ASIAN-AMERICAN STUDIESplurality ranking for all Asian groups placed the
Japanese at the top of the list in 1970; they dropped
to the third place in 1980, are expected to place
fourth in 1990, and to be ranked last by the
year 2000.
One more demographic fact is worthy of note.
Hawaii and the West Coast states continue to draw
large numbers of new immigrants from Asia.
Through a process known as ‘‘chain migration,’’
relatives are likely to follow the immigrants soon
after their arrival. This leads to sudden increases in
population within the ethnic enclaves. The post-
1965 pattern of population growth in many
Chinatowns, for instance, is an example of the
renewal and revitalization of ethnic communities—
which prior to 1965 were experiencing a decline—
as are the formation and expansion of Koreantowns,
Filipinotowns, and Little Saigons. Moreover, the
settlement of post-1965 immigrants from Asia is
more dispersed than that of the earlier groups,
owing to the fact that the need for professional
and skilled manpower is widely distributed through-
out the United States. The emergence of Thai,
Malaysian, and Vietnamese communities in major
metropolitan areas has added a new dimension to
the ethnic composition of Asian Americans.
Two separate chains of immigration resulted
from the new immigration legislation of 1965.
One chain, largely found in Chinese and Filipino
communities, is kin-selective in that the process of
settlement follows the family ties of earlier immi-
grants. The other process is occupation-selective,
based on skills and professional qualifications.
These two processes created significantly different
immigrant populations, with clearly discerned
bimodal distributions of status characteristics. It is
therefore common to find recent immigrants from
Asia among the high-income groups as well as
among the families living below the poverty level;
some find their homes in the ethnic enclaves of
central cities while others live in high-income sub-
urban communities. Any attempt to describe Asian
Americans by using average measures of social
status characteristics, such as income, education,
and occupation, can produce a distorted and mis-
leading profile that fits no particular group, which
can be misused by researchers and planners. A
more useful description would be the use of stand-
ard errors to show the polarities or deviations of
the immigrant group from the norm of the majority.
In short, the sociodemographic and socioeco-
nomic characteristics of all Asian American com-
munities since 1850 have been greatly influenced
by federal immigration legislation. A clear grasp of
the structure and change of Asian-American com-
munities must begin with an understanding of the
history of immigration legislation.ASIAN-AMERICAN RESEARCHAsian-American research may be divided into six
periods: (1) the early period before World War II,
which was influenced by, and was a part of, the
Chicago School of Sociology that focused on the
emergence of a multiethnic urban America. (2)
the World War II period, which saw a preponder-
ance of Japanese-American studies that also cen-
tered around the University of Chicago; (3) the
postwar era, with a strong emphasis on culture and
personality studies related to Japanese and Japa-
nese Americans; (4) a shift toward ‘‘ethnic’’ experi-
ence as a result of the civil rights movement; and
the emergence of a new academic course of Asian-
American studies and finally (5) the integration of
social science theories and concepts of ethnic
inequalities and the changing Asian-American vis-
ta in the 1980s and 1990s.The Early Period. The pioneer sociological
studies on the assimilation of immigrants in Ameri-
can urban communities may be attributed to the
work of Robert E. Park. Although Park had done
little empirical investigation, he had supervised a
large number of graduate students and had formu-
lated what was known as the theory of race cycle,
which stressed the unidirectional process of com-
petition, accommodation, and assimilation as the
basis of race relations in urban America. Park later
led a group of researchers to study Chinese and
Japanese communities on the Pacific Coast. The
results failed to prove the race-cycle theory. In
defending his views, according to Lyman (1977,
p.4), Park employed the Aristotelian doctrine of
‘‘obstacles,’’ which suggests that among Chinese
and Japanese the assimilation progress in the hy-
pothesized direction was only delayed.Early published sociological research on Asian
Americans included the works of Bogardus (1928,
1930), who attempted to delineate degrees of preju-
dice against minorities through an operational
concept of ‘‘social distance.’’ Other topics were