New Bill Aims to Differentiate New York's Asian-American Groups

by Angelina Chavez | 03/08/2013 | 6:22pm

New Bill Aims to Differentiate New York's Asian-American Groups

Assemblyman Ron Kim and Senator Toby Stavisky say the bill would allow for better dissemination of services to New York's Asian-American communities.

Some elected officials in New York want state agencies to be more specific when it comes to identifying Asian- American groups. WFUV’s Angelina Chavez has more.

New York has a diverse Asian-American population. But, Assemblyman Ron Kim and Senator Toby Stavisky say state agencies do not recognize the differences between Asian- American groups when collecting demographic data. That is why they are pushing a so-called Demographic Disaggregation bill. It will require state agencies to differentiate Asians from Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders.

Senator Stavisky represents parts of Queens. She says lumping together these different linguistic and ethnic groups is not accurate and does not help communities.   

“If there’s funding that’s going to be allocated for people who speak Chinese, we ought to know how many people there are. We don’t know how many people we’re dealing with right now,” said Stavisky.

According to Stavisky there are 1.6 million Asian- Pacific Americans in New York.

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