The Pacific Islander Access project Blog

Pacific Islander American History: Oregon

2012-02-17T04:28:00.000-08:00

In last week's post we mentioned the growing Marshallese community in Salem, Oregon, linking to articles in their local press. While the influx of Marshallese immigrants to Oregon is a relatively new phenom, Pacific Islanders have called Oregon and other parts of the Pacific Northwest their home for over a century -- long before Oregon became a state.

As far back as the late 18th Century, Native Hawaiians were immigrating to what is now Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. Some returned to Hawaii, but others started families and made new lives for themselves in the western frontier. To this day, some parts of Oregon, like "Owyhee River" and "Kanaka flats" still incorporate the use of the Hawaiian language. This reinforces a point we've made before: Most Pacific Islander Americans are indigenous to land that is now the United States, and in addition, we've been living in the continental US for over a century.

If you want to learn more, here are two books on the subject: Kanaka: The Untold Story of Hawaiian Pioneers in British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest and Leaving Paradise: Indigenous Hawaiians in the Pacific Northwest, 1787 - 1898.

Kawika

Pacific Islander America: Salem, Oregon

2012-02-10T15:20:00.000-08:00

What are the three most commonly spoken second languages in the homes of public school kids living in Salem, Oregon? Spanish, Russian... and Marshallese.

In January of last year, we blogged about the growing Marshallese community in Northwest Arkansas. This January, a local paper in Salem, Oregon called attention to the same thing in their own community, noting that Marshallese is the third most commonly spoken second language. You can read that article here, which also links back to another article from a few years ago (also about the Marshallese in Oregon). An updated article, which also mentions that approximately 22,000 Marshallese live in the 50 states, is available here. That's nearly a third of the total population on the Marshall Islands. To draw a comparison, this would be like having 100 million Americans (a third of the US population) living in China or India.

If you want to learn more about the link between the Marshall Islands and the U.S., there are books, articles, and web resources out there. A quick primer on the Marshall Islands is available at the Department of State's website. Among other things, it notes the decades during which the Marshall Islands were administered by the USA as part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. While the Marshall Islands is now a sovereign nation, it is in "free association" with the United States, so the Marshallese are able to travel or immigrate to the US with fewer restrictions than other sovereign nations.

Kawika

Pepper Spray and Higher Education

2012-02-01T18:12:00.000-08:00

Mahalo to those of you who provided feedback about last week's post on the Pacific Islanders who were pepper sprayed by the police for performing the haka at a high school football game! One of you made a good point: I failed to clearly state the connection between that incident and the PIA project's mission to expand higher education opportunities for Pacific Islander Americans.

Half jokingly, I'd say that if you look at the video and read the articles, it appears that most of the chanters were teenagers or young adults, and it's hard for them to do their homework when they've got pepper spray burning their eyes. ;)

Sarcasm aside, here is the connection: While there's a difference between pepper spray and not being allowed to apply for underrepresented minority scholarships, the key is that these are negative things that could be avoided. This is a clear example that despite the fact that Pacific Islanders are an established and growing part of the American community, we remain misunderstood in ways that have negative consequences. It's surprising that this happened at all, but it's even more shocking that this incident occurred in Utah, a state with one of the highest Pacific Islander concentrations in the nation.

Kawika

Haka = Pepper Spray?

2012-01-27T04:19:00.000-08:00

Just a few weeks ago, we blogged about the Pacific Islander-influence on local football culture in the Texas town of Euliss, including the incorporation of the haka as a regular part of the games. I couldn't help but think of the football team at Euliss when reading about another high school football game in Utah, where a group of Pacific Islanders were pepper sprayed by the police.

Their offense? Performing the haka.

According to an Associated Press article, the police involved in the incident stated that they had "never even heard of such a thing" and feared that the haka was going to cause a riot. Along with the Huffington post article here, a local news outlet reports that the Ute Tribe (one of Utah's federally recognized tribal governments) has requested a Department of Justice investigation. It's also reported that after an internal review within the police department, all officers must undergo education in cultural traditions.

Hopefully their cultural education includes this piece of common sense: when people chant in Polynesian, even if they're loud and they slap their legs, that doesn't mean you should pepper spray them.

Kawika

Here is a YouTube video allegedly taken at during the incident: VIDEO

In college admissions, some recommend "don't check Asian." Should Pacific Islanders not "check" Asian Pacific Islander?

2012-01-20T04:21:00.000-08:00

Last month, newspapers across the country ran an Associated Press story on how some Asian students are responding to real or perceived anti-Asian admission bias by hiding their ethnicity when applying to college. The focus of this article is on Asians -- mostly multiethnic Asians, actually -- but there are implications for Pacific Islanders.

We've written before about how Pacific Islanders are often mistaken for or lumped in with Asians, and how that leads to big misconceptions in the area of higher education attainment. (A quick summary: Pacific Islanders are sometimes grouped with, or mistaken for Asians. But neither Asian nor "Asian Pacific Islander" stats accurately depict Pacific Islanders because Asians have the highest level of college graduation among any of the major racial groups, while Pacific Islanders are significantly underrepresented among college graduates.)

Reading this article, I wondered: if there's a bias against Asian college applicants and Pacific Islanders are mistaken for being/being the same as Asians, do Pacific Islanders face a bias as well? The author suggests that the answer might be no, or at least not in her mind: she lists "Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders" among underrepresented groups that "might" have an edge over White and Asian applicants. But what happens when Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders are only identified as Asian Pacific Islander?

In other words, if there's a danger to Asians "checking Asian," isn't there a danger in Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders "checking" Asian Pacific Islander?

Here's a link to the article: LINK

Kawika

Utah Department of Health looks to Pacific Islander data and culture

2012-01-11T07:33:00.000-08:00

The purpose of the P.I.A. project is to expand higher education opportunities for Pacific Islanders in America, principally by helping academic programs for underrepresented minorities understand that Pacific Islanders are underrepresented among college graduates. We realize, at the same time, that if people know more about Pacific Islanders, and have better access to data on Pacific Islanders, they are less likely to make mistakes like leaving Pacific Islanders out of underrepresented minority scholarships.

An article published last month in the Salt Lake Tribune shows that the need to look at Pacific Islander-data, rather than lumping Pacific Islanders with Asians, or as "Other Race," extends beyond education issues.

You can read the full article by clicking this link, but here's a summary: by considering culture and looking at Pacific Islander data, the Utah Department of Health realized that their state's Pacific Islander population is at high risk for obesity, diabetes, and prenatal health issues. Just as importantly, the health department has been working with a Pacific Islander organization, the National Tongan American Society, to find culturally competent solutions to these public health issues.

This is exactly the kind of how how people can identify and work to address issues faced by Pacific Islanders, based on data and cultural awareness. At the same time, this is the kind of data that's missed when Pacific Islanders grouped with Asians or as "Other Race."

Do you think that "Asian Pacific Islander" data on obesity accurately represents Pacific Islanders? This one didn't -- a CDC study which lumped Pacific Islanders with Asians, and concluded that as a whole, APIs were the least likely of any major racial group to be obese. While this statement is correct, it's terribly misleading if you assume that what's true for "Asian Pacific Islanders" is true for Pacific Islanders.

Kawika

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More:

Why data on "Asian Pacific Islanders" inaccurately represents Pacific Islander higher education attainment: LINK
Utah's Pacific Islander American community: LINK
The Salt Lake Tribune Article: LINK
The CDC Study: LINK

Pacific Islander America: Euliss, Texas

2012-01-06T17:31:00.000-08:00

Last year, we did several "Pacific Islander America" posts on California and another on Utah, commenting on news coverage of Pacific Islanders in those states. The first 2012 Pacific Islander America post takes us to 50,000-plus Texan community of Euliss, which was the subject of a Reuters article regarding the Pacific Islander influence on the town's football team.

While the reporter sometimes fell back on unnecessary stereotypes (the line about the haka being "savage" made me cringe), it was nonetheless interesting to read about the way that Pacific Islander culture has shaped high school football in this all-American Texan town. Though education is not the focus of the article, one of the subjects in the story is connected to a community-based Pacific Islander group called the Tongan Youth Association, which "strives to help Polynesian kids finish college," according to the reporter.

The full article is pasted below. As long as they keep the link up, you can also view it on Reuters.com by clicking here: LINK

...

Island influence, war dance revs up Texas football team

By Karen Brooks

EULESS, Texas | Thu Sep 1, 2011 12:12pm EDT

(Reuters) - Defensive lineman Moahengi Latu strikes an imposing figure, long hair swinging wildly as he belts out a battle cry.

"Get ready for war, let's go!" Latu screams in his native Tongan language, as his teammates on the Trinity High School Trojans football team stamp their feet, raise their fists, stick out their tongues in a gesture of intimidation.

"Battle with all your might! Believe in each other! Fight on, warriors!" they cry out in Tongan. "Tau aki ho loto!"

They finish the ancient, rhythmic "haka" with a roar, just moments before their first game of the celebrated Texas high school football season.

It would be graceful, a thing of beauty, a little playful even, if it were not so savage.

In the packed stands at the district's stadium near the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, the crowd is riveted as they watch the unveiling of this season's haka -- a centuries-old tribal war dance these young Texas suburbanites have made their own.

"I get tears in my eyes, I love the haka so much," 17-year-old cheerleader co-captain Whitney Smith said. "It makes everybody in the crowd excited."

In Texas, high school football players are heroes, and the gridiron on Friday night is as much a backdrop to life as is church on Sunday morning.

Some teams and players become legends, such as the much-celebrated Permian Basin program in west Texas that inspired the hit Friday Night Lights television series.

Now a new football story is emerging at this high school of 2,300 students. What some are calling a "Polynesian Pipeline" to this suburb has brought mass and enthusiasm to their championship football team, and with it, the team's beloved new haka tradition.

"It prepares us for war," said lineman Hafoka Olie.

The Trojans have won three division state championships in the six years the team has brought the haka to the football field. They have been featured in a Gatorade commercial, and their haka has been shown on national news and sports shows.

Euless, a town of about 52,000, has an unusual claim to fame: It is home to more Tongans per capita than any other city in the U.S., according to Euless officials. According to the 2010 census, some 1,101 -- or 2.1 percent of the town's population -- are Pacific Islanders. Of them, 826 are Tongan.

By comparison, neighboring Bedford, Texas, claims a similar overall population, but fewer than 150 islanders.

Trinity had 92 Pacific Islanders among its student body last year. Nearby L.D. Bell High School, of similar size in the same district, had only 14.

That so-called Polynesian Pipeline from places such as Tonga, Hawaii, American Samoa and Guam, driven largely by airport jobs and family ties, has turned the city into something of an islanders' enclave, with ukuleles in the school yard and Polynesian shops and churches.

By far the most notable trend: A giant football team.

"They're huge!" exclaims Emily Sanders, 15, as she watched her Robert E. Lee High School football team get trounced by the Trojans last Friday by a whopping 30-7.

Islanders are a big-boned, thickly built people, and they are a "natural fit" for football, said Fotu Katoa, who was the first Tongan player at Trinity in 1982.

"The majority of us grow up playing rugby, and it's an aggressive sport and a physical sport," Katoa told Reuters.

Principal Mike Harris likes this term: "The wow factor."

"Trinity wins some of their football games just by getting off the bus," Harris said, quoting a local report on the team. "It certainly plays into our hand, no question about it."

Katoa started a trend that Trinity Coach Steve Lineweaver said has "brought a special dimension to us, to our team."

The Polynesian players make a considerable contribution to the team, no doubt. But some of the biggest and brightest stars on the team are not from the islands at all, and most, including Lineweaver, credit their success to an overall great team.

As offensive lineman Dillon Dillard says, "It's not about race. It's about unity."

The haka has its role, too.

"It unites them and makes them one," said Ofa Faiva-Siale, who heads the Tongan Youth Association, which strives to help Polynesian kids finish college. "They have to be one in order to be as dominating as they have been. The haka brought them together in a lot of ways."

In the spring of 2005, students approached the school's coaching staff with a YouTube video of the legendary New Zealand All-Blacks rugby team doing a haka and said they wanted to do one at their games.

That season, the team went on to win their first ever Texas 5A Division 1 State Championship.

"It was a magical year for us," Lineweaver said.

Within a few years, the team had abandoned the Maori-tongued haka borrowed from the All-Blacks and, with the help of Tongan elders, penned their own.

At games, the banner slung across the stands reads, "Peace, love, haka." Each year's new haka unveiling is eagerly awaited. Even the cheerleaders, with their tiny wrists and peppy voices, perform the haka at cheer camp during the summer.

"It's just part of Trinity now," Katoa said. "If the haka is going to bring pride and emotions and everybody's good wishes and excitement and energy, it's a great thing. There's no question. I love it."

2012 begins in the Pacific Islands

2012-01-01T06:58:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! This short holiday posts strays from our usual higher education topics, but it's timely: 2011 has ended and 2012 has begun -- starting in Samoa and Tokelau.

As the BBC reports here, New Years festivities began in the Pacific Islands, or at least those that stand at the beginning of the International Dateline. This year, the sovereign nation of Samoa (this excludes American Samoa, which is part of the U.S.A.) decided to change its local time to better match trade partners like New Zealand, Australia, Tonga, and China. The story was covered by national U.S. news outlets like NPR, which focused on how Samoans "lost a Friday," and MSNBC.

American Samoa is staying where it is time-wise, meaning that Samoa and American Samoa are now on opposite sides of the International Dateline.

College Board study groups Pacific Islanders with American Indians and Asians

2011-12-26T06:01:00.000-08:00

Last week, we followed up on a post about the ACT properly recognizing Pacific Islanders by reporting on whether the SAT had also come up to speed. (Unfortunately, the answer is no, they have not.)

While researching to answer that question, I also came across another interesting report published by the College Board this year: "The Educational Experience of Young Men of Color: A Review of Research, Pathways and Progress." It's an interesting topic, but I was also caught by how they reported data on Pacific Islanders. In some cases, Pacific Islanders were grouped with Asians. In others, rather than showing Pacific Islander stand-alone data or "Asian/Pacific Islander" data, Pacific Islanders were grouped with Native Americans (and I assume they meant American Indians and Alaska Natives).

I was surprised because I haven't seen this kind of grouping, but two possible explanations came to mind:

More likely explanation: These two groups (American Indians and Alaska Natives on one hand, and Pacific Islanders on the other) have the smallest populations of the major racial groups, so they were lumped together for expediency.
Less likely, but my preferred explanation: As we've mentioned before, the Pacific Islander community includes both immigrant populations and indigenous peoples who are native to land that is now the United States of America. In fact, the three largest Pacific Islander American groups (Native Hawaiians, Samoans, and Chamorro) are indigenous to parts of the USA (Hawaii, American Samoa, and Guam). Together these indigenous peoples account for the overwhelming majority of the total Pacific Islander American community. Other than American Indians and Alaska Natives, Pacific Islanders are the only major racial group that includes peoples who are indigenous to the USA.

Want to read the report? Click here: LINK

The ACT recognizes Pacific Islanders. What about the SAT?

2011-12-18T10:31:00.000-08:00

Last week we blogged regarding the ACT's recent move to recognize Pacific Islanders as a distinct racial group by reporting Pacific Islander test scores separately from Asians. After reading the post, one of our regular readers asked me a question: what about the SAT?

(As mentioned in the last post, the SAT and ACT are the two leading standardized tests used across the nation to rank college-readiness.)

After a few days of looking, here's what I have to report back to that reader and the rest of our reader community: I found no evidence that the SAT is up to speed with the ACT when it comes to recognizing that Pacific Islanders are a distinct racial group.

Here's the online paper trail; feel free to let us know if you find something we missed!

The national SAT scores are released every fall by the College Board. In 2010, they issued this press release on their scores, and the news coverage included this article. As you'll see from the article, they released the national average, and broke the scores down by minority groups, including Asians, Whites, American Indian and Alaska Natives, Mexican and Mexican American, Latinos (excluding other explicitly mentioned Latino groups), Puerto Ricans, and African Americans.

Pacific Islanders are not mentioned.

Like last year, this fall the College Board released their 2011 national scores. I found no Pacific Islander scores. One graph did break down "2011 College-Bound Seniors by Race/Ethnicity," but Pacific Islanders are not included. The National Center for Education Statistics tracks SAT scores by race and ethnicity, and as you can see here, they report only "Asian/Pacific Islander" results. Lastly, I found this Atlantic article and this data from the National Center for Fair and Open Testing breaking down 2011 SAT scores by race. The Atlantic graph only lists Asians, and the other one groups Asians and Pacific Islanders as one.

In other words, the ACT is ahead of the SAT on this one.

Pacific Islanders included in national ACT score reporting

2011-12-11T05:05:00.001-08:00

For this week's post, I wanted to share a story published in the Chronicle of Higher Education regarding the racial gap in ACT test performance. (The ACT is a standardized test for college admissions, like the SAT.)

For most readers of the Chronicle, I assume that the main takeaways are that overall scores have increased slightly, and that a racial achievement gap remains -- with underrepresented minorities continuing to score below the national average. But for me, the most important thing was that for the first time, Pacific Islander scores were reported separately from Asian Americans, in recognition of the fact that we are a distinct group.

This is important to the P.I.A. project because it takes data to demonstrate the needs of our community -- from data validating our underrepresentation, to figures like this, which show how we perform on a standardized college readiness test. In this case, the national stats showed that Pacific Islanders, like other underrepresented minority groups scored below the national average.

You can read the full article here: LINK

Pacific Islander America: Utah

2011-12-05T05:11:00.001-08:00

For the past few weeks, we've been catching up on our coverage of news and current events within the Pacific Islander American community.

How does this relate to the P.I.A. project's mission of expanding higher education opportunities for Pacific Islanders, and our lead project to end Pacific Islander exclusion from academic programs for underrepresented minorities? It all falls under the larger need to raise awareness about America's Pacific Islander community. After all, if these academic programs were familiar with Pacific Islanders, they'd know that Pacific Islanders should be allowed to apply alongside other underrepresented minorities.

Our series on California's Pacific Islander population is wrapped up, but the tour continues.

Next stop? Utah.

Utah has been a home for Pacific Islander Americans since the mid-to-late-19th Century. (A short article on the history of Pacific Islanders in Utah, dating as far back at the 1870s, authored by Carol Edison and housed on the University of Utah's website and available here: LINK)

Utah has a strong Pacific Islander population, and includes a mix of multi-generational residents and first-generation arrivals, and a variety of Pacific Islander groups. Despite challenges like those mentioned in this 20-year-old Associated Press article on Utah PIs, it is clear that there are also stories of success, from the small business owners who make up the Salt Lake City-based Pacific Islander Chamber of Commerce, to the members of the University of Utah's Pacific Islander Student Association, who are working towards their degrees.

This fall one of Utah's online news outlets also shared stories about the achievements of Pacific Islander individuals, who also shared their advice:

Islanders offer tips for success, and
Single mom touts culture of leadership, both from Deseret News

Another Utah story that caught my attention this fall was the Pacific Islander youth education conference that the state's community conceived, planned, and executed this September. Here are some articles on that:

Pacific Islanders hold conference to help kids get back to roots, from Deseret News, and
Pacific Islander conference brings Utah parents together, from KSL.com Utah

A few more stories -- Pacific Islander America, California (4 of 4)

2011-11-27T08:01:00.000-08:00

For the past few weeks, we've been blogging about California's vibrant, growing Pacific Islander American community. Even though Pacific Islanders are left out of much of our national dialogue, there have been more than enough Pacific Islander news this year to dedicate a whole month just to one state.

Closing out our California series, here are some of the other stories we wanted to highlight:

San Mateo's Tongan American community, and a study-in-progress on the county's Pacific Islanders: This San Francisco Examiner article describes the challenges and strengths of San Mateo County's Tongan American community. It is also mentioned that Sela Panapasa of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan is overseeing a comprehensive study on the needs of Pacific Islanders in the county, which could be used to validate the need for services like after-school programs for at-risk youth. LINK

Pacific Islander health "navigator" in East Palo Alto: This feature profile, from the Peninsula Press, follows East Palo Alto community health worker Tiffany 'Uhilamoelangi-Hautau, one of two health "navigators" at the Ravenswood Family Health Center. 'Uhilamoelani-Hautau also works with a nonprofit called Collective Roots, to promote healthy eating that's consistent with Tongan and Samoan culinary traditions. LINK

Californian Summits, Conferences and Organizations dedicated to Pacific Islanders: While these last links aren't to news stories, I would be remiss if I didn't mention at least a few of the summits, conferences, and education-related Pacific Islander organizations working to improve access to higher education and well-paying jobs:

The National Pacific Islander Educators Network recently held its tenth annual conference in Paramount. LINK
A few months earlier, the Santa Monica College Asian Pacific Islander Achievement Project hosted the "Pacific Islander Higher Education Summit: We Rise." LINK
On the training and employment front, the Pacific Islander Pipeline continues to work to help Pacific Islander Americans prepare for careers in the health care industry. LINK

(Did we miss an outstanding California-based Pacific Islander organization, or story? Let us know and we'll work to cover it in a future post!)

California passes new law to improve data on Pacific Islanders and Asians (California news 3 of 4)

2011-11-19T11:41:00.000-08:00

California recently passed a law that moves the state further away from the outdated practice of lumping all Pacific Islanders and Asians into a single "Asian Pacific Islander" group. It should also make it harder for unfair employers and landowners to get away with discriminating against Pacific Islanders and Asians.

The law was introduced this year as Assembly Bill 1088 by California Assembly member Mike Eng, passed by the state legislature, and on October 9th, it was signed by Governor Brown.

If I read it correctly, this law should:

Expand the number of Pacific Islander and Asian sub-groups that state agencies, boards, and commissions report data on, to include specific data on major Pacific Islander groups such as Samoans, Hawaiians, and Chamorro
Ensure that the data collection and reporting practices of the Department of Fair Employment and Housings and the Department of Industrial Relations are consistent with the U.S. Census Bureau, and also report data on Pacific Islander sub groups
Require that the two departments report their findings on the Internet by July of next year

This law should bring California's practices in line with long-standing federal policy on data collection, which has long since recognized Pacific Islanders as a distinct racial group. For more on that nearly 15-year-old policy, click here: LINK

Just as importantly, it reflects a slow-but-steady movement at the state and federal level to abandon lumping together Pacific Islanders and Asians, in favor of recognizing Pacific Islanders and doing a better job of understanding the diverse needs of different Asian American populations.

Want to learn a little more? Here's a link to a summary press release from the Asian Pacific American Legal Center: LINK
Want to read the law for yourself? Follow this link: LINK

California updates terminology in law to teach students about Pacific Islander American history (California news 2 of 4)

2011-11-14T15:30:00.001-08:00

There was a lot of coverage this summer about a bill before the California state legislature, which would require the teaching of what some reporter's described as "gay history" in the state's public schools. Tucked into a few of the articles was this detail -- the bill would also require that students learn about the contributions of Pacific Islanders, or in other words "Pacific Islander American history." To quote a portion of a Christian Science Monitor article on the subject:

California already requires that when school districts adopt instructional materials, they seek to ensure that Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, and European Americans are accurately portrayed. The new bill would add not only LGBT to that list, but also people with disabilities and Pacific Islanders.

I was curious, so I read the bill, and what the law was before this bill passed. Luckily, you can get all of this info online by visiting the California state senate's website.

Here's what I learned: California law already required that social science instruction is inclusive of the history and contributions of "Pacific Island people," which this bill changed to "Pacific Islanders." (The bill made similar changes to the terms used for other minorities.)

It appears that the change for Pacific Islanders is be more cosmetic than anything else, but it's a sign of progress that the bill's authors were knew enough to use more appropriate terminology.

Want to read the law for yourself? Click here: LINK

A larger question to ask: What would a course on Pacific Islander contributions to America look like? Would it include stories about the Native Hawaiians who immigrated to the Pacific Northwest to work for timber companies, or to harbors, deserts and mining towns in California? What about the Mormon Pacific Islanders who immigrated to Utah to follow their faith? Or would the focus be on big names, like King Kamehameha and Duke Kahanamoku, or modern-day entertainers like Dwayne Johnson (aka "The Rock")?

Pacific Islander America: California (1 of 4)

2011-11-07T11:30:00.000-08:00

A number of this summer's stories about Pacific Islander Americans happened in California. And for good reason: California has long-since been home to one of the largest Pacific Islander populations of any State of the Union. In fact, preliminary Census data suggests that California may now have the largest Pacific Islander population in the country.

More Pacific Islander in California than Hawaii?

As the only U.S. State in the Pacific Islands, Hawaii is a natural place for a strong and vibrant Pacific Islander community. But 2010 Census data suggests that California may now have more Pacific Islanders.

Earlier this year, San Francisco Chronicle's Hawaii Insider columnist Jeanne Cooper penned a story referencing 2010 Census data. She wrote, correctly, that the number of "single-race" (individuals who only identify as one race on their Census form) Pacific Islanders in California is now larger than it is in Hawaii.

This is representative of the growth of the Pacific Islander population across America, especially in the continental United States. For California in particular, a growing Pacific Islander community is nothing new -- Pacific Islanders have been immigrating to California since the 19th Century. At the same time, it's important to remember that most Pacific Islanders don't show up in the "single-race" category of the Census, because they report belonging to more than one race.

When we see the Census's full state-by-state data that includes multiracial Pacific Islanders, we'll know if California has indeed overtaken Hawaii as the state with America's largest Pacific Islander community. (Let us know if you see this data before we do!)

Census 2010 updates: America's Pacific Islander community grew over 3-times-faster than nation

2011-10-28T17:53:00.000-07:00

Much of the data from the 2010 Census is still be analyzed, packaged, and prepared for publication, but we're already seeing some interesting trends for America's Pacific Islander community. Here are a few:

Breaking the One-Million-Mark

America's Pacific Islander population in now in the seven-figures. In 2000, approximately 870,000 Pacific Islanders lived in the 50 states. In the 2010 Census, those numbers grew to over 1,200,000.

Significant Growth

From 2000 to 2010, the Pacific Islander population in the 50 States grew by more than 35 percent -- over three-and-a-half-times faster than the national growth rate of 9.7 percent. Of the Census's five minimum racial groups (White, African American, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander), only one race grew at a faster rate (Asians).

Still the Most Likely to be Multiracial

As was the case in the 2000 Census, Pacific Islanders were more likely than any of the basic racial groups to report belonging to more than one race. In fact, Pacific Islanders are the only one of the five groups whose multiracial population is larger than their single-race population.

By the numbers: 56 percent of Pacific Islanders reported being more than one race. This is slightly higher than it was in 2ooo, when about 54 percent of Pacific Islanders reported belonging to more than one race. Nationally, men and women belonging to more than one race comprise 2.9 percent of the population. (This is an increase from 2.4 percent in 2000.)

Rising Entrepreneurship

Along with a rising population, Pacific Islanders are becoming a larger part of the American business community. The most recently released U.S. Census Survey of Business Owners reports that between 2002 and 2007 (the most recent period studied), the number and revenue of Pacific Islander American businesses grew faster than the national average.

By the Numbers: Over five years, the number of Pacific Islander American businesses grew 31 percent (compared to the national rate of 18 percent). The increase in revenue for Pacific Islander businesses was even greater, rising over 51 percent in five years, compared to the national rate of 33 percent.

Pacific Islander American News - Summer Catch Up

2011-10-22T06:29:00.000-07:00

Over the summer, our posts were written specifically for underrepresented minority academic programs, to give them easy access to the reasons why they should choose to include (rather than exclude) Pacific Islanders from their scholarships, fellowships, and other opportunities. Those posts are now archived, and can be accessed in a reader-friendly Question-and-Answer-format by following the link on the top right-hand side of our homepage, or by clicking here.

We dedicated so much time to write posts specifically for underrepresented minority academic programs because they are so important to our mission: increasing higher educational opportunities for Pacific Islander Americans, by increasing the number of underrepresented minority programs that recognize them as underrepresented.

Ultimately, the choice (include or exclude Pacific Islanders) is theirs, and we want to make it easier for them to see why Pacific Islanders deserve to be included in their definition of "underrepresented minority."

At the same time, there are been a lot of news that we've wanted to cover.

Now we can catch up!

First on the List: some of the new data on America's growing Pacific Islander community. Stay tuned...

The Choice: Special Section for underrepresented minority academic programs

2011-10-13T16:05:00.001-07:00

(This is part of a series of posts written specifically for underrepresented minority academic programs, to help them make an informed, educated decision about whether they should include or exclude Pacific Islanders.)

Dear Scholarships, Fellowships, and other Academic Programs for Underrepresented Minorities --

Thank you for visiting our site! The Pacific Islander Access project is a nonprofit corporation that exists to help solve a specific problem: Pacific Islander Americans are underrepresented in higher education, but they're excluded from many academic programs for underrepresented minorities.

We developed a series of posts on this website to speak directly to academic programs for underrepresented minorities because we know that you have the power to choose whether your program will include or exclude Pacific Islanders.

If you're one of the growing number of academic programs that already recognizes that Pacific Islanders are underrepresented -- thank you! Please don't hesitate to contact us with questions, or let us know if there's something we can do to help you. And if you're one of the academic programs that includes some Pacific Islanders groups (but not others), we're giving you access to information about how the entire Pacific Islander American community is underrepresented.

If your programs does not include Pacific Islanders, we want to help you make an informed, educated decision about whether you should choose to continue to exclude them. We've set up this site, and a series of posts written for you, so you have easy access to the facts.

Below are links to the Question-and-Answer-style posts we wrote to help you come to an informed decision. If you have a question we haven't addressed, please let us know by following the "more questions" link at the bottom.

We hope that this information helps you make an informed choice, and we hope that you choose to include Pacific Islanders along with their fellow underrepresented minorities.

Aloha!

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Terms

Facts on Pacific Islander underrepresentation

Knowing the difference: Pacific Islander vs. Asian/Asian Pacific Islander

Your Choice: Including or Excluding Pacific Islanders from your Underrepresented Minority program

For More Information

What if my academic programs includes some Pacific Islander groups, but not others?

2011-10-12T15:48:00.000-07:00

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Q. Our academic program already includes one specific Pacific Islander group, but not all. Why should we include Pacific Islanders as a group?

A. When you're only including part of the Pacific Islander community, you're leaving out others.

And the data is clear: as a whole, Pacific Islanders are significantly underrepresented in higher education. You've already taken an important step by including at least one part of the Pacific Islander American community -- Why not go all the way?

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Have you already taken the step of including one or more segments of America's Pacific Islander community, such as Native Hawaiians or Polynesians? Bravo! You are ahead of the curve, and we applaud you for taking an interest in including part of America's Pacific Islander community.

Now that you've already made the decision to include some Pacific Islanders, why not take the next step by including the rest of the them? Over 20 years of U.S. Census data shows that as a group, Pacific Islanders have been -- and continue to be -- underrepresented among college graduates. By allowing all otherwise qualified Pacific Islanders to apply, you can reach more underrepresented minorities. Who knows what difference you could make in their lives.

What if my academic program already includes Pacific Islanders?

2011-09-29T14:31:00.001-07:00

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Q. What if my academic program already includes Pacific Islanders?

A. Please let us know if we can help you, and thank you for following the data and including this deserving underrepresented group!

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The Pacific Islander Access project came into existence for this reason: despite the fact that Pacific Islanders are underrepresented in higher education, they're excluded from many academic programs for underrepresented minorities. We wanted to reach out to the programs that exclude Pacific Islanders, and help them make an informed decision about choosing inclusion instead.

The fact is that a growing number of programs already include Pacific Islanders, and we hope that more will join them in the near future. Thank you for being an example to your peer organizations by following the data!

If there's anything we can do to help your program reach out to more Pacific Islander applicants or organizations, please let us know. You can reach our CEO directly by emailing us at piaproject@hotmail.com

I have more questions... can you answer them?

2011-09-23T18:32:00.001-07:00

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Q. I serve an academic program for underrepresented minorities, and I have more questions before I decide whether my program should include or exclude Pacific Islanders. Can you answer my questions?

A. We'd love to.

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The Pacific Islander Access project is available to answer any questions you have after reading the posts we wrote specifically with underrepresented minority academic programs. We're upfront about the fact that we have an agenda -- to help you reduce the number of underrepresented minority programs that exclude Pacific Islanders despite the data showing that they're underrepresented -- but we can share honest facts to explain why this is good for your program and good for Pacific Islander Americans.

Academic programs for underrepresented minorities can hear directly from our CEO by writing us at piaproject@hotmail.com

We look forward to hearing from you!

Other Sources to Learn More about Pacific Islander Underrepresentation

2011-09-18T12:24:00.000-07:00

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Q. Can you link to other sources that will help me learn more about Pacific Islander underrepresentation in higher education?

A. Yes. There are many resources out there to help people learn more about Pacific Islander underrepresentation in higher education.

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The Pacific Islander Access project is just one source for information about Pacific Islander underrepresentation in higher education. We're a micro-nonprofit corporation run on a part-time basis, so we largely rely on the wealth of research and analysis done by other organizations on this topic.

Perhaps the best source of information is the U.S. Census. To tap into over two decades of data they've reported on this topic, click here: LINK

In addition to the U.S. Census, here are a few other publications available online with data on Pacific Islander Americans:

UCLA Study: Pacific Islanders Lagging Behind in Higher Education Attainment
CARE Commission: Higher Education, Workforce Development, and the AAPI Community
Washington State Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs: Growing Presence, Emerging Voices: Pacific Islanders and Academic Achievement in Washington

Have others taken a stand for Pacific Islander inclusion in underrepresented minority programs?

2011-09-09T17:18:00.000-07:00

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Q. Have others taken a stand regarding Pacific Islander inclusion in academic programs for underrepresented minorities?

A. Yes. Many academic programs for underrepresented minorities already include Pacific Islanders. In addition, leaders in the government, academia and the Pacific Islander community have taken a stand on this issue.

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As we've mentioned in a previous post, many scholarships, fellowships, and other academic programs for underrepresented minorities correctly acknowledge that Pacific Islanders are underrepresented. You can read more about that here: LINK

In 2010, the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs (one of the largest and oldest community-based Pacific Islander American organizations) unanimously passed a resolution calling for Pacific Islander inclusion in academic programs for underrepresented minorities. In doing so, they joined the following other organizations that have taken a stand for the inclusion:

The University of Hawaii's Center for Pacific Islands Studies
The National Pacific Islander Educators Network
The Pacific Islander Pipeline Program
The Indigenous Pacific Islander Alliance

You can learn a little more about each of these groups by clicking here: LINK

This issue has also received attention at various levels of government. In 2005, the Hawaii State House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution urging all academic programs for underrepresented minorities to include Pacific Islanders. While in committee, this resolution also received favorable testimony from statewide organizations like the University of Hawaii (you can still see their testimony here: LINK). That same decade, U.S. Senators Daniel K. Akaka (D-HI) and Ted Kennedy (D-MA) together urged the U.S. Department of Education to review it's definition of "underrepresented minority" to ensure that Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders were not being left behind.

Citing data from the U.S. Census and other sources, scholars continue to highlight the underrepresentation of Pacific Islanders. One great example is this joint paper from the UCLA Asian American Studies Center: LINK

Can you show me census data on Pacific Islander Underrepresentation?

2011-08-31T17:56:00.000-07:00

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Q. Can you show me data from the U.S. Census on Pacific Islander underrepresentation in higher education?

A. Yes. For over two decades, the U.S. Census has collected and published data reflecting the significant underrepresentation of Pacific Islander Americans among college graduates.

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As we've mentioned before, recent Census data shows that compared to the national average, Pacific Islanders are 50 percent less likely to graduate with a bachelors degree, and 60 percent less likely to graduate with an advanced degree.

Here are links to over two decades of data on Pacific Islander underrepresentation. We've included year-by-year figures for the past five years, then decade-by-decade data for the past twenty years. The links take you to larger reports or data features, which include Pacific Islander graduation rates along with other information.

The Past 5 Years

Each year, the U.S. Census publishes data ahead of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. In observance of federal policy, it shows information for both Pacific Islanders and Asians, recognizing each as a distinct group. Here are the releases from the last five years, each of which shows Pacific Islander college graduation rates compared to the national average.

2011: LINK
2010: LINK
2009: LINK
2008: LINK
2007: LINK
2006: LINK

10+ Years

Here is a Census 2000 data brief on educational attainment in the United States. Along with the graduation rates of other racial groups, you can see Pacific Islander representation, and compare that to the national average: LINK

20+ Years

In the 1990s, as part of the "We the People" series, the Census Bureau published a paper on Pacific Islander Americans using data from the 1990 Census. There's a lot of information here about Pacific Islanders, including college graduation rates (page 4): LINK

What is the Pacific Islander Access project?

2011-08-21T15:36:00.000-07:00

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Q. What is the Pacific Islander Access project?

A. The PIA project is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to helping academic programs for underrepresented minorities choose to include Pacific Islanders alongside other minorities that are underrepresented in higher education.

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The Pacific Islander Access project is a lean organization run entirely by volunteers who know that this issue is important enough for us to to this for free. We are a nonprofit incorporated in Washington, DC.

Though we've only been incorporated since 2010, our work to increase Pacific Islander access to higher education programs goes back to 2003, when one of our founders applied for an underrepresented minority fellowship, and was told that Pacific Islanders weren't eligible. He helped that program change its practices. After that he went on to do a national study, which found that many other scholarships and fellowships didn't recognize that Pacific Islanders were underrepresented.

Years later, after revisiting the old study, he found that while some of the academic programs now included Pacific Islanders, others still didn't. Following a few conversations about what it would take to end Pacific Islander exclusion, it became clear that if we wanted academic programs to change their policies, we needed to help them understand why.

With that goal in mind, he and others started a project to increase Pacific Islander access to academic programs for underrepresented minorities. They decided to call the project to increase their access to higher education exactly just that -- the Pacific Islander Access project.

Many academic programs for underrepresented minorities recognize Pacific Islanders. What are some examples?

2011-08-14T13:45:00.000-07:00

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Q. We say that many scholarships and fellowships for underrepresented minorities acknowledge that Pacific Islanders should be allowed to apply -- can we back that up with specific examples?

A. Yes we can.

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Pacific Islanders are underrepresented in higher education, and many academic programs for underrepresented minorities rightfully allow them to apply. Here are a few examples (I've included a mix of programs that are exclusive to underrepresented minorities and others that simply give preference.) --

The National Institutes of Health Research Supplements to Promote Diversity for Undergraduate Students: LINK
The University of Washington Diversity Award: LINK
Cornell Diversity Fellowship: LINK
Clifford Clark Graduate Fellowship Program for Diversity: LINK

All of these programs provide great opportunities for promising students, and are even better for the fact that they are aware of the data that has consistently shown that Pacific Islanders are underrepresented in higher education.

Unfortunately, too many other academic programs for underrepresented minorities still need to look at the data on Pacific Islanders. But with the positive example set by these programs and others, we hope that soon inclusion -- not exclusion -- of Pacific Islanders will be the norm for all underrepresented minority scholarships and fellowships.

Why should underrepresented minority programs allow Pacific Islanders to apply?

2011-08-06T16:08:00.000-07:00

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Q. Why should underrepresented minority scholarships and fellowships allow Pacific Islanders to apply?

A. Because Pacific Islanders are underrepresented, and if they exclude them, they exclude part of the community they're trying to serve -- underrepresented minorities.

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In addition, it's in the best interest of the academic programs -- they can do more to reach their goal (to help underrepresented minorities) by insuring that they're not leaving out a qualified group in need. Of course it's also in the interest of Pacific Islanders -- by giving them a better chance to achieve their full potential as individuals, and to work towards reducing their underrepresentation as a group.

If you lead or are part of an academic program that intends to help underrepresented minorities, please don't exclude Pacific Islanders. Instead, consider the facts, think of your potential to make a difference for them, and choose not to exclude Pacific Islander Americans.

Does "Asian Pacific Islander" data accurately represent Pacific Islanders?

2011-07-26T04:09:00.000-07:00

(This is one of a series of posts intended to help academic programs for underrepresented minorities learn more about the Pacific Islander Access project, and our mission to expand higher educational opportunities for Pacific Islander Americans.)

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Q. Does "Asian Pacific Islander" data accurately represent Pacific Islanders?

A. Not when it comes to college graduation rates.

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Pacific Islanders and Asians are two separate, distinct racial groups. However, sometimes they are grouped together for data collection, and categorized as "Asian Pacific Islanders" or "Asian Pacific Americans." API college graduation data often bears no resemblance to what's happening to Pacific Islanders.

Why? First, because in addition to being two different groups, Pacific Islanders and Asians have two very different levels of higher educational attainment -- Asians are three-and-a-half-times more likely to have a bachelors degree, and five times more likely to have an advanced degree. While Pacific Islanders are significantly underrepresented in higher education, Asians have the highest college graduation rate among the major racial and ethnic groups according to the U.S. Census.

Secondly, the Asian American population is much larger than the Pacific Islander American population -- 14 times larger. So when you take all of the Asian Americans and group them with all of the Pacific Islander Americans, the resulting data will have counted fourteen "As" for every one "PI."

The danger is that if you mistakenly think API college graduation data represents Pacific Islanders, you'll be treating an underrepresented group as if they're not underrepresented, and incorrectly excluding them from scholarships and fellowships for underrepresented minorities.

Are Pacific Islanders Asian?

2011-07-17T13:16:00.001-07:00

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Q. Are Pacific Islanders Asian?

A. No.

Pacific Islanders and Asians are two distinct, different, separate racial minority groups. Federal policy on racial and ethnic data collection recognizes this difference in OMB Directive No. 15, which was updated in 1997 to recognize that Pacific Islanders and Asians should not be lumped together -- instead, they should be acknowledged as distinct racial groups.

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In addition to being two different groups, Pacific Islanders and Asians have two very different rates of higher education attainment.

According to data used by the Census for this year's Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage month, 50 percent of Asians 25-or-older have at least a college degree. For Pacific Islanders, that rate is 14 percent.

For advanced degrees, the difference is even bigger -- 20 percent of Asians in the U.S. hold an advanced degree, compared to 4 percent of Pacific Islanders.

In other words, Asians are over three-and-a-half times more likely to earn a bachelors degree, and five times more likely to earn an advanced degree.

So while Pacific Islanders and Asians can (and do) work together on common issues that serve both communities, it's also important to remember that in some areas, they have different needs.

Are Pacific Islanders historically underrepresented in higher education?

2011-07-10T10:36:00.000-07:00

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Q. Are Pacific Islanders historically underrepresented in higher education?

A. Yes.

In addition to being currently underrepresented in U.S. higher education, Pacific Islanders are also historically underrepresented. U.S. Census data has consistently shown for over twenty years that Pacific Islanders are underrepresented among college graduates.

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Recent statistics, as we've mentioned before, indicate that while over 28 percent of the U.S. population has a bachelors degree, the rate for Pacific Islander Americans is just 14 percent. The graduation gap is even wider for advanced degrees.

These recent figures are consistent with data over the past twenty years.

2010: According to data published in 2010, 28 percent of the college-graduation-age U.S. population had at least a bachelors degree. The rate for Pacific Islander Americans was 15 percent. In other words, Pacific Islanders were 46 percent less likely to graduate from college.
2000: According to data published in 2000, 24.4 percent of the college-graduation-age U.S. population had at least a bachelors degree. The rate for Pacific Islanders was 13.8 percent. That means that Pacific Islanders were 43 percent less likely to graduate from college in 2000.
1990: According to data published in 1990, 20 percent of the college-graduation-age U.S. population had at least a bachelors degree. The rate for Pacific Islanders was 11 percent. In other words, Pacific Islanders were 45 percent less likely to graduate from college in 1990.

As you can see here, U.S. Census data has consistently shown that Pacific Islanders are underrepresented in higher education.

Are Pacific Islanders Underrepresented in Higher Education?

2011-07-04T19:23:00.000-07:00

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Are Pacific Islanders really Underrepresented in Higher Education? Yes. In fact, Census data indicates that compared to the general U.S. population, Pacific Islanders are about half as likely to graduate with a bachelors degree. Pacific Islanders are even less represented at the advanced degree level.

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Over 28 percent of graduation-age (25-or-older) have at least a 4-year-degree. By comparison, only 14 percent of single-race Pacific Islander Americans have a 4-year-degree. For advanced degrees, the national graduation rate is 10 percent, while the Pacific Islander graduate is 4 percent. (This is according to data published in May, 2011. Because these numbers continually change, we'll update this section at least once a year. Here's a link to the data we're currently using: LINK)

What do we mean by Underrepresented Minority?

2011-06-24T04:00:00.000-07:00

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Q. What do we mean by "Underrepresented Minority"?

A. In higher education, this term describes a racial or ethnic group that is less likely to attend or graduate from college (in other words -- be "represented" among college students and college graduates) than the general population. Minorities can be underrepresented in general, at a certain level (bachelors degree holders or graduate student, for example), or within a certain academic discipline (like computer science or law).

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When measuring college graduation rates in the U.S., the PIA project draws mainly from data provided by the U.S. Census. According to recent Census data, over 28 percent of U.S. residents of age (25-or-older) have at least a bachelors degree. In other to be underrepresented among bachelors degree holders, a minority group must have a college graduation rate that is lower than the national average of 28 percent.

By comparison to the national average of 28 percent, only 14 percent of single-race Pacific Islander Americans have a 4-year-degree. (This is according to data published in May, 2011. Because these numbers continually change, we'll update this section at least once a year. Here's a link to the data we're currently using: LINK)

What is a Pacific Islander?

2011-06-17T18:03:00.000-07:00

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Q. What is a Pacific Islander?

A. Pacific Islanders are individuals who trace all or some of their ancestry to the original people of any of the three major island groups in the Pacific: Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia.

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When using the term "Pacific Islander," we follow the U.S. government definition of "Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander." This makes sense both because it's a consistent, commonly used definition, and because it allows us to accurately draw from data provided by the U.S. Census and other groups who use the same definition as the Census.

Pacific Islanders are recognized in federal policy as a unique, distinct racial group for the purpose of racial and ethnic data collection. They are one of the fastest growing racial groups in the United States, and they live in every State of the Union. They include Pacific Islanders who are native to areas that are now part of the United States (Native Hawaiians from Hawaii, Samoans from American Samoa, and Chamorro from Guam), as well as others.

To break it down further, here is a list of Pacific Islander sub-groups, broken down by the three major island groups (according to the U.S. Census):

Polynesia: Examples include Native Hawaiians, Samoans, Tongan, Tahitian, Tokelauan, and other Polynesian.

Micronesia: Examples include Chamorro, Saipanese, Palauian, Carolinian, Kosraean, Pohnpeian, Chuukese, Marshallese, I-Kiribati, and other Micronesian.

Melanesia: Examples include Fijian, Papua New Guinean, Solomon Islander, Ni-Vanuatu, and other Melanesian.

What is an Underrepresented Minority ("URM") Academic Program?

2011-06-12T13:33:00.000-07:00

A. An Underrepresented Minority (or "URM") academic program is a scholarship, fellowship, or other academic program for students who are underrepresented in higher education.

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In other words, helping underrepresented minorities is a major goal for these programs, and they either give preference or limit access to applicants who are members of minority groups they recognize to be underrepresented.

URM academic programs play a critical role in the work people are doing to close the diploma gap in America. Why? Because they are actively working to help underrepresented minorities help themselves, though financial aid, access to training, and other services. As the underrepresented minority population grows (they accounted for most U.S. population growth in the past decade) closing the education gap isn't just about helping minorities -- it's about helping our nation as a whole.

Most scholarships, fellowships, and other academic programs ARE NOT underrepresented minority academic programs. In fact, URM academic programs make up just a small fraction of the total amount of financial aid available to college students. Still, they play an important role by working to fix a growing national problem.

Underrepresented Minority Academic Programs and Pacific Islanders

2011-06-06T04:04:00.000-07:00

This is the first in a series of posts written specifically to help scholarships, fellowships, and other academic programs for underrepresented minorities -- also known as URM (underrepresented minority) academic programs.

URM academic programs are scholarships, fellowships, or other programs that are intended to serve those racial and ethnic groups that are underrepresented in the U.S. higher education system. As we've blogged about before, Pacific Islanders are underrepresented, but they're excluded from many of these programs.

Our research has found that while some URM academic programs recognize that Pacific Islanders are underrepresented, others don't allow them to apply alongside other underrepresented minorities -- yet. (There are also some in-betweeen URM academic programs which recognize that some Pacific Islander sub-groups are underrepresented, while leaving out others.)

We believe that the missing link is information -- some URM academic programs may not realize that Pacific Islanders are underrepresented.

Our goal is to give URM academic programs an easy way to access the facts about Pacific Islander underrepresentation. And for those that don't currently allow Pacific Islanders to apply alongside other underrepresented minority groups, we want to help them change. We recognize that this is good for URM academic programs and for Pacific Islanders, because it helps URM academic programs achieve their mission of helping underrepresented minorities while giving Pacific Islanders a better chance at achieving their potential.

The next several posts will answer questions that URM academic programs may ask when considering their policy toward Pacific Islanders. We may take an occasional break from the series to blog on current events or updates, but the next season of posts will largely be written with the URM audience in mind.

Kawika

Northwest Asian Weekly references PIA project in article on Pacific Islanders

2011-05-24T04:23:00.000-07:00

This post is a mix of commentary and (a tiny bit of) PIA project self-promotion. Last week the Northwest Asian Weekly published an article called "4 myths about Pacific Islanders BUSTED." The article included some things you've read about in this blog -- like the fact that Asians and Pacific Islanders are two distinct groups with different socioeconomic conditions, and that when you group them together for data collection, Pacific Islanders get lost.

The writer references a number of Pacific Islander academics, as well as the Pacific Islander Access project blog. Here's the part that cites this blog:

According to information collected by the Pacific Islander Access project blog, the 2010 Census reports the percentage of Asians with an undergraduate degree is at 50 percent. The portion of the U.S. population with an undergraduate degree is 28 percent. In striking contrast, the percentage of Pacific Islanders with an undergraduate degree is only 15 percent...

As they're saying, there is a huge difference between Pacific Islander and Asian college graduation rates. At the bachelors degree level, the Pacific Islander graduation rate is just 14 percent (a one percent drop from the 15 percent that the Census reported earlier), which is less than one-third of the Asian graduation rate. In other words, Pacific Islander Americans are over 300 percent less likely to have a bachelors degree than their Asian American counterparts.

Mahalo to the Northwest Asian Weekly for paying attention to this issue, and for reading this blog!

You can read the article that references this blog by clicking here: LINK

Kawika

Similarities and Differences in Pacific Islander and Asian Data

2011-05-17T04:07:00.000-07:00

This month is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in the United States. As I mentioned in a post last month, the U.S. Census Bureau has released data on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. You can see the entire release by clicking here: LINK

You'll notice that Pacific Islander and Asian data are in the same release, but they're displayed separately. This allows us to look at ways that the two groups are similar and different.

Similarities

One clear similarity between Pacific Islanders and Asians is that they are experiencing growth, growth in total population, and growth in the number of business they own. Over a ten year period (2000 to 2010) the U.S. Pacific Islander population increased by 40 percent. During the same period, the Asian population increased by 46 percent.

Over the most recently analyzed five year period (2002 to 2007), the rate of business ownership was similarly strong -- the number of Asian-owned businesses grew by 40 percent, while the number of Pacific Islander-owned businesses grew by 30 percent. During the same period, overall U.S. business ownership grew by a slower rate of 18 percent.

Interestingly, with respect to educational attainment, Pacific Islanders and Asians are very similar in one respect -- high school graduation rates. Recent stats report that 85 percent of Asians who are 25-or-older have graduated high school. The rate for Pacific Islanders is 86 percent.

Differences

After high school, the education attainment similarities end. When you look at higher education, it is clear that Pacific Islanders and Asians are two separate groups who should not be lumped together for data collection. One example: the release reports that exactly half (50 percent) of Asians 25-or-older have at least a bachelors degree. The rate for Pacific Islanders is 14 percent -- less than 1/3rd of the Asian rate.

For the next level of education, the gap is even wider. 20 percent of Asians have an advanced degree. The Pacific Islander rate is 4 percent, which is 1/5th of the Asian rate.

In other words, compared to Asians, Pacific Islanders are over three times less likely to get a bachelors degree, and five times less likely to get an advanced degree.

Kawika

Graph: Underrepresented Minorities and U.S. Population Growth

2011-05-05T04:44:00.000-07:00

In our last post, I mentioned that according to recent Census data, underrepresented minorities account for the majority of America's population growth in the past decade. Here's how the numbers break down.

Kawika

As I mentioned in the last post, with the way the Census reported this data, people who are Hispanic and also members of another underrepresented minority could be counted twice (inflating the number of underrepresented minorities), and people who belong to more than one underrepresented minority group (other than Hispanic) could be counted as multiracial instead of underrepresented (deflating the number of underrepresented minorities).

Underrepresented Minorities Responsible for Most of America's Population Growth

2011-04-26T15:09:00.000-07:00

The U.S. Census Bureau has started to release findings from its 2010 data collection, and while there's more to come, I've already seen some interesting information about how we're growing as a nation. Seeing those numbers, I was inclined to look into how much of our country's growth over the past decade came from underrepresented minorities.

Loyal readers may remember when I blogged a few months ago (LINK) about how our future as a nation depends in part on helping underrepresented minorities succeed academically. Specifically, I said that "If our higher education system doesn't figure out how to recruit, retain, and graduate the groups that will make up half of the American population in the coming decades, that's not just a system that's failing minorities: that's just plain failure."

That day hasn't come yet. But, according to the Census, we don't need to wait until the day that underrepresented minorities are responsible for a majority of our population growth: they already do.

Between 2000 and 2010, the U.S. population increased by about 27.3 million. Of that 27.3 million, America's four major underrepresented groups were responsible for most of that growth: collectively, the Hispanic, African American, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander populations grew by over 20 million. That's roughly 73 percent of our overall growth as a nation.

(This number is probably a little too high, because people who are Hispanic and members of another underrepresented minority group could be counted twice, with the way that the Census reported these numbers. At the same time, it could be a little low, because it excludes underrepresented minorities who identified as multiracial. This probably affects the number by just a few percentage points.)

In other words, the overwhelming majority of America's population growth in the past decade came from minority communities that are currently underrepresented in higher education. This is happening at a time where education is becoming even more important, and other nations are investing in their future by investing in education.

The Pacific Islander Access project wants to be a part of the effort to help underrepresented minorities by helping the academic programs who serve them. Our first order of business has been to raise awareness about the fact that Pacific Islanders are underrepresented, and that these programs should allow Pacific Islanders to apply alongside other underrepresented groups. Over time, we want to move beyond doing just that, and help connect Pacific Islander scholars and the underrepresented minority programs that want to help them. By doing this, we can help underrepresented minority academic programs achieve their mission.

Kawika

Updated Stats on Pacific Islanders and Asians

2011-04-21T04:15:00.000-07:00

Last month we did a post that mentioned Directive 15, the federal policy on racial and ethnic data collection.

Between then and now, the U.S. Census Bureau published updated stats on Pacific Islanders and Asians. This is an annual update that the Census does in recognition of Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month, which is celebrated each May.

If you click on the link, you'll see that at the top, it mentions how Directive 15 recognizes that Pacific Islanders and Asians are two separate groups. In line with Directive 15, the Census separates the data on Pacific Islanders and Asians. It's a good example of Directive 15 being followed. It also shows how collecting data on the two groups allows people to see the socioeconomic differences between Pacific Islanders and Asians.

What are the latest stats on Pacific Islander and Asian higher educational attainment?

U.S. Average: 28 percent

Asian Americans: 50 percent

Pacific Islander Americans: 14 percent

We'll blog more about the stats next month. For now, here's a link to the full release: LINK

Kawika

Student Loan Debt Approaches One Trillion Dollars

2011-04-14T04:36:00.000-07:00

This week the New York Times published a well-written article about American student loan debt -- which is increasingly common, increasing in size, and arguably starting to make an impact on the U.S. economy.

I've blogged before about the fact that Americans already owe more in student loan debt than credit card debt. This article, while providing a nuanced overview of the personal and macroeconomic impact of high student loan debt, also puts a sticker price to it -- U.S. student loan debt is likely to hit a trillion dollars this year.

Here's the article: College Loans Weigh Heavier on Graduates

This isn't to say that students should forget about college in order to avoid student loan debt: a college diploma remains a wise and strong investment for individuals. But the growing cost of college, and the drawbacks of high student loan debt should serve as a reminder of the importance of scholarships and fellowships, including those for underrepresented minorities ("URM scholarships and fellowships"). For Pacific Islanders, if they were allowed to apply for URM scholarships and fellowships, this could reduce their need to take on high debt in order to fulfill their potential.

Kawika

Saying it with a Graph: "Asian Pacific Islanders" data doesn't represent Pacific Islanders

2011-04-07T18:37:00.000-07:00

The last few posts have been about how grouping Pacific Islanders with Asians leads to misleading data and misunderstandings. The most recent post was on why. In this post, I wanted to show the data in a different way.

Using numbers provided this year by the U.S. Census Bureau, here are the 4-year college graduation rates for the general U.S. population (US Av), Pacific Islanders (PI), and Asians. The last bar shows what the grad rate is when you group Pacific Islanders with Asians. As you can see, the graduation rate for "Asian Pacific Islanders" (A/PI) and Asians is almost exactly the same. Meanwhile, Pacific Islander graduation rates is much much lower than the "Asian Pacific Islander" rate -- over three times lower.

As you can see, the "Asian Pacific Islander" stats here are a very bad indicator for what's going on with Pacific Islanders, and anyone who used the API stats to make decisions about Pacific Islanders would be making a mistake.

In addition, the stats clearly reflect that Pacific Islanders are underrepresented: their graduation rate is half of the national average.

Here are the college graduation rates in plain text:

U.S. National Average: 28 percent

Pacific Islander Americans: 14 percent

Asian Americans: 50 percent

"Asian and Pacific Islander Americans:" 48 percent

My two points, which you may have heard before: 1.) data grouping Pacific Islanders and Asians together does not accurately represent Pacific Islanders, and 2.) Pacific Islanders are highly underrepresented in higher education.

Kawika

How did we get the API data? Not having the exact numbers broken down, we did an estimate using the same data that the Census is using this year. While that release was sent out this year, the data for college graduation was from the 2005-2009 American Community Survey, so we pulled the numbers from that survey using census.gov's American Fact Finder.

There are two things I want to point out with these numbers. 1.) The American Community Survey is exactly that (a survey), with a margin of error. In other words, it's an estimate, but a scientifically valid one. 2.) Also, these are stats on Pacific Islanders and Asians "alone," which means that it doesn't include multiracial Pacific Islanders or Asians. This is important for all races, but especially Pacific Islanders and Asians, because they are more likely to be multiracial than the general population.

It's also important to mention that these stats don't include people who are 24-years-old or younger. This is standard practice by the census and others when collecting and reporting data on college graduation rates. Doogie Howser MD aside, it makes sense to limit the data collection to people who are old enough to have had a fair chance to complete their higher education.

American Community Survey Stats on Asians and Pacific Islanders "alone" (25-or-older)

Asians = 8,924,706

Pacific Islanders = 265,466

"Asians and Pacific Islanders" = 9,190,172

Asian College Grads = 4,425,164

Pacific Islander College Grads = 28,026

"A/PI College Grads = 4,453,190

Next, to get the "Asian Pacific Islander" graduation rate, we just need to know what percentage 4,453,190 is out of the 9,190,172 people who are either Pacific Islanders of Asians "alone" according to the American Community Survey.

(4,453,190/9,190,172) x 100 = 48.45. In other words, the "A/PI" college graduation rate is 48.45 percent, according to recent Census data.

When more data from the 2010 Census becomes available, we'll be able to provide an update.

Two Reasons: How "Asian Pacific Islander" data hides Pacific Islander Underrepresentation

2011-03-25T05:05:00.000-07:00

Two posts ago, I explained that since 1997, there has been a federal policy recognizing that Pacific Islanders (or "Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders," to use the exact term in that policy) are a unique racial group, which should not be lumped together with Asians for the purpose of data collection. In this post, I'd like to explain why Pacific Islanders should not be grouped together with Asians when reporting data on things like college graduation rates.

If I had to sum it up in one paragraph, I'd say this: data that groups Asians and Pacific Islanders together does not accurately reflect what's happening to Pacific Islanders. It doesn't even average out the differences between Pacific Islanders and Asians. Instead, the "Asian Pacific Islander" category hides Pacific Islander data behind data on Asians. It also creates the illusion that Pacific Islanders and Asians have identical rates of poverty, income, and other socioeconomic indicators. This is especially true in the case of college graduation rates, where huge differences exist, but you wouldn't know it if you only looked at "Asian Pacific Islander" data.

**I'll do a numbers-heavy post later so you can check my math. For now, I'll try to keep this post short and stick mostly with words.**

Why does this happen? How does a data category perform the magic trick of turning an entire minority group relatively invisible? It comes down to two reasons:

Reason 1.) 14 Asians for every 1 Pacific Islander: When data is reported on "Asians and Pacific Islanders," generally 14 Asians have been counted for every 1 Pacific Islander. (This isn't a conspiracy, it's just math -- according to recent U.S. Census data, the Asian American population is well-over 14 times bigger than the Pacific Islander American population.) To illustrate how this causes data on Pacific Islanders to be hidden behind Asian data, consider another 14-to-1 possibility:

The Situation: Two equally matched basketball teams square off in a game.

The Commonsense way to Count: Each time a team gets a basket, they score one point. This is true for both teams.

The 14-to-1 way to Count: When Team A gets a basket, they get 14 points. When Team B gets a basket, they get 1 point.

In the end, even if both teams get an equal number of baskets, Team B will never come close to taking the lead. And how could they? When you're counted 14-times less than another group, how are you supposed to have a fair chance?

Now this isn't basketball (and it's not a competition between Asians and Pacific Islanders), but my point is this: just as it's unrealistic to expect Team B to ever compete when they get 14-times fewer points per basket, it's unrealistic to expect that data on "Asians and Pacific Islanders" will ever accurately reflect Pacific Islanders, when the Asian American population is over 14-times larger. (And thereby counted 14 times for every 1 Pacific Islander.)

This difference in size wouldn't be a big deal if Asians and Pacific Islanders had similar socioeconomic conditions -- but they don't. Asians and Pacific Islanders differ significantly in terms of several indicators, especially college graduation rates. While Asians have the highest college graduation rate among any of the major racial groups, Pacific Islanders have one of the lowest. This gets to reason number two:

Reason 2.) Big Difference in Graduation Rates: According to statistics used by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2011, the college graduation rate for single-race Pacific Islanders was 14 percent. By comparison, the single-race Asian college graduation rate was 50 percent. That's a huge difference: Asian Americans are three-and-a-half times more likely to graduate from college than Pacific Islander Americans. But when you lump the two groups together and look at "Asian and Pacific Islander" college graduation, the number is roughly 48 percent -- almost the same as the Asian rate, but over three times higher than the Pacific Islander graduation rate.

That very significant difference is obvious when we compare Asian and Pacific Islander college graduation rates, which is only possible when we view the data on both groups separately. When all you have is the "Asian Pacific Islander" data, those differences disappear before our eyes. Of course they don't really disappear - they just get ignored, because it's hard to solve a problem if you don't see that it exists.

In the next post I'll show more of the math behind these figures, using recent Census data.

Kawika

Don't Blame Asians

2011-03-13T08:59:00.000-07:00

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

Pacific Islander Americans are ... Pacific Islander Americans

2011-03-06T12:14:00.000-08:00

In an earlier post, I mentioned three factors related to the exclusion of Pacific Islanders from most academic programs for underrepresented minorities. Today I'd like to expand on one of those factors: the grouping of Pacific Islanders with Asians.

My main point is this: Pacific Islanders are Pacific Islanders. Pacific Islander Americans are not Asian Americans. (I know that's obvious, but bear with me.)

Classification by Race and Ethnicity
Since the 1970s the federal government has used a detailed, written policy on how to classify people by race and ethnicity for the purpose of data collection. This data standard is known as Statistical Policy Directive No. 15 (or just "Directive 15").

The Office of Management and Budget, which is responsible for Directive 15, explained its rationale for setting this policy in the 1970s by saying this: "Development of the data standards stemmed in large measure from new responsibilities to enforce civil rights laws. Data were needed to monitor equal access in housing, education, employment, and other areas, for populations that historically had experienced discrimination and differential treatment because of their race or ethnicity."

1970s: Federal Policy Groups Pacific Islanders with Asians
In the first version of the data standard, Directive 15 grouped Pacific Islanders with Asians in the "Asian and Pacific Islander" category. This was not the first time that Pacific Islanders were grouped with Asians in public policy, and it undoubtedly played a role in how people view and mis-understand Pacific Islander Americans.

Why?

Because people see statistics on "Asian Pacific Islanders" and think that those stats accurately reflect what's happening to both Pacific Islanders and Asians. But those stats do not reflect what's happening to both groups. (I'll explain why this happens in an upcoming post. For now, I'll leave it at this: when you group Pacific Islander Americans together with Asian Americans, Pacific Islander data is essentially hidden.)

1990s to Present: Federal Policy Recognizes Pacific Islanders as Distinct Group
When Directive 15 came up for review in the 1990s, the federal government determined that it was inappropriate to group Pacific Islanders and Asians together as if they were one group. Rather than describing the rationale, I'm going to copy a portion of the recommendation on the policy to this post, then link to the entire thing so you can read it for yourself. Here's one of the sections pertaining to our topic:

Recommendations from the Interagency Committee for the Review of the Racial and Ethnic Standards to the Office of Management and Budget Concerning Changes to the Standards for the Classification of Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity
5.3.2.1 SHOULD THE "ASIAN OR PACIFIC ISLANDER" CATEGORY BE SPLIT INTO TWO CATEGORIES? IF YES, HOW SHOULD THIS BE DONE?
The issue is whether to retain the current Asian or Pacific Islander category, or to split the category into two separate categories, one for Asians and one for Pacific Islanders. The argument in favor of such a split is that the current category places two peoples who have few social or cultural similarities. It is argued that having separate categories for Asians and Pacific Islanders would result in more homogeneous groups, which would increase the comprehensibility and logic of the entire classification scheme. In addition, the two resulting groups are dissimilar on a number of measures. For example:
Education -- Although approximately the same number of Asians and Pacific Islanders graduate from high school, far fewer Pacific Islanders (about 11 percent of persons 25 years of age or older) than Asians (about 40 percent) obtain bachelors degrees.
Income and employment -- According to 1990 census data, 5.2 percent of Asians over age 16 were unemployed, compared with 7.3 percent of Pacific Islanders. Median household income was $41,583 for Asians and $33,955 for Pacific Islanders.
Poverty -- The poverty rate was 13.7 percent for Asians and 16.6 percent for Pacific Islanders.
(Here's a link to the full document: link)

Since that determination was made in 1997, federal policy has been to recognize that Pacific Islanders (also described as "Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders") are a unique racial group, which should not be lumped together with Asians for the purpose of data collection and categorization. Unfortunately, even though it's been almost one-and-a-half decades since then, some people still don't realize that Pacific Islanders and Asians are two separate groups. This, along with the continued practice of lumping the two groups together, leads to misleading data and misunderstanding.

Kawika

Pacific Islander Americans: the Missing Underrepresented Minority

2011-02-27T13:08:00.000-08:00

Earlier this week, McClatchy News published an article on underrepresented minority graduation rates at different universities. The article was based on a report by the Education Trust, which pulled from data made available by College Results Online. The tweet-sized summary is this: some schools are doing much better (or worse) than others at graduating underrepresented minorities.

I think it's terrific that McClatchy is doing an article on underrepresented minorities, and that the Education Trust and College Results Online are paying attention to this issue. After all, the U.S. Census estimates that minorities will comprise over half of the U.S. population in a generation. With the exception of Asians, all of these minorities are underrepresented in higher education. (In related news, Brookings blogged earlier this month that minorities now make up over half of the nation's 3-year-old population.) If our higher education system doesn't figure out how to recruit, retain, and graduate the groups that will make up half of the American population in the coming decades, that's not just a system that's failing minorities: that's just plain failure.

There is a shortcoming to this article, which I'm referring to as: the case of the missing underrepresented minority.

Check out the article, and you'll see that when the author talks about underrepresented minorities, she focuses on"black and Latino students," and mentions "Native Americans" once. (LINK)
Check out the press release from the Education Trust and you'll see that they define underrepresented minority to mean "African American, Latino, and Native American." (LINK)
And if you go to College Results Online and do an advanced search for graduation rates by race and ethnicity, you'll be able to search for the following groups: "Black, Asian, Latino, Native American, White, Underrepresented Minority." (LINK)

Each step of the way, Pacific Islanders are missing from this equation. Pacific Islanders are not included in the article, not included in the Education Trust's definition of underrepresented, and not included at all in the College Results Online list of racial and ethnic groups. Of course, as I've mentioned before, Pacific Islanders are underrepresented in higher education. Also, Pacific Islanders are a distinct racial group, recognized by the federal government's policy on collecting racial and ethnic data.

In order to solve a problem, you need to know that it exists. Now, I don't think any of the people or groups I mentioned are trying to stop people from realizing that Pacific Islanders are underrepresented -- they probably don't know any better. Still, the fact remains that until Pacific Islanders are included in discussions about underrepresented minorities, it is unlikely that Pacific Islanders will be included in most efforts to help underrepresented minorities.

Kawika

Race Remixed

2011-02-20T10:50:00.000-08:00

I somehow missed this article when it came out two weeks ago, but two paragraphs into this New York Times piece on racial and ethnic data collection, I knew I wanted to highlight it in a short blog post. The article, "Race Remixed: Counting by Race Can Throw Off Some Numbers," is a good introduction to the complexities of modern efforts to accurately count an increasingly diverse and multiracial nation.

Unfortunately, the article doesn't mention Pacific Islander Americans, but it does introduce a number of important facts. They include:

The federal government actually has a standard for racial and ethnic data collection;
While race and ethnicity are concepts that are nearly-universally known, different group collect and report racial and ethnic data differently;
Older methods of racial data collection that don't account for people of more than one race are growing increasingly outdated.

If I had to pull from just one part of the article it would be this early paragraph, which explains that how people are categorized by race and ethnicity "...might seem trivial except that statistics on ethnicity and race are used for many important purposes. These include assessing disparities in health, education, employment and housing, enforcing civil rights protections, and deciding who might qualify for special consideration as members of underrepresented minority groups."

Unless minority groups -- including Pacific Islanders -- are properly counted, Americans will not know whether our nation is making progress against the types of disparities the article mentions. And while counting people properly will not solve these problems alone, good data is necessary for good decisions.

Of course, this comes back to Pacific Islanders and their access to underrepresented minority scholarships and fellowships. As I'll explain in an upcoming post or two, the way Pacific Islanders have been categorized with Asian Americans has masked the true needs of Pacific Islanders, including their level of underrepresentation in higher education.

Here's a link to the article: LINK

Kawika

Jobs and the "Education Premium"

2011-01-24T04:12:00.000-08:00

While I was standing in line at the grocery store this weekend, I glanced at the issue of TIME Magazine on the rack. The cover, which looked like this (LINK), was about jobs, or "Where the Jobs Are." I read the articles in line, and then I read it online when I got home.

The stories focused on where the American job crisis is relenting, and where it is not. One author started with an analysis of what's happening now, and then shifted to what he expects in the future.

How does this tie back into the purpose of this blog?

The Pacific Islander Access project is a nonprofit focused on opening doors in academia that shouldn't be (but are) closed to Pacific Islander Americans. (If this is your first time reading our blog, here's a link for more about that: LINK) The article, among other things, was about how education is becoming more and more imporant to employment.

Here's the most relevent paragraph from TIME.com, which talks about the "education premium":

The education premium -- the payoff for earning a degree -- will grow larger. According to Moody's, workers with a graduate, bachelor's or associates degree or even some college experience will get an increasing share of the jobs created. In 2011 the better educated will control 60.1% of all new jobs; by 2015, the projection rises to 64.4%, and that's even after construction bounces back.

It's more evidence that America is facing a bifurcated employment future. At the top end is a highly educated, technically competent workforce attuned to the demands of the global marketplace. At the other end is a willing but underskilled group that is seeing its prospects undermined by workers in countries like China in low-end manufacturing and by a skills mismatch in emerging industries.

My point is this: having access to higher education has been seen as a gateway to getting a great job. It still can be. But increasingly, education is playing a role in whether someone has a job at all - employment or unemployment.

Here's a link to the article I quoted: LINK

Kawika

Opening Day of Hawaii State Legislature

2011-01-20T04:19:00.000-08:00

Today the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported on the opening day of the 2011 Hawaii State Legislature. This presents the Pacific Islander Access project with an opportunity to shamelessly promote our mission of ending the exclusion of Pacific Islander Americans from scholarships and fellowships for underrepresented minorities.

Why?

Because six legislative sessions ago, the Hawaii State House of Representatives introduced and unanimously passed a resolution urging academic programs for underrepresented minorities to recognized Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders. The resolution was introduced by Rep. Cindy Evans, along with Reps. Kanoho, Morita, and Schatz (former-Rep. Schatz is now Hawaii's Lt. Governor).

To learn more about the resolution, you can click hear and access the 2005 Hawaii State Legislature's list of adopted resolutions: LINK

The University of Hawaii testified in support of the resolution. Their testimony is archived online and can be viewed here: LINK

The PIA project extends its aloha again to Rep. Evans, Kanoho, Morita, Schatz, and all the members of the 2005 Hawaii House of Representatives for their role in unanimously passing the resolution.

Kawika

AP Writes about the Growing Marshallese Community in Arkansas

2011-01-14T04:22:00.000-08:00

In several earlier posts, I've mentioned that while some Americans don't know a great deal about the Pacific Islander community, we are a distinct population found in every state of the union. Most Pacific Islander Americans live in the western states (I'm including Hawaii), but data indicates that we are becoming more geographically diverse.

Here's a great example: Yesterday the Northwest Asian Weekly posted an Associated Press article on the growing Marshallese population in Arkansas. The reporter mentions how the desire for education, especially for younger generations, played a role in the rising Marshallese population in that state. The reporter also mentions the connection between U.S. atomic bomb testing in the Marshall Islands and Marshallese immigration to the 50 States.

Here's a link to the full article so you can read for yourself: LINK

Kawika

If Trends Continue: Is there an End in Sight for the Underrepresentation of Pacific Islanders?

2011-01-09T11:04:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

In the last post, I presented U.S. Census data on Pacific Islander underrepresentation from the past twenty years. As promised, in this post I'm expanding on what those numbers say. The question I'm going to answer is "what has the trend been for the past two decades in terms of Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander college graduation?" The overall message is clear, but there are also what my dad would call "glass half-full and half-empty" ways of looking at the data.

Overall
The clear finding is that for at least the past twenty years, U.S. Census data has consistently shown that Pacific Islanders are underrepresented among college graduates.

Glass Half-Full
While Pacific Islanders continue to be underrepresented, the good news is that the percentage of us graduating is rising. Between 1990 and the data the Census used in 2010 publications, the percentage of Pacific Islanders with college diplomas increased from about 11 percent to 15 percent. That's an increase of about 36 percent. Pacific Islander scholars, community advocates and leaders, and others should be proud of this progress, especially since it has been achieved without access to most scholarships, fellowships, and other academic programs for underrepresented minorities.

Glass Half-Empty
You might wonder: if this increase in graduation rates continues, will Pacific Islanders no longer be underrepresented in the near future? Sadly, the numbers say absolutely not.

During the same time period that Census data showed a 36 percent increase in Pacific Islander college graduation, the overall U.S. population's graduation rate increased by about 40 percent. Pacific Islander graduation rates have risen, but not as fast as the overall population. Here's another way to look at it:

Census data says that in 1990, Pacific Islanders were 45 percent less likely to have a college degree than the general U.S. population.

According to Census data published in 2010, Pacific Islanders are 46 percent less likely to have a college degree than the general U.S. population.

That means that Pacific Islanders are almost exactly as underrepresented among college graduates now as they were 20 years ago. A continuation of this trend would be permanent underrepresentation in higher education.

If we are going break this trend, we will need find smarter, better ways to help Pacific Islanders succeed. One way to help Pacific Islanders in the next twenty years is to allow them to have access to the same resources as other underrepresented minorities - the scholarships, fellowships, and other academic programs for underrepresented minorities.

Kawika

Looking Backward: Census Stats on Pacific Islanders

2010-12-28T04:48:00.000-08:00

With the New Year rapidly approaching, I wanted to share some perspective on Pacific Islander American higher educational attainment over the past couple of decades. Pacific Islanders have been immigrating to what is now the continental U.S. for around 200 years (two examples are the Native Hawaiians who worked in the Pacific Northwest and the Pacific Islander Mormons who immigrated to Utah). Also, in the case of the native peoples of American Samoa, Guam, and Hawaii, Pacific Islanders have been living on U.S. soil while later became part of the United States. U.S. Census data on Pacific Islander higher educational attainment took a while to catch up, but we do have numbers going back two decades.

Here are some of the online resources dating back to the 1990 Census:

1990s: As part of the U.S. Census Bureau's "We the People" series, the Census released a 10-page document on the demographics of Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders living in the 50 states. The document was published in 1993, and based on 1990 Census data (LINK).

Percentage of Pacific Islanders with an undergraduate degree: 11 percent
Percentage of the U.S. population with an undergraduate degree: 20 percent
Percentage of "Asian and Pacific Islanders" with an undergraduate degree: 37 percent

2000: In 2003, the Census Bureau released a 12-page document on higher educational attainment in the U.S. It included attainment stats broken down by race and ethnicity (though multiracial individuals were counted as "two or more races" instead of being included in each racial group they reported). Here are the stats, which were based on Census 2000 data (LINK):

Percentage of Pacific Islanders with an undergraduate degree: 13.8 percent
Percentage of the U.S. population with an undergraduate degree: 24.4 percent
Percentage of Asians with an undergraduate degree: 44.1 percent

2010: We are still waiting on the results of the 2010 Census, but we do have data from surveys and other research that the U.S. Census Bureau did between the 2000 and the 2010 Census. Here are the higher educational attainment stats reported by the Census in March 2010 in preparation for "Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month". (Here's the LINK)

Percentage of Pacific Islanders with an undergraduate degree: 15 percent
Percentage of the U.S. population with an undergraduate degree: 28 percent
Percentage of Asians with an undergraduate degree: 50 percent

I'll expand on this in my next post, but that's it for now. Happy holidays!

Kawika

Census Data Indicates Growing and Dispersing Pacific Islander American Population

2010-12-19T20:22:00.000-08:00

Earlier this week, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser published a story on Hawaii's changing demographics, as depicted by the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey. (Here's that story: LINK) Among other things, it reported that while Hawaii's population increased 5.7 percent from 2000 - 2009, during that same time the Native Hawaiian population in the state decreased by 6.8 percent.

First, I want to talk about why those numbers may end up being misleading. Next, I want to talk about some other results of the American Community Survey which indicate that the Pacific Islander American population grew in number during the past decade.

The Hawaii Data: Anytime you're looking at Census data on race, make sure to check whether the results say "X" race "alone" or "alone or in combination." The difference is that "alone or in combination" stats mean that multiracial Americans are included as members of more than one of the races they identify as. Overall, multiracial individuals are not a huge percentage of the American population: we're somewhere above 2 percent. But in Hawaii, over 20 percent of the population identifies as multiracial. This means that if you want to get a detailed picture of race and ethnicity in Hawaii, you need to be able to look at "alone or in combination" stats. This is especially true for Pacific Islander Americans - in the 2000 Census multiracial Pacific Islanders greatly outnumbered those who identified as Pacific Islander alone. Unfortunately, the American Community Survey numbers that were referenced in the Star-Advertiser didn't do that.

When the richer data that includes multiracial Hawaii residents is released, it may end up indicating the same thing that the "alone" stats say... but we won't know until we see it. For now, what we do know is that in Hawaii, a segment of the Native Hawaiian population (those that identify as Native Hawaiian alone), as counted in a large government-conducted survey, declined over the past decade.

National Pacific Islander Stats: Being more curious than the average twenty-something is about Census stats, this article above encouraged me to dive into the Census Bureau's website and see what else the American Community Survey (ACS) said about the Pacific Islander American population. Here were my two major findings, comparing the American Community Survey results with the Census 2000 results:

From 2000 - 2009, the number of American residents who identified as Pacific Islander (aka "Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander") alone grew significantly, from 398,800 to 447,500. That's a 12 percent population increase over that decade. (It will be interesting to see what the change was when the multiracial Pacific Islander population is included.)
From 2000 - 2009, the number of Hawaii residents who identified as Pacific Islander alone fell slightly from 113,500 to 112,900.

The takeaway is that at least in the case of individuals who identify as Pacific Islander alone, their numbers are growing noticeably across the nation, while they are slowly declining in the only Pacific Island State of the Union. (Here's a link to the Census Bureau's ACS web page: LINK)

How does this tie back into the PIA project's mission to see Pacific Islanders included in scholarships and fellowships for underrepresented minorities?

Simple. In places like Hawaii, Pacific Islanders are a significant percentage of the total population, and it is widely known that they are underrepresented in higher education. Any Hawaii-based program for underrepresented minorities would allow Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders to apply, because those programs would be aware of our underrepresentation.

Nationally, this is not the case. Many communities are hardly aware that Pacific Islander Americans exist as a thriving, growing, and sometimes struggling community. Most of these well-intended scholarships and fellowships who want to help underrepresented minorities do not include or advertise to Pacific Islanders.

Now, as the Pacific Islander population disperses across these communities, and attends college in these communities, they will find that they are being excluded from scholarships and fellowships that they should at least be able to apply to. They will find that some underrepresented minority programs which would have included them in Hawaii are not doing so across the mainland. In some cases this could make the difference between a diploma and a dropout, or attending graduate school or not.

This is another reason why - as the Pacific Islander American population disperses in greater numbers across the mainland U.S. - it is important for underrepresented minority programs to include Pacific Islanders now.

Kawika

AP-Stanford Poll: Americans Recognize Link between Economy and Education System

2010-12-09T19:14:00.000-08:00

The Associated Press reported today on an AP-Stanford University poll surveying the views Americans hold on several aspects of higher education. Its findings have been covered from multiple perspectives, with the AP running headlines like "Poll: education backed, but not taxes."

Here are two important results from the poll that didn't make as many (if any) headlines:

88 percent of respondents said that the quality of a country's education system has a large or very large impact on its economy
79 percent of respondents said that if all Americans graduated from a two or four-year college it would help the economy a lot or a little

I agree with both statements (in fact I wonder about the 21 percent of folks who don't think that having a 100 percent college graduation rate would help the economy). I would take it one step further: for the underrepresented minority groups that constitute a growing portion of the American public, if they are able to graudate at a higher rate and access a quality education, this will be good for those communities in particular and the economy as a whole.

And of course this ties back to Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders. They will be better able to access a quality education and graduate when they have access to the scholarships, fellowships, and academic programs for underrepresented minorities which don't currently recognize that they're underrepresented.

Here's the poll in full: LINK

Kawika

Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs urges Action on Including Pacific Islanders in Acadmic Programs for Underrepresented Minorities

2010-11-18T20:10:00.000-08:00

More great news for those of us working to increase higher education opportunities for Pacific Islanders: Last week one of the largest and oldest national Native Hawaiian organizations unanimously passed a resolution calling on their fellow Native Hawaiian organizations to urge academic programs for underrepresented minorities to recognize that Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders are an underrepresented group. I'll include a link to the resolution when it's posted online, but for now I'm just sharing the great news.

Mahalo nui loa (thank you very much) to all of the leaders of the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs, for urging Native Hawaiian organizations to call for the inclusion of Pacific Islanders in underrepresented minority programs! And a special thanks to the members of the civic club that I'm a member of (the Washington, DC-based Ke Alii Makaainana civic club), especially those who attended the national convention and explained the urgent need to move forward on this issue.

Kawika

News - PIA project Officially Incorporated in DC!

2010-11-14T10:46:00.000-08:00

The Pacific Islander Access project team is pleased to report that our nonprofit is officially incorporated in the District of Columbia! We recently received this great news from DC's Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs. As you might imagine, we're excited to be taking another step forward in the effort to open more doors for Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders by ending their exclusion from scholarships and fellowships for underrepresented minorities.

Study Finds a Bigger Role for Financial Aid as Tuition and Fees Rise

2010-10-31T18:15:00.000-07:00

A few days ago the New York Times, Associated Press, and other news outlets covered a recent report by the College Board on the cost of higher education. To sum it up, the study found that university tuition and fees have increased. However, at the same time, financial aid has increased slightly more than the sticker cost. (The study has a lot of great information, and you can read the whole thing by clicking here: LINK)

The study's data is recent enough to include the current economic downturn, which made it harder for many families to afford college.

Sources in the news articles and the report suggest that this boost in financial aid - due largely to recent legislation - is temporary. Whether that's true or not, the study calls attention to the important role financial aid plays in the real cost of higher education.

For Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders, the real cost of college is higher than it should be, because they are not allowed to apply for many scholarships and fellowships for underrepresented minorities. It makes sense that overrepresented racial and ethnic groups and not targeted by these financial aid sources, but Pacific Islanders are underrepresented - and they are wrongfully excluded.

We can - and I believe we will - lower the real cost of higher education for Pacific Islanders by ending their exclusion from financial aid sources for underrepresented minorities. When that happens, it might not be studied by the College Board or reported by big name news sources. But more importantly, it would have a real affect on the promising men and women who would be able to afford college and achieve their potential.

Kawika

An Endnote is Just the Begining

2010-10-17T13:42:00.000-07:00

Those party people at the National Academies are up to it again. Shortly after the National Research Council published the report I blogged about earlier this month (LINK), the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine released a report on the need to boost the involvement of underrepresented minorities in STEM higher education. (STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics.) Taking a stand that PIA project can easily get behind, the National Academies said that getting underrepresented minorities into STEM education at all levels should be understood as "an urgent national priority."

I agree.

And I have the same usual question PIA project asks when an entity wisely chooses to take steps to help underrepresented minorities. That is: "Did you remember that Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders are underrepresented in higher education?"

When I went searching for the answer, at first this appeared to be another example of well-intentioned folks excluding Pacific Islanders. The press release said that when the Academies were talking about underrepresented minorities it included these three groups: "African Americans, Hispanic, and Native Americans." (Here's a link to that press release: LINK)

But it would be premature to blog about this report without looking at it. So I downloaded the report and skimmed it. I was pleased to find the following language within an end note at the bottom of page sixteen:
Underrepresented minorities, as used in this report, refer to African Americans, Hispanic or Latino Americans, Native Americans and Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders.

It went on to say that "Pacific Islanders are considered an underrepresented group. However, most national data sets for scientists and engineers aggregate Asians and Pacific Islanders so it is generally impossible to present separate data for this group."

While PIA project is displeased that Pacific Islanders are lumped together with Asians in so many national data sets, this is nothing new. On the other hand, it's refreshing to read that a report on underrepresented minorities acknowledges both that Pacific Islanders are underrepresented and that the practice of burying Pacific Islander data within the "Asian Pacific" category makes it harder for scholars to see what's going on with this population.

I would like to see this discussion elevated higher than an end note on the bottom of one page, but hey - it's a start.

To access the report, click here: LINK

Kawika

Good News and No News

2010-10-03T17:26:00.000-07:00

This week the National Research Council released a huge review of America's doctoral programs. It looked at over 5,000 PhD programs at more than 210 universities across the nation. The study pulled from 2005-2006 data (it's last review was released in 1995, based on data collected from 1993), and looked at various trends in doctoral education, including diversity issues like minority representation among faculty and students.

Because of the PIA project's focus, I read this report and looked at two things in particular: 1.) what does this report say about underrepresented minorities, and 2.) specifically, what does it say about Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders?

Here are my answers:

1.) Based on its findings, the National Research Council found that for every academic field it reviewed, there has been an increase in the percentage of PhDs who are what it considers to be underrepresented minorities. To quote the study:

For all doctoral programs in fields covered by the study, there has been an increase in the percentage of PhDs from underrepresented minority groups (a growth of 2.3 percentage points to 9.6 percent in the agricultural sciences, 3.7 percentage points to 9.8 percent in biological sciences, 1.7 percentage points to 6.4 percent in the physical sciences, 5.2 percentage points to 10.1 percent in engineering, 5.0 percentage points to 14.4 percent in the social sciences and 3.5 percentage points to 10.9 percent in the humanities).

For the minorities included in the National Research Council's definition of underrepresented, that's good news.

2.) The answer to the second question ("What does it say about Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders?") is short: it doesn't talk about Pacific Islanders. Instead, the study defined "underrepresented minority" to include only African Americans, Hispanics, and American Indian and Alaska Natives. Pacific Islanders were not included, and no space in the free online copy of the report explained why. For Pacific Islander's, that's no news.

This leaves us with another instance where we know a little more about other underrepresented minorities, and see another example of how Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islander are left out of the discussion on how underrepresented minorities are doing and how they can do better.

The full report (which has a ton of great information in other areas) is available here: LINK

Diplomas and Dollars: the Value of a Degree

2010-09-26T08:54:00.000-07:00

As the U.S. unemployment rate remains unusually high, struggling college graduates and others are questioning whether higher education is still a sound investment. Early this month, one MSNBC blog (LINK) mentions books with not-too subtle titles like "Higher Education? How Colleges are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids - and What We Can Do About It" and cites a Wall Street Journal article on how Americans now owe more in student loans than they do in credit card debt (more on that here: LINK).

In an economic climate like this, it's understandable for Americans to question any big-ticket expense, especially one with a price tag as high as most university diplomas. Still, it's important to note the strong evidence that the value of higher education has increased during the Great Recession. Last week, the New York Times reported in "Degree Payoff is Growing, Study Says," that the long-term payoff for higher education - including higher income, better job security, and greater civic engagement - continues to rise.

That story is available here: LINK

The College Board report they mentioned found that college graduates were better off regardless of racial or ethnic background. I dove into the report hoping for stats specific to Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders, but unfortunately, found that we were overlooked in this study. Click here to access the full report: LINK

I trust that what's true for every racial and ethic group studied is also true for Pacific Islanders - that higher education is still an important investment that drives up income, employment, and access to the American dream. And it's a given that by allowing Pacific Islanders to apply for underrepresented minority scholarships and fellowships, more of us would have the financial means needed to do what it takes to make that dream a reality.

Noticed or Not? University Definitions of Underrepresented

2010-07-25T16:21:00.000-07:00

In previous posts I've mentioned that when it comes to acknowledging that Pacific Islanders are underrepresented in higher education, some get it and some don't. News articles and blog posts (courtesy of Google alerts - thanks Google!) from the past few weeks provide examples of a university that gets it and another that doesn't appear to.

First, the university paying attention to the statistics - Cornell - includes Pacific Islanders in their definition of underrepresented minorities (LINK). Go Big Red!

On the other hand, at least one university doesn't seem to pay attention to the fact that Pacific Islanders are underrepresented - according to this article (LINK) another university's (no need to mention it by name but you can check the link if you're curious) understanding of underrepresented minorities "is interpreted to include African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans." No mention of Pacific Islander Americans.

Hopefully more universities, scholarships, and fellowships will move in the same direction as Cornell. The PIA project will be doing more to help them get there.

Summer Reading: UCLA Paper on Pacific Islanders in Higher Education

2010-07-11T14:52:00.000-07:00

For those of you who looking for an in-depth analysis of the underrepresentation of Pacific Islanders in U.S. higher education, I recommend this joint brief from the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, UC AAPI Policy Initiative, and the Asian Pacific American Legal Center: LINK

The paper is a few years old, but the authors do a great job explaining the details of Pacific Islander education issues with a mix of writing and graphs. On the concluding page, the authors quote a source that says:

Despite having significant needs, Pacific Islanders are often ignored in policy discussions. Policy makers, community organizations, funders, and others working to address educational disparities need to take affirmative steps to ensure Pacific Islanders have equal access to educational opportunity.

Kawika

Recently Released Census Data on Pacific Islander Americans

2010-03-21T14:57:00.000-07:00

Earlier this month, the U.S. Census published fresh data on Asian Americans and Pacific Islander Americans. You can check out the whole thing for yourself, but here are a few things that jumped out for me:

4-Year-College Graduation Rates: Pacific Islanders remain vastly less likely to receive a college diploma. Statistics did not change from the previous year, when 15 percent of Pacific Islanders earned bachelor's degrees, compared to 28 percent of the total U.S. population. That leaves Pacific Islander roughly 46 percent less likely to graduate with a bachelor's degree.
Advanced Degrees: The good news here is that the percentage of Pacific Islanders earning advanced degrees has increased from 4 percent to 5 percent of the Pacific Islander population. The bad news - Pacific Islanders are still only half-as-likely to receive an advanced degree as the general U.S. population, leaving them vastly underrepresented in higher education at the graduate level.
U.S. Population: Estimates for the total population of Pacific Islanders in the 50 States grew from 1 million last year to 1.1 million. Pacific Islanders were the second-fastest growing racial group for the most recent year counted.
Poverty: The Census found more Pacific Islander Americans living in poverty than the last year counted - the number jumped from 15.7 percent to 16.3 percent.

*Warning on these stats: Aside from the total population count, the Census data was limited to individuals who identified only as "Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander." Individuals who identified as being of more than one race (for example, White and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander") were not included in these stats. I'd love to have those numbers as well, but for now, this is it.

Here's a link to the full release: LINK. Asians are on the top, followed by Pacific Islanders.

When the Good Guys have Bad Infromation: Academic Programs for Underrepresented Minorities that Exclude an Underrepresented Minority

2010-02-09T11:19:00.000-08:00

I understand that it might be possible that someone could hear about the PIA project's work to end the exclusion of Pacific Islanders from academic programs for underrepresented minorities, and end up thinking that we see these programs as an enemy. After all, these programs describe themselves as being dedicated to helping underrepresented minorities, but most of them excluded Pacific Islanders - who are underrepresented. Noting that possibility, it is important for the PIA project to be clear: academic programs for underrepresented minorities are not an enemy.

Academic Programs for Underrepresented Minorities: the Good Guys
Academic programs for underrepresented minorities serve a purpose that is important and noble: helping parts of the American community who have largely been left behind recent gains in higher education. This makes them especially valuable to the minority groups who have been less successful in education. As underrepresented minority groups - who already make up about 1/4th of the U.S. population - become a bigger part of America, closing the education gap becomes less of a minority issue and more of a national issue.

Studies show that on average, a college diploma is correlated with major benefits for the individual degree earner, her or his family, and the greater community. Community benefits include:

Higher earnings, which contribute to the economy and provide greater tax revenue
Lower likelihood to rely on public assistance such as welfare
Reduced chances of committing crimes, which is a safety issue and a burden on the tax payers (because of the hefty cost of incarceration)

This doesn't even touch on the individual benefits related to education, or the snowball-effect that educated parents have on improving the chances that their children will succeed in school. Closing the education gap for underrepresented minorities would lead to a stronger, safer, and more prosperous America. More than a minority-issue, this is a matter of national interest.

But who is working to make it happen? The men and women who work at and support scholarships, fellowships, and other academic programs for underrepresented minorities.

I can't show you a survey as evidence, but I am confident that most of these people do what they do because of a sincere desire to help underrepresented minorities who are trying to help themselves. And for the African American, Hispanic, and American Indian and Alaska Native students who benefit, they do make a difference.

Our Goal: Help these Academic Programs Do More

My belief is that the issue comes down to good intentions and bad information. Almost certainly without realizing it, many academic programs for underrepresented minorities have excluded Pacific Islanders. Polynesian, Micronesian, and Melanesian students look for these programs and see that when a scholarship says it is for underrepresented students, the fine print usually reads "African Americans, Hispanics, and American Indian and Alaska Natives only." Possibly because of the reasons I outlined our previous post, underrepresented minority programs are excluding an underrepresented group.

The PIA project is motivated by the belief that when these academic programs are presented with the facts, they will want to change their policies. This year we will test that theory. But first, we need to lay out the evidence, share out story with other Pacific Islander groups, and reach out to prospective allies.

Kawika

Why? Three Theories on why Pacific Islanders are Excluded from Academic Programs for Underrepresented Minorities

2010-02-08T15:52:00.000-08:00

Each of the previous blogs have described the problem the PIA project is focused on - the exclusion of Pacific Islanders from academic programs for underrepresented minorities, and how this makes it harder for Pacific Islanders to end their own underrepresentation - so the problem is clear. However, it is fair to ask why this is occurring at all. Why are Pacific Islander excluded from academic programs for underrepresented minorities when they are an underrepresented minority?

Three Theories: Why Pacific Islanders are Excluded

1.) Population

Because we are a smaller population: The fact that the Pacific Islander American population is much smaller than included underrepresented minority groups could be a big factor in their exclusion. Also, while Pacific Islanders live in every State of the Union, over half of the population live in just two states: California and Hawaii. The fact that their smaller population is highly concentrated could mean that for many decision makers, Pacific Islanders are out of sight and out of mind.

2.) The Myth of "Asian Pacifics"

Because we're lumped in with Asians, who aren't underrepresented: Another possible cause is the outdated practice of lumping Pacific Islanders with Asians to form the "Asian Pacific", "Asian Pacific Islander" or "Asian and Pacific Islander" category. Because Asians and Pacific Islanders are different in many respects - especially when it comes to higher education issues - lumping the two groups together does a disservice to anyone honestly trying to understand these two distinct racial groups. Moreover, because Asians greatly outnumber Pacific Islander Americans (approximately 15 to 1), any stats on "Asian Pacifics" largely reflects Asians, not Pacific Islanders. (I'll go into detail on this in a future post.)

3.) Pacific Islander Americans: A Silent Minority

Because we haven't come together on this issue: The size and concentration of the Pacific Islander American community, along with the way Pacific Islander issues are hidden behind the "Asian Pacific" lumping, are certainly both factors in their exclusion from academic programs. After all, if these programs:

Don't know Pacific Islanders exist, or

They don't know that unlike Asians, Pacific Islanders are underrepresented...

...then of course these programs wouldn't include Pacific Islanders with African Americans, Hispanics, and American Indian and Alaska Natives. But the fact is that we do exist, and we are underrepresented, so that begs the question: why haven't we spoken up? Why is it that while a few Pacific Islanders have spoken out on this issue, there hasn't been a community-wide movement?

I welcome your answers to this question. I have my own ideas, but to be honest, instead of getting stuck on why it hasn't happened yet, I'd like us to turn our focus to making it happen. But in order to do that, we need to communicate with each other, with our friends, and with the people who set the policies at academic programs for underrepresented minorities.

Our next post will focus on our future allies: the underrepresented minority academic programs that currently exclude Pacific Islanders.

Kawika

Pacific Islander Americans: Underrepresented in Higher Education, Unnoticed by most Academic Programs for Underrepresented Minorities

2010-01-31T19:09:00.000-08:00

Pacific Islander Americans trace their ancestry to the original peoples of Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia. The one-million-plus Pacific Islanders who live in the 50 States include those who are indigenous to parts of the Pacific that are now U.S. soil (the State of Hawaii, American Samoa, and Guam, as well as immigrants and native-born Americans of immigrant ancestry. (Some sources indicate Pacific Islanders began immigrating to North America before the "western frontier" was part of the United States.)

Like African Americans, Hispanics, and American Indians and Alaska Natives, Pacific Islanders are a minority group working to contribute to the Nation we all call home. And like the minority population in general, America's Pacific Islander population is growing faster than the U.S. population in general. It's also true that like the three aforementioned groups (and unlike Asian Americans), Pacific Islander are underrepresented in higher education. In fact, the U.S. Census indicates that Pacific Islander Americans are over 40 percent less likely to receive a Bachelors degree, and less than half as likely to receive an advanced degree (M.A., J.D. M.D., PhD, etc.).

(These number in more detail: According to a 2009 news release from the U.S. Census Bureau, 28 percent of the general U.S. population over 25-years-old have at least a Bachelors degree - nearly three in ten. By comparison, looking at Americans who describe themselves as Pacific Islander-alone (I'll get into the nuts and bolts of racial classification in a future post), only 15 percent have at least a Bachelors degree.

That's 46 percent less!

When we look at advanced degrees, the gap is even wider: ten percent of the U.S. population over 25-year-old has an advanced degree. Just four percent of the Pacific Islander population can say the same.

That's 60 percent less!

In other words, Pacific Islanders are nearly half-as-likely to receive a Bachelors degree, and far less than half-as-likely to receive an advanced degree, compared to the U.S. population in general. )

Being underrepresented in higher education is one of the things Pacific Islander Americans have in common with African Americans, Hispanics, and American Indian and Alaska Natives. But in one very important respect, Pacific Islanders are not likely their underrepresented counterparts: Pacific Islander Americans are excluded from most academic programs for underrepresented minorities.

Tragically, these two problems -- 1.) underrepresentation in higher education, and 2.) exclusion from programs designed to help underrepresented minorities graduate from college --create a vicious cycle for Pacific Islanders. Exclusion from programs that can help them graduate makes it less likely that they will earn a diploma. Lower graduate rates, in turn, means that underrepresentation continues. This leads to fewer Pacific Islander college graduates serving as role models and mentors to friends, family and neighbors.

And of course, it also means that Pacific Islander Americans are less likely to be aware of, or push to get included in, the wonderful higher education scholarships, fellowships, and support programs that help other underrepresented minorities.

The solution - I believe - lies in a different kind of education. Educating Pacific Islanders are others about the programs their promising students should be included in, and educating academic programs for underrepresented minorities about why they should include Pacific Islanders.

We're going to work on that.

Kawika

The PIA project blog begins!

2010-01-23T13:07:00.000-08:00

Mahalo for visiting the Pacific Islander Access (PIA) project's blog, and reading our inagural post. Alongside the "PIA project 101" information we've archived on this site and made available on our more traditionally formatted website (http://piaproject.tumblr.com/), this blog will go deeper into the issues surrounding the exclusion of Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders from academic programs for underrepresented minorities.

We plan to publish posts on a regular basis, providing a mix of:

Commentary on current events
Information on issues related to the underrepresentation of Pacific Islander Americans in higher education, and
Updates on the work of the PIA project and our allies to include Pacific Islanders in those programs

We have a lot of ideas to share, but we also want to hear yours. If you look over the info on our tumblr website and still have questions, or if you have an idea for a topic, please feel free to contact us.

The next post will focus on the twin-problems that the PIA project is out to solve - the underrepresentation of Pacific Islanders and their exclusion from higher education programs for underrepresented minorities.

Me ka ha'a ha'a,

Kawika

The Pacific Islander Access project

2007-02-26T14:19:00.000-08:00

Aloha and welcome to the Pacific Islander Access project's webpage!

The Pacific Islander Access project, or "the P.I.A. project" for short, is a nonprofit working to expand educational opportunity for Pacific Islanders in America.

Some people are unfamiliar with Pacific Islanders, though many Pacific Islanders call America their home. Many people are unaware that Pacific Islanders are significantly underrepresented in higher education. And most don't realize that while there are numerous scholarships, fellowships, and other academic programs for underrepresented minorities, many of these programs don't recognize that Pacific Islanders are underrepresented.

Our goal is to educate those academic programs for underrepresented minorities (aka "URM academic programs") that exclude Pacific Islanders, and persuade them to allow Pacific Islanders to apply along other underrepresented minorities. (If you happen to be part of one of these academic programs, please follow this link to read materials we developed specifically for you: LINK)

We put this webpage/blog together to make our information easily accessible. By clicking on the links below, you can learn more about us, Pacific Islanders, how Pacific Islanders are underrepresented in higher education, and how they are excluded from too many URM academic programs.

About the PIA project

About Pacific Islanders

About Pacific Islander underrepresentation

About URM programs and the exclusion of Pacific Islanders

If you are looking for more information about our plan, who some of our supporters are, or how you can help, check these links out:

The PIA project plan

PIAdvocates

How you can help

Also, feel free to check out the external links. They include U.S. Census data on Pacific Islanders and higher educational attainment in the U.S.

Though it may read like something between the usual website and a blog, we hope you will find the format easy to navigate. If you have any questions or suggestions, please don't hesitate to contact us at piaproject@hotmail.com.

Me ka ha'aha'a (with humility),

Kawika
CEO and Founder, PIA project

PIAdvocates

2007-02-26T14:18:00.000-08:00

The Pacific Islander Access project is proud to have the support of a growing number of organizations and individuals we call "PIAdvocates." Here is some info about a few of our supporters:

Center for Pacific Islands Studies

The Center for Pacific Islands Studies, at the University of Hawaii-Manoa, is the only academic program in the U.S. to focus on the entire Pacific region. The Center's faculty includes over 40 Pacific Island regional specialists, and boasts both undergraduate and graduate programs.

Dr. David Hanlon, Director and Professor at the Center for Pacific Islands Studies, had this to say about the PIA project: "We as educators are totally committed to promoting greater access to higher education for Pacific Islanders, through a fairer and more effective distribution of existing and expanding financial aid resources. We are proud to join with the Pacific Islander Access project in promoting this critically important goal."
______________________________________________________

Indigenous Pacific Islander Alliance

The Indigenous Pacific Islander Alliance (IPIA) is led by a group of Pacific Islander graduate students in California. They are dedicated to representing the cultural perspectives of Pacific Islanders through the UC-Berkeley campus.

The IPIA stated the following about their endorsement of the P.I.A. project: "We at IPIA are proud to support and collaborate with the PIA project. Like our good friends at the PIA project, we believe that education is a human rights issue and Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander students should be given equal opportunities to succeed in higher education."

______________________________________________________

National Pacific Islander Educator Network

The National Pacific Islander Educator Network, or NPIEN, is a nonprofit Pacific Islander organization working to support academic achievement among Pacific Islanders. The National Pacific Islander Educator Network recently celebrated its 6th annual education conference on November 17, 2007 in Paramount, California.

Regarding their decision to endorse, NPIEN stated “We are honored to support the efforts of the PIA project in ensuring equal access and opportunity for Pacific Islanders. The 2000 Census marked the first disaggregating of data for our people, related to education. We continue to see a low percentage of Pacific Islanders who graduate from college, and our high school drop-out rate is one of the highest among underrepresented ethnic groups. The PIA project affords hope for our community, where too many today are unaware of financial aid and academic programs. ”

______________________________________________________

Pacific Islander Pipeline Program

The Pacific Islander Pipeline Program is a program of OCAPIC (Orange County Asian and Pacific Islander Community Alliance). The most recent of four Pacific Islander organizations to endorse the P.I.A. project, the PI Pipeline Program is dedicated to providing an educational "pipeline" program to help young Pacific Islanders achieve excellence in higher education. Their focus is on increasing Pacific Islander access into higher education, with a special emphasis on increasing the number of Pacific Islander health care providers in the Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego counties. PI Pipeline Program envisions various broad-ranging programs, designed to help Pacific Islanders each step of the way towards academic achievement.

______________________________________________________

Would you like to add your organization to this list? Email us at piaproject@hotmail.com or click here for more on how you can help: link

To return to the P.I.A. project 101 page, click here.

How you can help

2007-02-26T14:16:00.000-08:00

There are many ways for you to help us expand higher educational opportunity for Pacific Islanders. The easiest way to start, and the best way to help, is to become a PIAdvocate.

What's a PIAdvocate? It's our name for people and organizations who support the P.I.A. project's goal of expanding higher educational opportunity for Pacific Islanders by ending their exclusion from academic programs for underrepresented minorities.

Does that sound like something you would be interested in? If so, send us an email at piaproject@hotmail.com.

To learn more about a few of our PIAdvocates, click here.

To return to the P.I.A. project 101 page, click here.

The PIA project plan

2007-02-26T14:11:00.000-08:00

The P.I.A. project was started to serve a very defined purpose: expand higher educational opportunity for all Pacific Islanders by ending their exclusion from academic programs for underrepresented minorities. Our plan for getting this done can be broken down into five parts: making the information available on the Internet; building support among interested groups; sharing information; persuading URM academic programs to allow Pacific Islanders to apply; and finally, helping to connect URM academic programs and Pacific Islanders.

1.) Make the Information Available

Our first, and most modest goal, is to simply make information available to people through the Internet. When our CEO was a college student researching on Pacific Islander underrepresentation in higher education, some of the most basic facts were hard to find. But with this blog, the PIA project can serve as a one-stop-shop for students, advocates, and others seeking knowledge about how Pacific Islanders are underrepresented, but still excluded from many academic programs for underrepresented minorities.

2.) Build Support

We believe that when people learn that Pacific Islander are being excluded from URM (underrepresented minority) academic programs despite their underrepresentation, they will want to fix this problem. Our early work has been focused on gaining support among Pacific Islanders and their allies. Supporters are essential to the PIA project's success in spreading awareness and getting community input, and we are pleased that the following groups have called for the inclusion of Pacific Islander in URM academic programs: the National Pacific Islander Educator Network; the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs; the Pacific Islander Pipeline Program; California's Indigenous Pacific Islander Alliance; and the Center for Pacific Islands Studies.

3.) Raise Awareness

With a strong coalition of PIAdvocates behind us, we will take the third step of raising awareness more broadly. Through traditional and non-traditional media as well as grassroots efforts, we will increase public awareness, focusing on the following four topics:

Pacific Islander underrepresentation in U.S. higher education
Pacific Islander exclusion from URM academic programs
How inclusion in URM academic programs could help Pacific Islanders end their underrepresentation
What the PIA project and the PIAdvocates are doing to increase our inclusion

Right now we're working on a database of URM academic programs, so we can understand them better, and start reaching out to those who (perhaps mistakenly) are excluding a deserving underrepresented group.

4.) Persuade URM academic programs to include Pacific Islanders

The fourth part of our plan is to make our goal a reality: to expand Pacific Islander access to higher education by persuading all academic programs for underrepresented minorities to include Pacific Islanders.

Numerous URM academic programs already recognize that Pacific Islanders are underrepresented, and allow them to apply. For those URM academic programs that don't allow Pacific Islanders to apply, we want to present them with the information they need to change their minds.

We know we cannot force URM academic programs to include Pacific Islanders, and we know they aren't the bad guys. We trust that these academic programs are run by good and open minded people who can be persuaded by good data and the voice of a community. It is likely that many URM academic programs have never been contacted by a Pacific Islander organization or asked why they don't include Pacific Islanders. We will reach out to them one-by-one, and with the support of our PIAdvocates, we will make the case for Pacific Islander access to their programs.

5.) Help Pacific Islanders and URM Academic Programs Connect

As more URM academic programs choose to allow Pacific Islanders to apply, we plan to serve as a resource to connect Pacific Islander students and URM programs. We look forward to making this transition, but first we need to help URM academic programs realize why they should open their doors to Pacific Islanders.

To learn about how you can help, click here.

To return to the P.I.A. project 101 page, click here.

PIA project News

2007-02-26T14:09:00.000-08:00

News Update - February 2008
PACIFIC ISLANDER PIPELINE PROGRAM ENDORSES PIA PROJECT
PI Pipeline Program Becomes PIA project's Fourth PIAdvocate

The Pacific Islander Access project proudly announces that it has received an endorsement from the Pacific Islander Pipeline Program, a program of OCAPIC (Orange County Asian and Pacific Islander Community Alliance). The most recent of four Pacific Islander organizations to endorse the PIA project, the PI Pipeline Program is dedicated to providing an educational "pipeline" program to help young Pacific Islanders achieve excellence in higher education.

"We are energized by the Pacific Islander Pipeline's support," said Kawika Riley, Executive Director of the PIA project. "As Pacific Islanders across the nation strive to succeed, programs like the PI Pipeline Program and organizations like OCAPICA and the PIA project are working to support them. It only makes sense for us to work together."

Joesph G. Fa'avae, Project Coordinator of the PI Pipeline Program, stated the following regarding the endorsement: "I look at the Paicfic Islander Pipeline Program as a progressive movement for our people to address a lot of the barriers and issues that keep our youth from entering college. Within a movement there are cohorts in the struggle and I am elated to receive and offer support to the PIA project and to become a PIAdvocate amongst many other prominent Pacific Islander movers and shakers."

The Pacific Islander Pipeline Program is focused on developing programs that will increase Pacific Islander access into higher education, with a special emphasis on increasing the number of Pacific Islander health care providers in the Los Angeles, Orange, adn San Diego counties. PI Pipeline Program envisions various broad-ranging programs, designed to help Pacific Islanders each step of the way towards academic achievement.

The PIA project is a startup non-profit working to end the exclusion of Pacific Islanders from scholarships, fellowships, and other academic programs for underrepresented minorities. For more information, please visit http://piaproject.blogspot.com or www.piaproject.googlepages.com.

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News Update - December 2007
PIA PROJECT RECIEVES THIRD ENDORSEMENT
National Pacific Islander Educator Network to Support PIA Project

The Pacific Islander Access project is proud to announce that it has received the endorsement of the National Pacific Islander Educator Network. This is the PIA project’s third endorsement, and their second endorsement in the past two months. The National Pacific Islander Educator Network, or NPIEN, is a nonprofit Pacific Islander organization working to support academic achievement among Pacific Islanders.

“We are proud to have the support of the National Pacific Islander Educator Network,” said Kawika Riley, Executive Director of the PIA project. “NPIEN is out in the Pacific Islander American community, serving youth and families through scholarly work and hands on activities. I look forward to working with them.”

”The National Pacific Islander Educator Network recently celebrated its 6th annual education conference on November 17, 2007 in Paramount, California, and invites the public to learn more at http://www.npien.com/. Each year we hold the conference, we see more and more participation from students and their parents, who are interested in fulfilling the education dreams that brought them to the US Mainland. We look forward to this partnership with the PIA Project,” NPIEN added.

The PIA project is a startup non-profit working to end the exclusion of Pacific Islanders from scholarships, fellowships, and other academic programs for underrepresented minorities. For more information, please visit them on the web at http://piaproject.blogspot.com/.

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News Update - November 2007
PIA PROJECT RECEIVES SECOND ENDORSEMENT
Indigenous Pacific Islander Alliance Drafts Letter of Support for the PIA project

After discussions that began over email and culminated with a meeting at the Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Health Summit held recently in Washington, DC, the Pacific Islander Access project has received the endorsement of the Indigenous Pacific Islander Alliance. This is the PIA project’s second endorsement.

“It is an honor to have their support, and I look forward to working with them to end the exclusion of Pacific Islanders from scholarships, fellowships, and other academic programs for underrepresented minorities,” said Kawika Riley, Executive Director of the PIA project.

IPIA is led by a group of Pacific Islander graduate students based in California. Kawika stated, “The students running the IPIA are leaders by example, working towards advanced degrees in various fields. On top of that, they’ve dedicated themselves to fighting for the interests of Pacific Islanders. I am honored by their confidence in the PIA project.”

Regarding their decision to endorse, IPIA stated “We at IPIA are proud to support and collaborate with the PIA project. Like our good friends at the PIA project, we believe that education is a human rights issue and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander students should be given equal opportunities to participate and to succeed in this country.”

The Indigenous Pacific Islander Alliance, founded in 2003, is a student organization dedicated to representing the political, social, economic, educational, and cultural perspectives of indigenous Pacific Islander students, staff, and faculty throughout the University of California, Berkeley campus.

The PIA project is a startup non-profit working to end the exclusion of Pacific Islanders from scholarships, fellowships, and other academic programs for underrepresented minorities. For more information, please visit them on the web at http://piaproject.blogspot.com/.

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News Update - March, 2007
PRESTIGIOUS CENTER FOR PACIFIC ISLANDS STUDIES ENDORSES
THE PACIFIC ISLANDER ACCESS PROJECT

The Pacific Islander Access project (PIA project) is pleased to announce that the PIA project has been officially endorsed by the University of Hawaii's Center for Pacific Islands Studies. This is the PIA project's first official endorsement, and marks an early victory for the organization.

The faculty of the Center for Pacific Islands Studies voted unanimously to endorse the PIA project after deliberation at a recent meeting. James Kawika Riley, Executive Director of the PIA project, spent several months in communication with Dr. David Hanlon, Professor and Director of the Center. Kawika and Dr. Hanlon met in December to discuss the PIA project, and possible opportunities for collaboration.

The Center for Pacific Islands Studies is located at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The University of Hawaii was the first university in the world to offer an interdisciplinary graduate degree in Pacific Islands studies. Today, the Center is the only academic program in the United States to focus on the entire Pacific region. The Center's faculty includes over 40 regional specialists on the Pacific Islands, and boasts programs for both undergraduate and graduate study on the Pacific Islands.

James Kawika Riley, Executive Director of the PIA project, was pleased to comment on the endorsement. "The people at the Center for Pacific Islands studies are renowned experts on the Pacific Islands as well as Pacific Islanders. Their endorsement is a significant development for us, and it's powerful to have our first endorsement come from such a well-respected organization and group of scholars. The PIA project is honored to accept their endorsement. We look forward to working with them to end the exclusion of Pacific Islanders from scholarships, fellowships, and other academic programs for underrepresented minorities."

Dr. Hanlon, Director and Professor at the Center for Pacific Islands Studies, said the following on behalf of the Center: "We as educators are totally committed to promoting greater access to higher education for Pacific Islanders, and through a fairer and more effective distribution of existing and expanded financial aid resources. We are proud to join with the Pacific Islander Access project in promoting this critically important goal."

The PIA project is continuing its efforts to reach out to potential supporters of its efforts to end the exclusion of Pacific Islanders from academic programs underrepresented minorities in higher education (also known as URM academic programs). This coalition building effort is the first step in the PIA project's strategic plan.

For more information, visit the PIA project's main page at http://www.piaproject.blogspot.com/, or write to piaproject@hotmail.com.

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Pacific Islander Exclusion from Underrepresented Minority ("URM") Programs

2006-10-15T18:33:00.000-07:00

To do their part in addressing the higher education gap, universities, foundations, and the government have set up academic programs specifically for underrepresented minorities (also known as "URM" academic programs as in "underrepresented minority" academic programs.)

While URM academic programs make up a small fraction of the total number of U.S. academic programs, they are an important source of financial aide for underrepresented minorities. While these URM academic programs are making a difference for African Americans, Hispanics, and American Indians and Alaska Natives, many of them do not include Pacific Islanders in their definition of "underrepresented," which can be the deciding factor in whether a student can even apply.

Why are Pacific Islanders excluded from some of these programs, when the data clearly shows that they're underrepresented? Perhaps because these programs, while well intentioned, are simply unaware of Pacific Islander underrepresentation. Maybe because the practice of grouping Pacific Islanders with Asians leads people to think that both groups are the same, and produces data saying that "Asian Pacific Islanders" are not underrepresented. Also, it could be due to the fact that so far, Pacific Islanders haven't come together on a national level to speak out against the exclusion of their would-be scholars from programs that should be open to them.

To learn more about the PIA project's plan to do something about this, click here.

To return to the P.I.A. project 101 page, click here.

Pacific Islander Underrepresentation in Higher Ed

2006-10-15T16:16:00.000-07:00

Pacific Islanders are significantly underrepresented in U.S. higher education. Recent Census data indicates that Pacific Islanders are over 40 percent less likely than the average American to receive a bachelor's degree. They are over 50 percent less likely to earn an advanced degree.

Pacific Islanders are not the only minority group that is underrepresented in higher education. African Americans, Hispanics, and American Indians and Alaska Natives are less likely than the average American to attain a college degree. The education gap between underrepresented minorities and the rest of America is a pressing problem that deserves attention. People are working to help underrepresented minorities, but many are leaving Pacific Islanders behind.

But unlike these other underrepresented minority groups, Pacific Islanders are exlcuded from many academic programs for underrepresented minorities. To learn more about how some underrepresented minority (URM) academic programs are leaving Pacific Islanders behind, click here.

To return to the P.I.A. project 101 page, click here.

About Pacific Islanders

2006-10-15T14:57:00.000-07:00

Pacific Islanders trace all or some of their ancestry to the first people of the Pacific Islands (Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia). The Pacific Islands are spread across the world's largest ocean, and number well into the tens of thousands. While the federal government previously grouped Pacific Islanders with Asians for statistical purposes, since 1997 federal racial classification guidelines recognize Pacific Islanders as a distinct racial group. (Click on this link for a descripton of all of the islanders that fall within the category (Table 4, page 9))

Pacific Islander Americans have a smaller population than many U.S. minorities, but they live in every state of the union, and have a long history in this country. In fact, most Pacific Islanders who live in the U.S. are indigenous to land that is now American soil. In fact, other than American Indians and Alaska Natives, Pacific Islanders are the only major racial group that includes populations that are indigenous to the U.S.

Hawaii, the 50th state, is one of many Pacific Island archipelagos. The U.S. Pacific Island territories include Guam and American Samoa, and Micronesia was under U.S. authority as it moved towards independence following World War II.

Pacific Islander Americans contribute to their country, and to their own communities. And like other U.S. minorities, they face challenges and difficulties as well. One area of serious concern is higher education, where Pacific Islanders are significantly underrepresented in higher education.

To learn more about Pacific Islander underrepresentation, click here.

To return to the P.I.A. project 101 page, click here.

About the PIA Project

2006-09-30T18:42:00.000-07:00

The mission of the Pacific Islander Access project is to increase Pacific Islander American access to higher educational opportunity by ending their exclusion from academic programs for underrepresented minorities. We hope that by doing this, we will play a role in ending the underrepresentation of Pacific Islander Americans in higher education.

The P.I.A. project began as a grad-school project in 2006. Since the fall of 2010, we've been a nonprofit incorporated in Washington, DC. We are run by a CEO and a Board of Directors, all of whom serve on a volunteer basis. To learn about our plan, click here.

To return to the P.I.A. project 101 page, click here.