3 ms·

Slightly tangential, but why are Pacific Islanders often considered in the same "ethnic group" as Asians in the USA? They're about as similar as North Africans

Slightly tangential, but why are Pacific Islanders often considered in the same "ethnic group" as Asians in the USA? They're about as similar as North Africans and Europeans.

skissane 6y ago
> Slightly tangential, but why are Pacific Islanders often considered in the same "ethnic group" as Asians in the USA? Up until 1997, the US government's official racial classification system contained a race called "Asian or Pacific Islander". In that year, they modified the system to split that race into two new races – "Asian" and "Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander". However, more than 20 years later, the old system still gets used sometimes (e.g. the University of Pennsylvania's published diversity statistics), but most institutions in the US have moved to the new system (and I think as time goes by the old system becomes less and less common.) Now, why they did originally group these two groups together? I'm not entirely sure why. There are some historical connections between the two groups – the Pacific Island languages (Hawaiian, Maori, etc) belong to the Austronesian language family, which is believed to originally come from Taiwan, and contains several major languages of Southeast Asia (e.g. Malay, Indonesian, Filipino/Tagalog) – but I'm not sure whether that history plays any role in the decision to originally group them together. The original grouping was established by OMB Circular No. A-46, dated May 12, 1977 – I have been unable to find a copy of that document, maybe it contains some explanation of why they did it. > They're about as similar as North Africans and Europeans. The US government officially classifies North African and Middle Eastern people as "White". Some Arab Americans and Iranian Americans don't agree with the label "White", and don't be surprised if the system gets changed sooner or later to split out a separate label such as "Middle Eastern or North African": https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-census-middle-east-north-africa-race/ https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-census-middle-east-no...

Slightly tangential, but why are Pacific Islanders often considered in the same "ethnic group" as Asians in the USA? They're about as similar as North Africans and Europeans.

skissane 6y ago

> Slightly tangential, but why are Pacific Islanders often considered in the same "ethnic group" as Asians in the USA? Up until 1997, the US government's official racial classification system contained a race called "Asian or Pacific Islander". In that year, they modified the system to split that race into two new races – "Asian" and "Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander". However, more than 20 years later, the old system still gets used sometimes (e.g. the University of Pennsylvania's published diversity statistics), but most institutions in the US have moved to the new system (and I think as time goes by the old system becomes less and less common.) Now, why they did originally group these two groups together? I'm not entirely sure why. There are some historical connections between the two groups – the Pacific Island languages (Hawaiian, Maori, etc) belong to the Austronesian language family, which is believed to originally come from Taiwan, and contains several major languages of Southeast Asia (e.g. Malay, Indonesian, Filipino/Tagalog) – but I'm not sure whether that history plays any role in the decision to originally group them together. The original grouping was established by OMB Circular No. A-46, dated May 12, 1977 – I have been unable to find a copy of that document, maybe it contains some explanation of why they did it. > They're about as similar as North Africans and Europeans. The US government officially classifies North African and Middle Eastern people as "White". Some Arab Americans and Iranian Americans don't agree with the label "White", and don't be surprised if the system gets changed sooner or later to split out a separate label such as "Middle Eastern or North African": https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-census-middle-east-north-africa-race/ https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-census-middle-east-no...