“Asian” in America: The Multiple Dimensions of Race for People of Asian Origin

• In Event: 50260 - Section on Asia and Asian America Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 10: Rethinking “Asian American”: Identity, Perception, and Intra-Group Difference

Abstract

Asians are the fastest growing racial or ethnic group in the United States, and there is a growing body of scholarship on their sociopolitical outcomes. This research is primarily based on people who identify as Asian, but we know that not all people with Asian ancestry identify as Asian and that racial identity is multifaceted and complex. To understand the experience of being “Asian” in America, we need to know how the boundaries around the Asian racial category are defined and how individuals position themselves within and outside of these boundaries. In this paper, I examine how people of Asian origin living in the United States experience multiple dimensions of race, including how they identify when asked an open-ended question about their race, how they classify themselves into a set of racial categories, their family origins, how they think other people racially classify them, and their skin tone. I analyze data from an original, nationally representative survey with an oversample of self-classified Asian respondents (total N = 4,000; self-classified Asian N = 1,500). Preliminary findings reveal that 15% of respondents who report family origins in Asian countries do not identify as Asian and almost a quarter do not think others perceive them as Asian. These dimensions of race, and the inconsistency between them, vary by region of origin (i.e., East, South, or Southeast Asia), multiraciality, educational attainment, and skin tone. In the final paper, I will discuss the implications of inconsistencies among different dimensions of race on the boundaries around the Asian racial category and how people of Asian origin situate themselves within the racial hierarchy of the United States.

Author

• Jocelyn Pak Drummond, New York University