From: ajh@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Alan Hu)
Subject: Re: East and South Asians
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University.
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 07:20:37 GMT

In article <9301101408.AA19177@dawn400a.hpl.hp.com> rw@hplb.hpl.hp.com (Russil Wvong) writes:
>After reading Alan's article on similarities between the East Asian
>and South Asian communities in America, I came up with a list of
>differences.  (I don't know much about the South Asian community,
>so the list is pretty superficial, and may well be inaccurate.)
>
>Appearance.  Obviously, we don't look the same.  Both East Asians
>and South Asians experience racism from non-Asian Americans, but the
>nature of the racism is somewhat different.

Yup, inline with Tariq's experience, stereotypical-clueless-redneck racism
against South-Asian Americans seems likely to be based on Arab-(or Iran or Iraq)
bashing, whereas that directed against East-Asian Americans is more
likely to be Japan-bashing or Vietnam-War-anger.

>
>History.  Historically, there's been a lot of contact between America
>and East Asia:  China, Japan, the Philippines, Korea, Vietnam.  More so
>than with South Asia.

Britain has long ties with India.  Perhaps that's why British people
tend to mean South Asians when they say "Asian", whereas Americans
tend to mean East Asians...

>
	[Comments on politics deleted.]
>
>Visibility in popular culture.  Chinese and Japanese actors appear in
>American movies and on American TV, at least in supporting roles.  South
>Asians are practically invisible in popular American culture.  How many 
>South Asians can you think of, besides Gandhi and Salman Rushdie?

How can we forget Dinesh D'Souza?

>
>Language skills.  This is a gross generalization, but I think South Asian
>immigrants are generally much more comfortable with English, and generally
>have better verbal skills, than East Asian immigrants.  (This is something
>that Norman Matloff at UC Davis used to comment on.)

Yes.  From class notes (citing US Census Bureau and GAO reports):
Only 5% of Indian Americans do not speak English well.  This is comparable
to the 6% for Filipino Americans or the 9% for Japanese Americans, but
is much lower than the 23%, 24%, and 38% for Chinese, Korean, and
Vietnamese Americans.  Overall, 15% of Asian Americans do not speak
English well.

Other demographic tidbits (from same source):  70.4% of Indian Americans
are foreign born; 85.1% for Pakistani Americans.  This is similar to
all the other Asian-American groups (62.1% total foreign-born), except
Japanese Americans, who are only 28.4% foreign-born.

Only 19.2% of Indian Americans live in the West, as opposed to 56.5% for
Asian Americans in general.  (High of 80.3% for Japanese Americans)

51.8% of Indian Americans and 58.4% of Pakistani Americans are college
graduates, compared to 34.3% for all Asian Americans, and only 16.2%
for all Americans.  Clearly, immigration preference for professionals
has had some effect!

>
>Generation gap.  There's a big cultural gap between Chinese immigrants
>and their kids.  I have the impression that it's the same for other
>East Asian immigrants, but less so for South Asian immigrants.

Seems to me like there's just as big of a first-to-second generation
gap in both communities.  You even have similar terms:  ABC for
American-Born Chinese, usually with "You've got no culture" connotations.
ABCD for American-Born Confused Dhesi, with the same negative connotations.

>
	[Comments on names and religion deleted.]
>
>Actually, the specific differences probably aren't so important.  What's
>important is that there doesn't seem to be much interaction at all between
>South Asians and East Asians; they really do seem to be separate communities.
>
>-- Russil

					--Alan Hu