Hmmmmm.
Civil Beat, citing new data from the Census Bureau, reported back on May 24 that Filipinos had overtaken Japanese as the largest Asian ethnic block in the islands. According to a table illustrating the story, Filipinos account for 14.5% of Hawaii’s population, with Japanese next at 13.6%.
Several weeks later, citing a study by DBEDT, the Star-Advertiser finally reported the Filipino population “surpassed the Japanese population to become the second largest racial group (behind “White”) in both pure and mixed-race categories.”
But today, June 17, the Star-Advertiser ran an Associated Press story reporting Hawaiians and part-Hawaiians comprising 21% of the population, which would be more than the figures reported by Civil Beat for either Japanese or Filipinos.
Hawaii News Now presented numbers yesterday that seem to clear up the discrepancies. Figures are apparently reported for those identifying themselves as having a single ethnic background, and those reporting a mixed heritage.
Comparisons that don’t make that difference clear will seem misleading.
It’s still all more than a little confusing.
Only the AP story included a link back to the actual data source, so it’s even harder to compare the different reports.
I think the real story here is the big picture of population changes over the last 100 years, and their relation to shifts in political power, patronage, voting populations, and elections. More to come.
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It would be interesting to see how the ethnicity of districts and individuals matches the ethnicity of their representative or the candidates they vote for. I suspect that ethnicity is an important marker for immigrant voters, but it means less and less to subsequent generations.
Also noteworthy, I think that most children in the US are now “non-white”. Of course that depends on what “non-white” means. For instance, Catholics and Jews were considered “ethnics” before WWII, but after the war, they were elevated to “white” status. This was a big leap upward for Italian Americans in particular, since they previously had the status that “hispanics” (a language group) currently have. Hispanics might become “white” sooner than we think, and then Asians too.
Let’s remember also that many young people simple identify with “other” as a category since they are so mixed ethnically.
In the color-blind society that we seem to be evolving toward — we meaning the West, not just the US — money will come to mean more in terms of status, as race and color count for less. That means that will head into another mindless paroxysm of greed, followed by collapse and debt fueled recovery.
That is one of the lessons of the Jacksonian democracy of the 1820s: that as a society democratizes and anyone can climb to the top, a tidal wave of optimism and aggressive energy is released that can destabilize the economy and propel a country deeper into imperialism/expansion.