by TERRY TANG and MIKE SCHNEIDER
Associated Press
Jennifer Chow
PHOENIX (AP) — Last month, when the U.S. Census Bureau’s report card on the accuracy of the 2020 U.S. census showed that the Asian population was overestimated by the highest percentage of any racial or ethnic group, Jennifer · Zhou was surprised.
The head of an Asian American advocacy group believes thousands will be missed — outreach has been affected by the coronavirus pandemic, and she and her staff are concerned about widespread language barriers and sharing information with the government prudence may hinder participation. They also argue that recent attacks against Asian Americans could stoke fear among Asians in the fastest-growing racial or ethnic group in the United States.
“I was really shocked,” said Zhou, director of the Arizona Coalition for Asian Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Rights.
But Zhou and other advocates and academics also argue that the 2.6 percent overestimation of the Asian population in the decennial U.S. demographic may not be what it appears to be. That, they said, may have masked large differences in who is counted in different Asian-American communities in the United States. They also believe it may indicate that mixed-race and multiracial residents identify as Asian-American in greater numbers than in the past.
Specifics are hard to pin down because all Asian-American communities fall into the same racial category in the census. Some advocates say this masks the broad range of income, education and health backgrounds among subgroups and tends to obscure the unique characteristics of certain communities. It may also perpetuate the “model minority” myth of wealthy and well-educated Asians.
“Asian-Americans have greater income inequality than any other racial group in the United States, and overall overestimation may mask the experiences of Asian-Americans who are more likely to be underestimated,” said Aji Huangma, assistant professor of Asian-Pacific American studies. ” at Arizona State University.
Nearly four dozen members of the U.S. House of Representatives this month asked the Census Bureau to accurately break down the number of Asian-American residents by subgroup. Asian descent in the United States can be traced back to more than 20 countries, with the largest numbers in China and India. But the bureau has no plans to do so, at least not in the near future.
“To really understand how Asian American communities are performing, you need lower-level geography to understand whether there is understated or whether some neighborhoods are doing better than others,” says Census and Vote for Justice for Asian Americans Project senior director Trio Minnes said.
Asians are overrated at a higher rate than any other group. Non-Hispanic white residents were overcounted by 0.6 percent. The black population was underestimated by 3.3%, those who identified as other races were underestimated by 4.3%, the Hispanic population was missed by almost 5%, and American Indians living on reservations were underestimated by more than 5.6%.
Civil rights leaders blamed the undercounting on obstacles created by the pandemic and the political interference of then-President Donald Trump’s administration, which unsuccessfully tried to add citizenship questions to census forms and shorten field operations.
The census is used not only to determine how many congressional seats each state gets, but also to redistrict political districts; it helps determine how the $1.5 trillion in federal funding each year is distributed.
A survey conducted by the Bureau of Statistics outside of the census shows that overcounting occurs when people are counted twice, such as college students on campus and at their parents’ homes.
In the 2020 Census, 19.9 million residents identified as “Asian only,” a 35 percent increase from 2010. Another 4.1 million residents identified as Asian and other racial groups, a 55 percent increase from 2010. Asian Americans now make up more than 7 percent of the U.S. population.
Part of the increase in Asian Americans in the 2020 census may stem from the fluidity in the way some people, especially those who are biracial or multiracial, report their identities on the census form, said Paul Ong, professor emeritus of urban planning and Asian American. Studied at UCLA.
“People change their identities from one survey to another, which is more common among multiracial or biracial people,” Ong said.
Lan Hoang, a Vietnamese-American woman who works in the same league as Chau, listed her three young children as Asian, as well as white and Hispanic, to represent her husband’s background. She used the census as an opportunity to talk to them about the importance of identity, and even read them a children’s book on people counting.
“It talks about the importance of letting people know you’re here, and that’s who you stand for,” Huang said. “When I filled out (the form), they were very surprised. … ‘Yes, you are three different things in one. You are special.'”
Hoang added that the conversation about declaring one’s Asian background was particularly meaningful given the anti-Asian hatred that the pandemic has brought on. Last year, eight people, including six Asian women, were shot dead at massage parlors in Georgia, and since 2020 there have been thousands more attacks against Asian Americans across the United States.
Those factors may have led to some multiracial people who would typically indicate on the census form that they were white, black or other races to choose Asians, Ong said.
“When that happens, multiracial people go in two directions: they reject their minority identity, or they accept it,” Ong said. “As anti-Asian hostility grows, it’s forcing some multiracial Asians to choose a single identity.”
Another factor that may contribute to Asian overrepresentation is that younger Asians are more likely to attend college compared with other racial or ethnic groups: 58% compared to young people from other racial or ethnic backgrounds 42% or less. That could result in them being counted twice on campus and at their parents’ homes, where they went after colleges and universities closed due to the pandemic.
In 2020, UCLA junior Lauren Chen spent most of her freshman year at her home in Mesa, Arizona. Although the Census Bureau stipulated that she should be counted at school, her father included Chen on the family census form. Chen didn’t know if she was counted twice.
“UCLA was busy trying to figure out how to get people access to their belongings. … It was a very confusing time, and I don’t think I knew anyone who got the mail or anything like that,” Chen said.
“(The census) is definitely something I focus on, especially the way my dad looks at it.”
