He arrival of Asia-Pacific Heritage Month in May led two Times data journalists to consider an unusual demographic pattern that is sometimes taken for granted by those who have lived in Southern California for a long period of time: the region's huge community of people who trace their roots to Asia and the Pacific Islands. Los Angeles neighborhoods, like those in the San Gabriel Valley, may be known nationally for their large Asian populations, but what is less known is how large they are and that “the 626” is far from the only large community AAPI in the region. .
Times data journalists turned to census data to begin quantifying the size and ethnic diversity of the group that has become the fastest-growing demographic in the United States. They were driven in part by lived experience as two first-generation Asian Americans who grew up in large AAPI communities: Kambhampati from central New Jersey, nearly 50% Asian and home to Little India, and Ylanan from Long Beach, Home to one of the county's largest Southeast Asian populations.
The analysis began with a search for historical summary statistics showing high-level information about Los Angeles County, only to discover that that type of data is not easily publicly available. Times journalists worked with the Los Angeles County Department of Internal Services to access both the Decennial Census and the American Community Survey to obtain the most detailed data possible at the Los Angeles census tract level.
The Census Bureau does not maintain all historical census data in digital format. After consulting with Census Bureau demographers, Los Angeles County demographers, and the Population Reference Bureau, the analysis was limited to tracts that used ACS data from 2000 and 2022. The Census has data suppression for smaller geographies to help de-identify data. The 1980 data come from the Decennial Census. as it had more detailed tables to understand demographic patterns. The Times then conducted its own spatial analysis, aggregating census data to fit the neighborhoods defined by Los Angeles Times Mapping Los Angeles Neighborhoods. For areas outside of Los Angeles, journalists obtained data from census reporter for counties at the census-designated place level.
The data is not free of errors: smaller geographies generate more uncertainty or margin of error in a group's estimated counts. As a result, not all ethnic groups were mapped.
To compare the neighborhoods of Los Angeles over time, journalists classified the data into groups of Asian and Pacific Island regions. Early census forms did not include categories for each racial group. In 1977, the Office of Management and Budget issued Directive 15, a policy that defined basic racial and ethnic categories for federal statistics. census forms by 1980 it included nine groups for Asians and Pacific Islanders. In 1997, the OMB revised those race and ethnicity standards to allow respondents to specify more than one race on their census form, allowing for a clearer picture of the country's growing multiracial population.
Updates to OMB census forms continue today. The current census has more than 40 categories, plus a write-in option for racial groups that may not have been included on the form. The WBO recently announced important revisions to racial and ethnic data standards in March, marking the first time that all federal agencies will be required to collect detailed data on race and ethnicity. As a result, many communities will be seen for the first time by federal agencies that impact programs and funding.
Population estimates are probably underestimates, especially for AAPI groups. In a survey conducted by the Census BureauAsian Americans reported a lower likelihood of completing the forms than other demographic groups, due in part to language barriers and lack of communication about the purpose of the census form.
The continuous disaggregation of data over time through the continuous addition of ethnic groups makes impossible the possibility of a comparison over several decades without some level of uncertainty. No data set is completely free from the possibility of error. He Time analysis This was due to rounding numbers, favoring percentages and discarding races that had a high margin of error. Census data still provide one of the best available population estimates of race and ethnicity, revealing, taken together, a rough estimate of how the Asian and Pacific Islander population has moved through Southern California.
Although many Asian and Pacific Islander ethnic groups have been added to government demographic counts since the 1980s, many communities remain unregistered. In 2020, the US Census Bureau added Sikh, a religious community, to the form. Previously, “Sikh” responses were classified as part of the Asian Indian category. More than 2,000 people identified as Sikh or a combination of Sikh in 2022 American Community Survey in southern California. Researchers say this is an undercount.
“It's a big step to even be able to write in 'Sikh' on the census,” he said. Tejpaul Bainiwal, PhD candidate at UC Riverside studying Sikh Americans.
Scholars and advocates point out that important demographic information is overlooked without further disaggregation of groups that identify as two or more races. While individuals can check multiple racial options, there are no published figures on the breakdown of specific multiethnic groups, and community advocates note that there are significant demographic differences between different multiracial populations.
Disaggregating multiracial groups allows researchers to detect changes in smaller demographic communities. More than 200,000 more people were identified as Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander in combination with one or more races than as NHPI alone.
Having detailed data on different racial groups in the United States allows policymakers and the public to understand how communities have grown or declined over time. These figures are the basis for decision-making at multiple levels of government, from the allocation of federal resources and funds to the division of seats in Congress and state legislatures. But they also serve as the first step in understanding how individuals shape their neighborhoods and how communities, in turn, shape the lives of the people who live in them.
Special thanks to Howin Song and Victor Chen of the Los Angeles County Department of Internal Services, who spent time with The Times explaining data limitations and pulling historical census data.
