Ethnocentrism or Stratification? Obstructed Integration in Asian Ethnoburb Communities

• In Event: 3141 - Borders and Boundaries in Asia and Asian America

Abstract

Using 1990-2010 U.S. Census data of major metropolitan areas, this paper re-examines the residential patterns of Asian “ethnoburbs”. Recently, scholars have speculated on the extent to which these suburban ethnic neighborhoods reproduce "benign" segregation through ethnocentric residential preferences that lead middle-class Asian households to continue selecting into ethnic neighborhoods. To the contrary, I argue that ethnoburbs emerge as “ethnic” primarily due to systematic patterns of white exodus that, even in middle-class areas, prevents the formation of otherwise more integrated communities. Preliminary results confirm that a significant number of contemporary ethnoburbs experienced a dramatic decrease in white population size driven by a loss in the total number of white residents (i.e. white flight). These neighborhoods were also the least likely to experience increases in the absolute number of Asian residents. By contrast, ethnoburbs that did not experience white depopulation were the most likely to experience systematic Asian population growth. Together, these results challenge ethnocentric accounts of ethnoburb formation. Rather than migrating towards existing ethnic neighborhoods, Asian populations consistently show greater growth in neighborhoods with stable white populations. Likewise, those neighborhoods that emerge as “ethnic” do so because the loss of white residents artificially inflates the relative share of Asian residents within ethnoburbs, even despite little actual Asian population change. These results suggest ethnoburbs provide a weak example of "racial resurgence." Instead, future research should strongly re-consider ethnoburbs as sites of continued racialization and obstructed residential integration.

Author

• Samuel Hoon Kye, Indiana University-Bloomington