If passed, his bill would require state agencies in

Chinese Immigrants Protest Effort To Collect More Asian

canada goose factory sale Asian Americans are an incredibly diverse group. canada goose factory sale

To help capture that diversity, some states have recently passed laws requiring state agencies to collect more detailed demographic data about the country’s fastest growing racial group.

Massachusetts state Rep. Tackey Chan, a Democrat who in January introduced a bill calling for more Asian American data, says his office started receiving a series of phone calls and emails raising concerns about the bill last month.

“To be honest with you, I was rather surprised by that,” says Chan, a Democrat whose district includes Quincy, Mass., home to the second largest Asian American population in the state after Boston.

Chan says there’s little to no information at the state or local level about Asian Americans. If passed, his bill would require state agencies in Massachusetts to identify Asian American and Pacific Islander respondents in surveys about, for example, health, schools and employment. And that data would have to be broken down by canada goose outlet legit the state’s five largest Asian American universeinsync and Pacific Islander ethnic groups, such as Chinese, Indian and Vietnamese.

canadian goose jacket “We are a data driven society,” he says. “It’s hard to make public policy without data. And if you don’t have data, you can’t advocate.” canadian goose jacket

Canada Goose Parka States including California, Minnesota and Rhode Island have passed similar laws. Almost all of the demonstrators were immigrants from China. Many of them connected through the social media app WeChat. Canada Goose Parka

canada goose uk outlet “Stop the racist bill!” they chanted, referring to Chan’s bill. Some held signs saying, “Aggregation, not segregation,” and called for Asian Americans to be counted only as one group rather than separated by ethnicity. canada goose uk outlet

“The fear is, you know, canada goose outlet sale how you can guarantee the demographic data collected will not be abused or will not be misused for other purposes,” said Andy Liu, a computer engineer from Sharon, Mass., who helped organize the protest.

Liu and canada goose outlet nyc other protesters questioned why the Massachusetts bill singles out Asian Americans and not other racial groups for additional data.

“This is obviously discrimination against canada goose outlet miami Asian Americans,” Linglan Zhang of Lexington, Mass., said in Mandarin.

Protesters in other states have also raised that concern, according to Karthick Ramakrishnan, a political scientist at the University of California, Riverside, and a longtime advocate for more Asian American data.

Ramakrishnan has been following the organized protests and other activism against the data collection laws. He says this debate shows the divide between a new generation of Chinese immigrants and more established Asian American groups who’ve been calling for more data for canada goose outlet edmonton years.

“These mainstream Asian American organizations are nearly completely absent from the spaces canada goose outlet washington dc where a large and growing number of Chinese immigrants are active,” he says.

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There is no clear timeline for the Massachusetts bill, but another protest against it is set to take place in Boston later this month.

Canada Goose Outlet Affirmative action, Ramakrishnan says, is a main issue driving this fight over data collection. He says many of the immigrants from mainland China who are protesting are worried about their children’s schooling. Canada Goose Outlet

“The belief is that by killing any canada goose outlet kind of data collection on race, these Chinese Americans might have a fair shot getting into Ivy League schools. That’s the theory,” he says.

canada goose clearance Wen Zhao, who traveled with her seven year old son from Westford, Mass., to canada goose outlet las vegas attend the Boston protest, said she doesn’t support the use of racial data in the selection process for schools or jobs. canada goose clearance

buy canada goose jacket cheap “They use those data in education, in college admissions and even in [the] workforce. The groups included the Chinese Progressive Association and the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center, the Boston area’s largest social service provider for Asian families. buy canada goose jacket cheap

“Disaggregation is not segregation,” the organizations wrote. canada goose outlet vancouver “In fact, we should be united in uplifting our community members who have been continuously calling for data disaggregation so they will not be left invisible.”

Canada Goose sale Anh Vu Sawyer, executive director of the Southeast Asian Coalition in Worcester, Mass., adds more detailed data about Asian Americans could bring in more funding for services for immigrants from grant makers. Canada Goose sale

“I have to have data to let them know there’s a need right here. I cannot just say I observe that I have people coming in with suicide tendency or I have people with a family of five and [who] have less than $15,000 a year,” Sawyer says.

As a former refugee who escaped the Vietnam War, Sawyer says she understands the privacy concerns in a political climate that doesn’t seem to welcome immigrants. She’s also worried that disaggregated data about canada goose outlet parka Asian Americans could lead to more splits within the community because of the inevitable comparisons about socioeconomic status between ethnic groups.