scholarly journals Family-Based Caregiving: Does Lumping Asian Americans Together Do More Harm than Good?

Author(s):  
Suryadewi E Nugraheni ◽  
Julia F Hastings

Asian American family caregivers have gained increased attention due to the need to provide life-sustaining aid at home given the rising numbers of older adults. This article reflects upon caregiving-related research studies that have overlooked the circumstances Asian American caregivers bring to the home-care context. Policies written to address community needs tend to omit the social circumstances many Asian American caregivers must face when trying to take advantage of programs and services. For example, the eligibility requirements fail to recognize distinctive cultural values embedded within the caregiving processes. Further, most Asian American data is aggregated. Aggregating data by ethnicity limits an accurate portrayal of social circumstances. The health effects developed from caregiving demands tend to remain unaddressed and the distribution of goods and essential services generally does not reach many home-based Asian American caregivers in need. This text examines a within-group perspective to uncover sociocultural dimensions influencing caregiving. Different perspectives include those of government and community agencies, research institutions, and data-driven websites (e.g., U.S. Census Bureau). Role Strain Theory and Role Enhancement Theory are discussed. This article explores critical issues such as the health impacts of caregiving demands, Asian American identity conflicts, and United States caregiving policy’s lack of acknowledgment of Asian American diversity. To begin making corrections to misleading assumptions about Asian Americans and their culture, the article closes with how researchers need to accept the heterogeneity of Asian Americans and provide a foundation for culturally appropriate policies and programs that can enhance caregivers’ quality of life.

2018 ◽  
Vol 677 (1) ◽  
pp. 191-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Lee ◽  
Karthick Ramakrishnan ◽  
Janelle Wong

Asian Americans are the fastest-growing group in the United States, increasing from 0.7 percent in 1970 to nearly 6 percent in 2016. The U.S. Census Bureau projects that by 2065, Asian Americans will constitute 14 percent of the U.S. population. Immigration is fueling this growth: China and India have passed Mexico as the top countries sending immigrants to the United States since 2013. Today, two of three Asian Americans are foreign born—a figure that increases to nearly four of five among Asian American adults. The rise in numbers is accompanied by a rise in diversity: Asian Americans are the most diverse U.S. racial group, comprising twenty-four detailed origins with vastly different migration histories and socioeconomic profiles. In this article, we explain how the unique characteristics of Asian Americans affect their patterns of ethnic and racial self-identification, which, in turn, present challenges for accurately counting this population. We conclude by discussing policy ramifications of our findings, and explain why data disaggregation is a civil rights issue.


Author(s):  
Amy C. Tang

The repetition and reframing of styles, forms, and texts variously known as pastiche, parody, intertextuality, appropriation, or sampling is a pervasive practice in Asian American literature. Since the emergence of Asian American literary studies in the 1970s, such strategies have formed a key site for negotiating the terms of Asian American identity, politics, and culture. While pastiche has been recognized as a signature style of postmodern culture at large, it has held particular significance for Asian American literary and cultural studies because of its resonance with Asian American identity. Because Asian Americans have long been stereotyped as mimics of Western culture, and because the category Asian American refers to a coalition of multiple and diverse ethnic groups, Asian American identity itself seems constituted by the formal operations of imitation and recombination central to parody and pastiche. The close alignment between Asian American identity and these formal practices has made shifting critical attitudes toward parody, pastiche, and intertextuality into a telling register of evolving conceptions of Asian American identity. In the cultural nationalist era of the 1970s, pastiche was seen as the formal expression of Asian Americans’ tendency to repeat and reproduce dominant ideologies, a sign of complicity with white racism, and a lack of cultural integrity. By contrast, a second wave of Asian American criticism in the 1990s embraced strategies of textual repetition as subversive parody rather than complicit pastiche, reinterpreting them as articulations of a politically oppositional, hybrid and heterogeneous Asian American subject. Since the turn of the millennium, the use of parody, pastiche, and intertextuality in Viet Nguyen’s prize-winning 2015 novel The Sympathizer intimates yet another iteration of Asian American identity centered on the war refugee, a model of Asian American subjectivity which shifts attention from traditional topics of immigration and assimilation to urgent questions of imperialism and militarism. Taken together, these examples demonstrate how the formal strategies of parody, pastiche, and intertextuality have served as crucial sites for the invention and reinvention of Asian American identity, politics, and aesthetics.


Author(s):  
Shilpa S. Davé

The study of accent is related to word and language pronunciation that can be linked to a social class, a nationality, a part of the world, or a historic time period. Accent can be characterized as an “identifier” based on sound and sound production rather than visual cues. Accent is thus linked to fields such as linguistics and pronunciation, language education, drama, literature and performance, sound studies, disability studies (communication disorders to hearing to speech), as well as to sociology and global studies (how do people speak and understand each other in different parts of the world and across geographical borders), to nationalism (how does language bring communities and societies together), and to media (how is communication presented and how is language received). Phonetic literacy (as studied by socio-linguists) involves subcategories such as speech and accent (from access to learning English by non-native speakers to the ability to speak English), dialect (variations of English based on geography), and slang. A cultural and interdisciplinary study of accents allow for inquiries about national community that move beyond legal and geographical forms of community and identity. Looking at accents emphasize the linguistic and sonic components of American global cultural values that are present in media representation, performance, and the politics of social relations. In particular, the study of Asian American accents in popular culture lies at the intersection of interpretations of text and sound where standard American English (the language taught in American schools) is positioned as the normative mode of communication and the criterion that non-native speakers are often judged upon in American culture. An accent is both a phonetic and visual means of interpreting the assimilation of immigrants in general, and Asians, more specifically, in relation to themes of American citizenship. Focusing on accent allows for a linguistic and narrative composition of how racial difference goes beyond a visual physical difference and is embedded in the systemic nature of how race and privilege operate in culture. Asian American and South Asian American vocal accents and other kinds of cultural “accents” offer an alternative approach to discuss American racial and ethnic performances because the notion of an accent is also inherently comparative. Accents appear only in comparison to what is considered normal or accepted universal speech, such as Standard American English. An accent can mark or distinguish someone or something in relation to something else or a prevailing norm. An accent can create contrast by its very difference. For Asian Americans, identifying how speech and communication is represented and produced in media and culture is a primary means of characterizing what is not only considered different but also what is seen to be foreign or outside definitions of American national identity. The media representations of Asian Americans exaggerate physical differences from a white American mainstream identity and dwell on alternative cultural values and behaviors that include accent and language.


Author(s):  
Rowena Fong

This entry describes the diversity among Asian American populations, setting the context to understand the need for different practice interventions. It explains the role of cultural values in the underpinnings of the selection of theoretical frameworks that guide chosen practice interventions. Indigenous and biculturalizations of interventions (Fong, Boyd, & Browne, 1997) are discussed as they relate to general and specific problems relevant to this population. Challenges and dilemmas are raised as ethical decisions are made among practitioners, who serve the Asian American native born, immigrant, and refugee populations.


2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Sun ◽  
Joyce Cheng ◽  
Julie H.T. Dang ◽  
Charlene Cuaresma ◽  
Annalyn Valdez-Dadia ◽  
...  

Asian Americans are the fastest growing ethnic group in U.S. However, they represent only 1.7% of U.S. cancer clinical trial participants. This pilot study describes findings on barriers, promoters and recommendations related to cancer clinical trial participation from Asian Americans. The research team conducted 3 focus groups comprised of 21 community members and 4 key informant interviews with healthcare providers. Qualitative methodology was used to identify themes about cancer clinical trial participation. Barriers and promoters were categorized based on themes identified and previous study findings. Eight major themes and 5 recommendations were identified from the focus group data. Five major themes and 7 recommendations were identified from the key informant data. Asian Americans’ decision to participate in cancer clinical trials is largely influenced by their cultural values and practices such as altruism and family-based decision making process. Technology platforms provide promising venues to reach Asian Americans. Family-based decision making process, altruism, and the use of technology platforms may need to be considered when outreaching to Asian Americans on cancer clinical trial participation.


Societies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 58
Author(s):  
Rooshey Hasnain ◽  
Glenn T. Fujiura ◽  
John E. Capua ◽  
Tuyen Thi Thanh Bui ◽  
Safiy Khan

Asian Americans comprise the fastest growing racial or ethnic group in the US. Between 2000 and 2019, their numbers almost doubled, from 11.9 million to 22.2 million. The numbers of people with disabilities within this demographically important population, which are also growing, puts stress on the service delivery sector. This situation indicates a pressing need for research on lived experiences of disabled Asian Americans. A review of the extant literature shows that Asian Americans are underrepresented in the research on disability and/or mental health. This lack of hard data is compounded by the tendency to treat Asian ethnicities as monolithic. The US Census Bureau recognizes more than 20 distinct Asian nationalities, ranging from South Asian Pakistani Americans to Southeast Asian Americans. Aggregating all Asian Americans together in surveys and studies impedes a sophisticated understanding of their unique needs and strengths. From a policy or systems perspective, inadequate data representation in the research literature, including outdated conclusions, is an implicit form of disenfranchisement. This conceptual article examines issues and implications around the lack of systematic attention to diversity within the Asian American population in disability research.


Author(s):  
Guy Lowe

Asian Americans have been conceptualized as a model minority for their apparent success in socioeconomic, academic, and professional settings, where other minorities have struggled. However, studies have suggested that this image is only a popularized stereotype, with academic underachievement, poverty, mental health issues, and cultural struggle prevalent amongst different Asian American communities. This chapter is a meta-analysis of studies on the model minority narrative, its influence on the social perception of Asian Americans, and its effect on shaping self-identity for Asian Americans themselves. This chapter also discusses the role the narrative plays in hindering racial parity and inter-race relations through furthering the marginalization of minority groups, silencing the voices of social change while maintaining the imbalance of status and power that currently exists in the United States.


Author(s):  
Sara Sadhwani ◽  
Jane Junn

Immigrants from Asia have been a defining feature of demographic change over the last quarter century in the United States. The 2000 US Census identified Asian Americans as the fastest growing immigrant group in the nation and the Pew Research Center estimates that Asian Americans will become the largest immigrant group in the country by 2055. With that growth has come the development of a vibrant scholarly literature examining Asian American political participation in the United States. This article is designed to provide an overview of the major foundational studies that explore Asian American political behavior, including mobilization and participation in American politics. The earliest research began in the fields of political science and sociology and consider the viability of a panethnic Asian American identity as a unit of analysis for group-based behavior and political interests. Numerous scholars have considered the circumstances under which panethnic Asian American identity can be activated toward group behavior, and how differences in national origin can lead to variations in behavioral outcomes. Participation in American politics, however, is rooted in many other factors such as socioeconomics, one’s experience as an immigrant, ties to the home country, and structural barriers to activism. Individual resources have long been considered an essential component to understanding political participation. Yet, Asian Americans present a puzzle in American politics, evincing higher education and income while participating in politics at a more modest rate. In response to this puzzle, scholars have theorized that structural conditions and the experience faced by Asian immigrants are powerful mechanisms in understanding the determinants of Asian American political participation. Once considered to have relatively weak partisan attachment and little interaction with the two major parties in the United States, studies that examine the development of partisan attachment among Asian Americans are explored which, more recently, find that a growing majority of Asian Americans have shown a preference for the Democratic Party. Finally, we detail studies examining the conditions under which Asian American candidates emerge and are successful, the co-ethnic electorate who supports them, and conclude by detailing the opportunities and constraints for cross-racial collaboration and conflict.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document