Map of the Day: Where the Asians At?

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Did you know that May is Asian heritage month? Well, you do now. To celebrate, take a look at this great set of demographics collected by the Gotham Gazette. Some facts: Chinese, Indians, and Koreans are the leading Asian groups in the Tri-State area. Filipinos, Taiwanese, and Sri Lankens make the highest wages. Filipinos, Indians, Pakistanis, and Sri Lankens speak the best English (some credit for that should probably be given to oppressive policies of British colonialism.) [Via NYC Metblogs.]

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I think your parenthetical statement "some credit for that should probably be given to oppressive policies of British colonialism" needs some clarification. Have we forgeten about American colonialism in the Philippines?

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The Philippines were actually an American colony not a British one.

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seems like there are less and less japanese in the U.S. each year

Thank you Toby! I'm so glad someone else is also pointing that out.

Ah, but Americans don't speak English. Ask any Brit. We speak American, which only vaguely resembles the Queen's English. So to say we can teach anyone how to speak proper English is a stretch.

ummm. The philippines were actually a spanish colony, not an american one or british, toby. That' why they all have spanish last names.

hell, the british don't even speak the queen's english. they are all a bunch of chavs and speak some crappy cockney.

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JO Mamm, the last colonial opressor of the Philippines were the United States, hence the English language skills, but the orginal colonial opressor was Spain, hence the Spanish last names.

Hey, thanks, Jack. I've been wondering for weeks what the heck Cassandra/Rose said in the season premiere of Doctor Who. As a typical Yank, I haven't the foggiest about British slang and had no idea that she was saying she was a chav.

Um, wait. I didn't hear it. I wouldn't do something illegal like download Doctor Who episodes that haven't yet been aired in the US.

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As a matter of fact, the Filipinos were introduced to the English language by the British when they took over the Philippines from the Spanish in the late eighteenth century, but they didn't have a strong impact as with the Americans.

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Actually the British only stayed in the Philippines for a brief amount of time until the Spanish took the islands back. I just realized that.

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Oh, just stop it already. You are just as smart as the next post-er.

It seems more logical to me for folks from the indian subcontinent to be considered with arabs, middle easterners, and latinos than with Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans. This chart seems pretty arbitrary with who is considered asian and who is not. I don't think the organizing basis is countries that are in Asia with a significant population in the tri-state, because there's a lot more countries in Asia than the ones listed, many significantly bigger than Taiwan. Russia, for example. I imagine the vast majority of its land mass is in Asia. If Russians are white rather than european, seems reasonable to me that folks from the indian subcontinent are another race too. "Brown", "white", or whatever they prefer, but "asian" doesn't seem to capture it.

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but why would you categorize latinos with "arabs and middle easterners" when the former group is not a part of asia?

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