Poverty

In June 2012, the Pew Charitable Trust published its report “The Rise of Asian Americans.” Hoping to capitalize on its niche of social science research, Pew's “The Rise of …” series uses survey and census data to tell us about us. Pew has built a largely successful brand of demographic portraiture backed by research but delivered through bullet points, highlights, and top lines. But this Pew report, more than any other Pew report, drew widespread criticism for inaccuracies, misunderstandings, and general stereotyping. Scholars, political officials, and advocacy groups such as the Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC), UCCAPPI, and National Asian American Survey criticized Pew for not recognizing the diversity of social, economic, and cultural experiences of Asian Americans.

The Pew Report on Asian Americans illustrates well a twofold challenge with respect to understanding Asian American poverty: First, statistical portraits of the whole mask important distinctions among parts, and second, the validity of quantitative measurements of any kind, but especially with respect to poverty, require knowledge of the context and condition in which measurements are taken.

As Asian American median household income is currently higher than that of whites, poverty among Asian Americans comes as a surprise to many. Nonetheless, scratching below the surface of popular rhetoric and discursive politics, much of which is based on statistics gleaned from official U.S. census data, shows persistent and deep poverty among several groups belonging to the category Asian American. Examining poverty among Asian Americans suggests that (1) the identity category Asian American masks important variation among disparate groups of people classified as Asian American, thereby rendering certain groups invisible, and (2) one weakness of official measures of poverty tends toward static snapshots of income rather than multidimensional perspectives