What kind of survey would you liked to have seen instead? Is there a way for a survey of Asian-Americans (or any minority group for that matter) to come across in a way that doesn't upset some members? I'm not trying to be all like "those bastards are never happy" or anything, I'm just wondering. I can't think of a survey for my ethnic/socioeconomic group that wouldn't make me seem like a snob to an outsider. I know it's easy for me to say things like that don't matter because I'm not a minority
Hi Viaukraine! I really appreciate your thoughtful question.
OK, so objectively, there's nothing wrong with a study like this. In the grand scheme of things, it's positive that there was an attempt to field a comprehensive survey of Asians and Asian Americans, who are typically under-represented and often mis-represented in the American consciousness. My issues with the Pew Research Center Study are three-fold:
Methodology: My understanding is that the sample recruited by Pew was first garnered from Census data. This is problematic because while the U.S. Census attempts to capture the entire population of the country, it simply doesn't, and the people who tend to be left unaccounted for are recent immigrants, the undereducated, the poor, and those who don't speak English well. Asians and Asian Americans who fall into the four above categories are the most likely to be missing from Census tallies, and therefore any sample of Asians and Asian Americans culled from Census data will automatically over-index for well-educated and well-employed, thus skewing the outcome of the survey.
Coverage: There is a fundamental lack of nuance in the way that the media reports on studies of this kind. The headlines about this study have boiled down to "Asian Americans are better educated, wealthier, and happier" than other racial groups. Again, there's nothing wrong with this, per se, but what people hear is "Asians and Asian Americans are doing fine. What do they have to complain about?" Which leads to...
Interpretation: If Asians and Asian Americans are "doing better" than everyone else, then any very real issues that we might face as a population are automatically trivialized. Why should there be subsidies to support English programs aimed at inner-city Asian immigrants if we are all doing so well? Policymakers think (and act) on macro terms, not micro terms. If at the macro level Asians and Asian Americans are the ultimate American success story, then why pay any attention to us? I realize this is a gross over-generalization, but there are too many precedents that prove this out.
Truth is, I don't personally have a dog in this fight. If I took the survey, I would likely over-index for being better educated, wealthier, and happier than most people. But here's why I care: as an immigrant, I know the kinds of challenges that immigrants face every single day. As an Asian American who is often the only person of Asian descent sitting in an executive suite comprised entirely of white men (and sometimes a few white women), I know for a fact that it's easy for those in power to dismiss the need to continually and consciously consider the value of diversity because, they reason, at least there's one of them in the room. Would one woman in the room be enough? One African American? One person with a disability?
Here's how I think of it: take Asian and Asian American out of the headline and replace it with another group. "Women graduate from college at a higher rate than men, study finds." Or "Gays and lesbians are healthier, wealthier, and have less children than straights, study finds." Or "Fertility rates among U.S. women are higher than fertility rates of women in China, study finds." All real headlines.
If the findings don't apply to you because you fall outside of the sample group, you would likely want to question the methodology, the coverage, and the interpretation of the studies. Perhaps the intentions behind the studies are well-meaning, but the outcome would still be damaging for women who continue to hit the glass ceiling in the workplace, or for gays and lesbians who aren't part of the privileged few in the LGBT Power Elite, or for American women who struggle with infertility.
People tend to want and see the world in black and white, when—in fact—there are many shades of gray. I happen to be a person of Asian descent and therefore I care about this particular study and how it will be used against us. But we should all care about the nuances and the details because there will inevitably be a "study" that dismisses something that we each care passionately about, and we'll want to have as many allies on our side, even those who don't look or live like us.
