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Created: October 20, 2003
Latest Update: October 20, 2003
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu
Site Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individual Authors, October 2003.
"Fair use" encouraged.
This lecture was triggered by an article in the New York Times by Sarah Kershaw on Monday morning, October 20, 2004. Immigrants Now Embrace Homes for Elderly. At p. A 1. I was surprised by the article because in one of my many cultures, the Jewish, I had been present at the Univresity of Judaism when they started a major program on teaching families how to include an aging parent most effectively, without succumbing to the extra stress such care brings with it. Jewish families, like Japanese families, like Hispanic families, like most families, have a culture in which one loves and cares for one's aging parent. Only in the last few decades have issues like housing, income, work schedules, school schedules become so overladen that many families are finding the additional needs of the elderly more difficult to cope with than they can manage. The program at UJ must have started close to twenty years ago. So I thought this was kind of old hat. But I was clearly wrong.Sarah Kershaw says of the phenomenon:
"Nikkei Manor, where 46 Japanese-Americans are spending their old age, is one of a growing number of assisted-living facilities and nursing homes across the nation that cater to first- and second-generation elderly immigrants. It is a fast-growing population that has begun to embrace the very American tradition of living the last years with peers, not family. That phenomenon is driven by two-career families that have little time to care for their parents, increasing wealth for some immigrant populations and gradual acceptance of a lifestyle that was unheard of a generation ago."And I was surprised that the home is in Seattle. I woud have predicted California. So I set out to find us some statistics and resources on this issue.
Discussion Questions on the Asian and Pacific Islander Population Report
- The Asian and Pacific Islander Population in the United States: March 2002 Where did I find this report on the Internet?
Consider: The URL will give you the answer. It came from http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/race/api.html Look at the address that follows the www. census.gov. That means it's a server of the US government. Official statistics. It's in the population directory, and within that it's in the social/democratic directory and within it that the race directory. I'm not sure what the second www and the api tell us, but now you've got a pretty good idea of what to look for. Don't let words you're not sure of intimidate you. Look at the whole URL and see if you can't get a rough idea, or at least a word to look up on a search engine. I just went back to the top of the file, and there was the title: Asian Pacific Islander Populations. Guess what the api stands for?
- Figure 1. Region of Residence for Selected Groups: 2002 is on p.2 of the report. Use the hand and the down arrow button to get to the figure. I can reproduce the figure on my machine, but I cannot guarantee that I can get it up on the site for you. You may have to hunt for it. Question: Can you interpret the figure without reading the textual interpretation in the report. Remember that a good table tells you all you need to know without reading the textual material.
Backup of Figure 1. Try the backup. Or go to the pdf file. Or settle for this quick drawing if you can't get either:
Do the interpretation step by step.
For sanctioned plagiarism: (explanations for how I chose the wording are in green. jeanne)
Figure 1 shows (I changed it to "gives" because I used "shows" again in the 23d paragraph.) the region of residence for selected groups in the United States Population. (I got "region of residence" from the figure title, and US Population from the report title.) The data were taken (Don't forget plural for data; singular is datum.) from the U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Demographic Supplement to the March 2002 Current Population Survey. (I just cut and pasted that right from the pdf file. Saves time.) The regions of residence are divided into Northeast, Midwest, South, and West. A careful look at the histogram shows that those regions seem to be fairly evenly divided, with a slightly larger group in the West. For purupose of this report it would have been nice to have Northwest separated from West, but the figures may not warrant such a change in the population survey on which this histogram is based. (With this sentence I've actually started making an interpretation - a wish you had done it differently, folks, but I quickly point out that the U.S. Census Bureau might not want to comply with my needs on a single study.)The selected groups of the population included are Asian Pacific Islander and Non-Hispanic White. (Now those aren't racial or ethnic groups we're used to seeing, so we'll need to explain that.) Hispanic is a designation for people form Central and South America, whether they are of native or colonial origin. (This comes from fn 3 of the report; I cheated and went outside the table. A table footnote would have prevented that. You'd get a B for missing that, but what can I do to the census bureau. The exact quote from p. 1 of the report is: "Because Hispanics or Latinos may be of anyrace, data in this report for Asians and PacificIslanders overlap slightly with data for Hispanics.Data for Asians and Pacific Islanders include Hispanic Asians and Pacific Islanders, who made up approximately 2.4 percent of the Asian and Pacific Islander population." ) and "Footnotes:1/ Hispanic refers to people whose origin is Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, South or Central American, or other Hispanic/Latinoorigin, regardless of race.SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, March 2002, Racial Statistics Branch, Population Division.Internet Release date: May 28, 2003." That means that Hispanics who are not Asian Pacific Islanders are not included in the Non-Hispanic Whites and not included in the Asian Pacific Islanders. Hispanics are simply not included in these tables unless they are also of Asia Pacific Islander origin.
Figure 1 shows that the largest group (51%) of Asian Pacific Islanders is in the West, compared to only 19.1% of the Non-Hispanic White population. The largest group of the Non-Hispanic White population is in the South (33.3%) as compared to 18.9% of Asian Pacific Islanders in the South. The smallest group of Asian Pacific Islanders is in the Midwest (11.5%), as compared to 27.0% of the Non-Hispanic White group. In the Northeast the percentage of Non-Hispanic Whites (20.5%) is only slightly higher than that of the Asian Pacific Islanders' 18.6%. One might have expected the percentages to be more nearly alike on the West Coast than on the East.
The Non-Hispanic White population is more evenly balanced across the country, with slightly higher percentages in the South and Midwest. On the other hand, there is a much more skewed distribution of the Asian Pacific Islander population, with the larger percentages on each coast, and with a notably higher percentage of Asian Pacific Islanders on the West Coast. (This can be grasped visually from the graph.)The report does not offer an explanation for this pattern, but it would seem that the high percentage of Asian Pacific Islanders who entered the country from the West might account for more of them staying there than moving to the East, the next most metropolitan area of the country. (As you conclude, permission to go into the report itself.)
And here it is without remarks to give you a sense of how it will look:
Figure 1 gives the region of residence for selected groups in the United States Population. The data were taken from the U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Demographic Supplement to the March 2002 Current Population Survey. The regions of residence are divided into Northeast, Midwest, South, and West. A careful look at the histogram shows that those regions seem to be fairly evenly divided, with a slightly larger group in the West. For purupose of this report it would have been nice to have Northwest separated from West, but the figures may not warrant such a change in the population survey on which this histogram is based.The selected groups of the population included are Asian Pacific Islander and Non-Hispanic White. Hispanic is a designation for people form Central and South America, whether they are of native or colonial origin.That means that Hispanics who are not Asian Pacific Islanders are not included in the Non-Hispanic Whites and not included in the Asian Pacific Islanders. Hispanics are simply not included in these tables unless they are also of Asia Pacific Islander origin.
Figure 1 shows that the largest group (51%) of Asian Pacific Islanders is in the West, compared to only 19.1% of the Non-Hispanic White population. The largest group of the Non-Hispanic White population is in the South (33.3%) as compared to 18.9% of Asian Pacific Islanders in the South. The smallest group of Asian Pacific Islanders is in the Midwest (11.5%), as compared to 27.0% of the Non-Hispanic White group. In the Northeast the percentage of Non-Hispanic Whites (20.5%) is only slightly higher than that of the Asian Pacific Islanders' 18.6%. One might have expected the percentages to be more nearly alike on the West Coast than on the East.
The Non-Hispanic White population is more evenly balanced across the country, with slightly higher percentages in the South and Midwest. On the other hand, there is a much more skewed distribution of the Asian Pacific Islander population, with the larger percentages on each coast, and with a notably higher percentage of Asian Pacific Islanders on the West Coast. The report does not offer an explanation for this pattern, but it would seem that the high percentage of Asian Pacific Islanders who entered the country from the West might account for more of them staying there than moving to the East, the next most metropolitan area of the country.
- aging population
- Abstract of the Frey report on elderly migrant types
- Abstract of Frey report on Asian and Hispanic elderly migration
- In what way could we think of the racial classifications in Figure 1 as recoded?
Consider that we could have left Whites and Hispanics as separate categories. How would that have changed the percentages? "Hispanic Asians and Pacific Islanders, who made up approximately 2.4 percent of the Asian and Pacific Islander population." We would have to take them from Hispanics and add them to Asian Pacific Islanders.
- What if we had used the categories Asian Pacific Islanders and Whites?
Same problem. But we would not have been able to subtract the Hispanic Asian Islanders from the other whites so we wouldn't have been able to recode. Notice the importance of giving careful consideration to your categories and to your possibilities for recoding. Would you suppose the census bureau faced a lot of such problems before they came upon this definition of Hispanic?
- Would this definition of Hispanic work as well in Latin and South America on their census statistics?
Would depend on how much it matter to them to separate out indigenous populations from colonial groups. Indigenous peoples have always been exploited to some extent in the South, and I suspect that people of colonial or other origin would not want to be grouped with them in a single racial category.
- In what way does this racial categorization show sensitivity to Hispanics and in what ways insensitivity?
Consider that by recognizing no difference between indigenous and colonial or other Hispanics, there is sensitivity to indigenous concerns about exploitation. But consider by declining to recognize Hispanics as Whites, there is an insensitivity to that portion of their heritage. Statistics is simple, folks. But life is complex.
