Don't Blame Asians

One of the themes in our last post, as well as the next few entries, is that grouping Pacific Islanders with Asians in the "Asian Pacific Islander" category produces misunderstandings and misleading data. In this post I want to prevent a different type of misunderstanding before it occurs: the misunderstanding that Asian Americans are at fault for Pacific Islander exclusion from underrepresented minority (URM) academic programs.

Are Pacific Islanders excluded from most URM academic programs, even though we're underrepresented? Yes.

Does the misleading data that comes from grouping Pacific Islanders with Asians as "Asian Pacific Islanders" have something to do with that exclusion? I believe so, because when people assume that "Asian Pacific Islander" data accurately represents Pacific Islanders, they assume that Pacific Islanders, like Asians, aren't underrepresented in higher education.

But should Pacific Islanders focus our energy on blaming Asians for our exclusion from URM academic programs? I don't think so.

Don't blame Asian Americans - we don't.

At the risk of over-explaining, I want to be clear: the Pacific Islander Access project does not hold Asian Americans responsible for the fact that Pacific Islanders are excluded from most URM academic programs. We believe that Pacific Islanders and Asians should continue to work together for the betterment of both communities, and for our nation as a whole.

Here's the PIA project's stance:

• We can get more done by focusing on who we need to educate, not who we can blame: Yes, it's a problem that Pacific Islanders are being mis-judged because of the use of "Asian Pacific Islander" data. And that misleading data plays a role in our exclusion from URM academic programs. But our focus should be on solving this problem. We will do this by focusing on who we need to educate, not who we can blame.

• We don't hold Asian Americans responsible for Pacific Islander exclusion from URM academic programs: In fact, there are Asian American leaders, scholars, and organizations that have worked to raise awareness about Pacific Islander American underrepresentation in higher education. We would like to see more organizations that say they advocate for both Asians and Pacific Islanders speak up about 1.) the negative impacts of lumping the two groups together for data collection, and 2.) the need for URM academic programs to recognize that Pacific Islanders are underrepresented. But at the same time, we recognize that the leadership should come from within the Pacific Islander community.

• We believe that Asians and Pacific Islanders should keep working together. We also don't think that every single "Asian Pacific American" organizations should automatically drop the "Pacific" from their names. If an organization represents and serves both Pacific Islanders and Asians, then I don't have a problem with them referring to both groups in their name. (If they claim to serve both groups but ignore Pacific Islanders, that's another story.) The PIA project will do more to reach out to Asian American and "Asian Pacific American" organizations this year, and I believe that we will find them to be some of the strongest supporters for ending Pacific Islander exclusion from URM academic programs.

Mahalo for reading.

Kawika