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GOLDSEA | ASIAN AMERICAN DEMOGRAPHICS

Parsing Asian America
PART 3 OF 4

VIETNAMESE AMERICANS
    Vietnamese immigration was little more than a trickle of warbrides and orphans until 1970 when it began building rapidly through the fall of Saigon in 1975. After that it swelled with tens of thousands admitted under refugee provisions enacted hastily to help save a half million South Vietnamese fleeing in tiny fishing boats. At its peak in the mid--to-late-70s, an average of 120,000 entered each year. By 1997 the number had dropped slightly below 40,000.
    Because of the relatively brief timeline of Vietnamese immigration, the Vietnamese American population is the most geographically concentrated among Asian groups. The largest waves of refugees were processed through Camp Pendleton Marine Base in Oceanside, California, and the majority of these immigrants settled in the Westminster area of nearby Orange County. An area that had been mostly Japanese-American strawberry fields is today the home of Little Saigon, the largest Vietnamese American community with a population of 350,000 . San Jose, California, with about 125,000, has become the second largest. That's followed by Houston, Texas with about 100,000 and Los Angeles County where during the past decade Vietnamese merchants have largely displaced Chinese merchants in downtown L.A.'s old Chinatown. The Vietnamese American population totaled 1.4 million in 1998, making it the third largest Asian group after Chinese and Filipinos. Between a third and half of Vietnamese Americans are of Chinese ancestry and are likely to identify themselves as such.
    Of the five major Asian American groups, Vietnamese have the highest F.O.B. ratio, 33% having immigrated during the past 10 years. As a consequence, 23% of Vietnamese households live below the poverty level, the highest rate among Asian groups. But 88% of families that had immigrated during the 1970s and 80s have graduated into the middle class and higher. Thanks to intense focus on education and achievement, a rapdily growing proportion of established Vietnamese Americans are now moving into professional, managerial and entrepreneurial positions, especially in the hi-tech sector. For the past five years Vietnamese have formed the backbone of Silicon Valley's engineering and skilled technical labor force.
    For at least the next decade or two the recent normalization of U.S. relations with Vietnam and the poverty and lack of prospects in that nation will contribute to continued high levels of Vietnamese immigration. By 2010 Vietnamese Americans will surpass all Asian groups except Chinese in population. The downside of that rapid growth is that Vietnamese Americans will continue to have the largest share living below the poverty line.

[CONTINUED BELOW]

FILIPINO AMERICANS
    A few thousand Filipinos, mostly servants and sailors, came to the U.S. after the Spanish-American War when the Philippines became a U.S. possession. After World War II the U.S. made special provisions to admit several thousand former soldiers and their families as a recognition of their role in fighting the Japanese. As with Coreans and Vietnamese, mass immigration didn't begin until 1970. As in Vietnam, in the Philippines ethnic Chinese had long dominated the business and professional sector, and the majority of Filipino immigrants during the 1970s were ethnic Chinese. An advantage they enjoyed over other Asian immigrants was their English ability.
    Currently Filipinos lead Asian immigration with just under 50,000 in 1997. That number has been declining slowly and will continue to decline due to continuing improvement in the Philippine economy. With a population of 2.2 million, immigrants classified as Filipinos are currently America's second largest Asian group after Chinese. Yet they have a far less visible presence than Vietnamese and Coreans. That's because the majority consider themselves Chinese and patronize the many large Chinese communities throughout North America.
    By the late 1980s the number of qualified ethnic Chinese Filipinos seeking to immigrate had become depleted, leaving more slots for Tagalog-speaking native Filipinos. They have formed small Filipino enclaves in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle, often based on small clusters of establishments founded decades ago by the post-World-War II Filipino immigrants. Filipinos who identify themselves as Tagalog-speakers are believed to number around 1 million.
    Another reason for the lack of a visible Filipino American presence is that, thanks in large part to their English proficiency, a sizeable minority have become completely assimilated into the general population. Much of their presence isn't even detectible in phone directories because a majority possess Spanish surnames, a legacy of the Philippines's century as a Spanish colony.

RELATIONS AMONG ASIAN AMERICANS
    Warm relations and cooperation among the various Asian American groups are so well established that we now take it for granted. Inter-Asian dating and marriages are commonplace. Stroll the aisles of Ranch 99 Chinese markets and you'll hear every Asian language. Walk into a Nijiya or Yaohan Japanese market in Palos Verdes or Fort Lee, New Jersey and you'll see more Coreans and Chinese than Japanese. Check out the selection at an HK or Assi Corean supermarket in Los Angeles or Rowland Heights and you'll see flocks of Chinese and some Japanese shopping along with Coreans.
    The pan-Asian American identity is founded on shared physical and cultural traits in a land where Asians are minorities, but it wasn't always easy for Asian Americans to relate with one another. During the first half of the century, overtly racist newspaper articles often pitted Chinese against Japanese. For example, a 1920 Los Angeles Times headline read "Need Chinese, Say Big Farmers", and went on to state: "Many of the ranchers who express their views... declare they'd like to see enough Chinese brought in to break the Japanese grip on the garden business in Southern California."
    "The Japanese must be discouraged from further production," reads a quote. Another states, "The Chinaman is one of the most honest laborers known -- he has no ambition to own land for himself, and works unquestioningly and faithfully."
    The L.A. Times was speaking on behalf of its core readership and advertising base -- local white businesses -- against what it considered a major external threat -- Asians. The paper made no effort to hide its racial animosity and popularized the "Jap" slur decades before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. After war broke out, it went on a spree of racist editorializing to push the U.S. government into interning Japanese Americans, thereby ridding the Southland of the threat. Or so it thought. One of its favorite tactics was to set off the era's two main Asian groups against one another. It worked. Chinese Americans felt pressured to adopt anti-Japanese attitudes and, after the War, Japanese Americans reciprocated with deep resentment. It wasn't until the 60s that a new generation of Asian Americans forged a pan-Asian American identity to fight stereotypes directed against the entire group. PART 4

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