Compare/Contrast 3 Asian American Groups - Essay Example

Filipino Americans are 2.4 million, while Southeast Asian Americans number more than 2.1 million, with the largest group being Vietnamese Americans who number more than 1.4 million as of 2008 (Schaefer, 2006). b) Similarities and Differences in terms of their American Experience Asian Indians are recent immigrants. Between 1820 and 1965, only 17,000 arrived to the United States, with a large percentage arriving before 1917 (Schaefer, 2006). These early groups were subjected to anti-Asian measures similar to those that controlled Chinese immigration.

For instance, in 1923 the Supreme Court ruled that Asian Indians could not become naturalized citizens of the USA, since they were not white and were therefore excluded under a 1917 regulation that applied to all Asian natives. This restriction went on until 1946. Despite ignoring nationality preferences, immigration law favored the skilled. This meant that the Asian Indians who arrived from the 60s to the 80s tended to be educated, urban, and English-speaking. More than twice the percentage of Asian Indians aged 25 and above had college degrees, in comparison with the general population.

Families like these underwent a smooth transition from life in India to the American way of life (Schaefer, 2006). They normally settled in urban areas with universities or medical centers. Early in their migration they trooped to the Northeast, but by 1990, California had leapfrogged New York as the state with the largest population of Asian Indians. The growth of the information technology industry of Silicon Valley was also instrumental in increasing the population of Asian Indian professionals in the states Northeast.

Recent immigrants who have been sponsored by their relatives, who immigrated earlier, show less conversance with English, and the training they receive tends to be less easily suited to the US workplace. They are more likely to secure employment in service industries, often with members of their extended families. They are usually in positions that most Americans decline due to the long hours, vulnerability to crime, and the 7-day workweek (Schaefer, 2006). As a result, Asian Indians are as likely to be physicians or college lecturers as they are to be taxi drivers or motel or convenience store managers.

Asian Indians view service industries as transitional occupations that serve to familiarize them with the United States and to provide them with the finances they require to achieve economic independence. Documentary evidence shows that Filipino immigrants have been arriving in the United States since the 18th century. Their numbers were small but large enough to create a village, referred to as a Manila Village along the coast of Louisiana around 1750. Filipino numbers increased after the United States occupied the Philippine Islands in 1899 after the conclusion of the Spanish-American War.

Apart from serving as the United States’ colonial subjects, the Filipinos were heavily recruited into the military, serving in selected positions (the Navy sent them to work in the kitchens). Filipino veterans of the second