We Can Help Ourselves
December 5, 2008
The notion that Chinese Americans — the largest Asian minority group in the nation, representing approximately 25 percent of our community — are a homogeneous and monolithic entity has now been shattered thanks to a recently released study entitled, A Portrait of Chinese Americans.
Conducted by Dr. Larry Shinagawa, principal investigator and director of the University of Maryland’s Asian American Studies Program, the study is vital in that it portrays the Chinese American community as diverse and bimodal in many of their socioeconomic characteristics.
Though Chinese Americans possess a shared ancestry, members belong to both sides of the spectrum — in terms of their residential pattern (living uptown vs. downtown), education (college degree vs. less than a high school degree), industry (food service vs. scientific/ management), income (poor vs. rich) and generation (foreign raised vs. U.S. raised).
This discrepancy was clearly reflected in the attendees of the Dec. 3 press conference, in which the university and Organization of Chinese Americans held to announce the detailed report. The audience ranged from employees of local Chinatown non-profits to real estate professionals and employees of large corporations and pharmaceutical companies.
Despite these social differences, the Chinese American community remains strong to our cultural values and roots, typically acting as one united family and often partnering and standing up for one another.
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