is that, thanks in large part to their English proficiency, a sizeable minority have become completely assimilated into the general population. Much of their presence isn't even detectible in phone directories because a majority possess Spanish surnames, a legacy of the Philippines's century as a Spanish colony.

RELATIONS AMONG ASIAN AMERICANS
Warm relations and cooperation among the various Asian American groups are so well established that we now take it for granted. Inter-Asian dating and marriages are commonplace. Stroll the aisles of Ranch 99 Chinese markets and you'll hear every Asian language. Walk into a Nijiya or Yaohan Japanese market in Palos Verdes or Fort Lee, New Jersey and you'll see more Coreans and Chinese than Japanese. Check out the selection at an HK or Assi Corean supermarket in Los Angeles or Rowland Heights and you'll see flocks of Chinese and some Japanese shopping along with Coreans.

The pan-Asian American identity is founded on shared physical and cultural traits in a land where Asians are minorities, but it wasn't always easy for Asian Americans to relate with one another. During the first half of the century, overtly racist newspaper articles often pitted Chinese against Japanese. For example, a 1920 Los Angeles Times headline read "Need Chinese, Say Big Farmers", and went on to state: "Many of the ranchers who express their views... declare they'd like to see enough Chinese brought in to break the Japanese grip on the garden business in Southern California."

"The Japanese must be discouraged from further production," reads a quote. Another states, "The Chinaman is one of the most honest laborers known -- he has no ambition to own land for himself, and works unquestioningly and faithfully."

The L.A. Times was speaking on behalf of its core readership and advertising base -- local white businesses -- against what it considered a major external threat -- Asians. The paper made no effort to hide its racial animosity and popularized the "Jap" slur decades before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. After war broke out, it went on a spree of racist editorializing to push the U.S. government into interning Japanese Americans, thereby ridding the Southland of the threat. Or so it thought. One of its favorite tactics was to set off the era's two main Asian groups against one another. It worked. Chinese Americans felt pressured to adopt anti-Japanese attitudes and, after the War, Japanese Americans reciprocated with deep resentment. It wasn't until the 60s that a new generation of Asian Americans forged a pan-Asian American identity to fight stereotypes directed against the entire group.

PERCEPTIONS AND PREJUDICES
Even today an important factor governing relations among the various Asian groups is longstanding perceptions and prejudices about one another. They are largely carryovers from bygone ages when there was little direct contact among Asian nationalities except through trade and second-hand sources like the news media and historical accounts. These perceptions are becoming less important among younger Asian Americans who routinely socialize with one another, but they remain influential among those in their forties and older. It may be helpful to ventilate some of them if for no other reason than to show their silliness.

Chinese are thought to be hardworking, penny-pinching, clean, extremely secretive and frighteningly clannish. They are thought to be first-rate merchants and small businessmen but incapable of risking all on big, bold gambles. The men are rumored to treat their women extremely well in comparison to Japanese and Coreans. The women are said to be faithful unto death and wonderful at running an economical household but unbearably shrewish toward their husbands.

Coreans are considered intelligent, physically courageous loners who often fail because of their weakness for pretension and inability to work together with other Coreans. Chinese tend to see them as being scholarly and impractical while Japanese see them as being gifted but too cunning and devious to be trusted. The men are thought to be temperamental and insufferable chauvinists who are careless with money. The women are supposed to be loving and capable of immense sacrifice for the sake of their families but also hot tempered and capable of anything when aroused.

At least among Asian Americans Japanese are considered straightforward, mild-mannered and industrious but lacking in creativity and entrepreneurial spirit. On the other hand, they are thought capable of achieving great things by working well together. Coreans see Japanese as devious and super-subtle while Chinese consider them the consummate merchants. The men are considered cultured and thoughtful but somewhat timid and conventional. The women are considered clean, gracious and meek on the surface while nurturing intensely ambitious, gutsy and passionate souls.

These inter-Asian stereotypes may have some superficial connection to reality, but it doesn't take much thought to see how hopelessly inaccurate they are in describing real-life Asian Americans. The success stories in GoldSea alone are enough to refute most. Without delving too deeply into my own personal life, I can say that my Corean American husband is more considerate than any man I've met and, given proper justification, I can be every bit as shrewish as any Chinese woman!

SPEAKY ENGLISH?
Major confusion -- and offense -- arises from the badly mistaken impression that most Asians speak Asian languages at home. Despite the fact that only 41% of the Asian American population was born in the U.S., 67% speak and read primarily or exclusively English. That's because 70% of Asians under 50 who immigrated to the U.S. 12 or more years ago speak English primarily or exclusively. What's more, most Asians who immigrated before the age of 14 -- the so-called knee-high generation -- speak exclusively English. An estimated 52% of Asian Americans don't even have the ability to converse in an Asian langauge. Non-Asians who think they're being clever by addressing an Asian American in Mandarin or Corean is likely to be greeted with annoyance. That likelihood jumps to probability if the Asian American happens to be under 40.
Among Japanese Americans 90% speak English primarily or exclusively. That's because there has been very little Japanese immigration during the past 30 years. The second highest rate of primary English useage is among Filipino Americans at around 70%. Though English is the official language of the Philippines, in reality less than half the Philippine population speaks English regularly. The rest prefer to speak Tagalog or Chinese. The third highest rate of primary English useage is among Corean Americans at 60%, followed closely by Chinese Americans at 57% and Vietnamese Americans at 50%.
Primary English useage has more to do with preference and comfort rather than the ability to use English. 85% of Asian Americans across the board can read and write at least at the high-school level, most considerably better. An estimated 78% of Asian Americans read regularly in English, a higher percentage than the 67% who use English as their primary or exclusive language

WILL YOU MARRY ME?
One statistic used widely as a gauge of acculturation is inter-racial marriage. That's a highly misleading gauge because it confuses the three very different issues of access, assimilation and acculturation.

By access I mean social access to situations producing routine contact with members of ones own group as opposed to members of other groups. By acculturation I mean the degree of adoption of mainstream American lifestyle. By assimilation I mean abandoning one's own cultural and even racial characteristics in a conscious effort to become indistinguishable from the majority population.

Until the late 1970s a segment of the American Asian population had strong incentive to assimilate. It was seen as the best way to free oneself from the limitations of being part of a minority group suffering intense social and economic disadvantages, not to mention overt hostility from highly visible racist elements. Especially for Japanese Americans who had suffered the shock and humiliation of being treated like enemy prisoners during World War II, assimilation seemed to offer one path of escaping the negatives associated with being Asian in America. Even scholarly works on the Asian American population used the word "assimilation" as a highly desirable social goal toward which all Asians aspired.

Even during the first half of the century as they suffered the most intense racial prejudice and discrimination, most Japanese, Chinese and Corean Americans worked hard to preserve their cultural heritages. I have many vivid memories of the festivals and parades, with the attendant traditional music, costumes and foods, that punctuated Japanese American life. I remember feeling proud of my identity as a Japanese American, but I do know that some of my peers, especially the older Japanese Americans of my generation, were seduced by the goal of assimilation. A majority ended up marrying caucasians, contributing to the highest outmarriage rate among Japanese Americans, something in the neighborhood of 78% at its peak in the late 1980s. The rates were considerably lower among Chinese Americans and Corean Americans -- about 50% and 47%, respectively.

These rates do reflect the differential role played by the goal of assimilation, but they also reflect the equally important access factor. For sansei and yonsei going to college in the 70s and early 80s, the opportunities to study and socialize with other races and nationalities were far greater than the opportunity to do the same with other Japanese Americans. And of course this factor differed for Chinese and Coreans because of different immigration timelines. Only a very small percentage of the Chinese and Corean American population was of marriageable age before the late 80s when the first wave of the knee-high generation left college and entered the workforce.

The access factor is quite different today. Virtually every Asian American group has a presence in most universities across the U.S., providing opportunities for socializing within one's own group if one chooses to do so. As a result, by 1998 the outmarriage rates had leveled off among Chinese and Coreans and had begun declining among Japanese. And the outmarriage rate has come to mean something quite different than in the past. Whereas before the late 1980s most outmarriages were to Whites, today half of Asian outmarriages are to members of other Asian groups, reflecting the big changes in access.

The factor becoming far more important than race or ethnicity in Asian American marriage decisions is acculturation. An Asian American born here or educated here is more interested in whether a prospective mate shares similar views on gender roles, family relationships and rasing families than nationality or even ethnicity. In other words, as higher percentages of Asian Americans become acculturated by adopting American social values and lifestyles, other Asians of all nationalities will become a larger portion of the available pool of marriage prospects, resulting in higher outmarriage rates but with a larger percentage being to other Asian groups than to non-Asians. Ultimately, Asian American outmarriage rates will simply parallel the composition of the local population.

Source: AAD/Parsing/

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------