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POLITICS-US: Minority Solidarity Undercut by Mistrust

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Dec 12 2007 (IPS) - Serious tensions between major minority groups in the United States persist, but strong majorities of citizens of African, Hispanic, and Asian origin or descent believe that relations between their communities are likely to improve over the next decade, according to a new survey released here Wednesday by a consortium of minority media outlets.

The survey, sponsored by California-based New American Media (NAM), found that negative stereotypes and distrust between the three groups are pervasive and that they remain largely segregated socially from each other.

While an average of about one in five respondents from the three groups said they had dated a white person, a significantly smaller percentage said they had dated anyone from the other two groups, according to the survey, titled “Deep Divisions, Shared Destiny”.

It also found major differences in attitudes about life in the U.S. between African Americans, on the one hand, and Hispanics and Asians, on the other.

The latter two groups, both of which have a much higher percentage of immigrants, were found to be far more likely to believe in the so-called “American Dream” – that hard work is rewarded and the society offers equal opportunity to all – than African Americans.

At the same time, Chinese respondents, who represent the largest and oldest Asian community in the U.S., were much more likely to share the scepticism of African Americans about the dream than their more recent Asian arrivals, particularly Vietnamese and Filipino Americans.

Respondents from all three groups, however, appeared to hold common values, including patriotism, the importance of religion or other forms of spirituality in their lives, and the conviction that family relations should take precedence over work or material gain.

And overwhelming majorities of all three groups believe that they share similar problems in the U.S. and need to work more closely together in advancing their status. Some seven out of 10 Hispanic- and Asian-American respondents also agreed with the proposition that their groups had benefited from the civil rights struggle led by African Americans.

The survey, the latest in a longstanding series by NAM, was designed to address inter-communal issues that, in the words of the pollster, Sergio Bendixen, “nobody wants to talk about”.

More than 1,100 respondents from all three groups were interviewed in the language of their choice – Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Vietnamese, or Tagalog, as well as English or Spanish – carried out in August and September. Due to limited funding, citizens of South Asian and Japanese descent, who together make up about 15 percent of the total Asian American population, were excluded from the survey.

Violence between African-American and Hispanic-American gangs in poor neighbourhoods of major U.S. cities and the 1992 Los Angeles riots in which some African Americans targeted Korean shops have gained headlines in the mainstream media, but relatively little has been done within the affected communities to address the source of the underlying tensions.

“The sponsors of the poll strongly believe the best way to move forward is by identifying the problems and initiating a dialogue that can bring ethnic groups closer together in their fight for equality and against discrimination,” said Sandy Close, executive editor and director of NAM, whose group works with hundreds of minority print and broadcast media. Ethnic media are read, heard, or viewed by about one in four U.S. adults, according to the most recent survey data.

About one in three U.S. citizens is either of African, Hispanic, or Asian origin or descent. With some 43 million people, Hispanics constitute the largest ethnic or cultural minority; African Americans rank second at about 40 million; Asian Americans account for about 15 million citizens, according to 2006 Census data.

Of the Hispanic respondents who took part in the survey, 55 percent were born outside the U.S., while 80 percent of Asian American respondents were foreign-born. By contrast, only 10 percent of African American respondents were not born here. Those percentages are generally consistent with each group’s general population.

Hispanic- and African-American respondents were roughly similar in both household income and educational attainment, while Asian-American respondents were significantly higher in both categories. And while more than two-thirds of Hispanic and African Americans said racial tension in the U.S. was a “very important” important problem, only about a third of Asians agreed.

The survey found that all three groups share negative stereotypes about the other two. Nearly half of both Hispanics and Asian Americans agreed with the statement, “I am generally afraid of African Americans because they are responsible for most of the crime.”

Similarly, nearly half of Hispanics and a small majority of African Americans agreed that “most Asian business owners do not treat us with respect,” while 51 percent of African Americans agreed that “Latin American immigrants are taking away jobs, housing and political power from the black community.” Only one-third of Asians, however, shared that view.

Moreover, all three groups appeared more trusting of whites than each other. Sixty-one percent of Hispanics, 54 percent of Asian Americans, and 47 percent of African Americans said they felt more comfortable doing business with whites than with members of the other two groups. An average of 35 percent of all three groups said they had no preference.

An even more dramatic illustration of inter-communal tensions came in response to a question about how respondents perceived the other groups. About one-third of African Americans said they had favourable impressions of the other two groups.

Twenty-three percent and 35 percent of Asian Americans said they had a positive view of African Americans and Hispanics, respectively. Among Hispanics, 28 percent said they perceived African Americans positively; 21 percent said they had a positive impression of Asian Americans.

“The poll reaffirms that while race relations between ethnic groups and whites grab the headlines, there are also serious racial problems between minority groups in America,” said Bendixen.

On life in the U.S., three out of four Hispanics and almost two out of three Asians said they “strongly agreed” with the proposition that “if you work hard, you will succeed” here. Similar differences in perception among the three groups were found on questions about the existence of equal opportunity and equity in the criminal justice system.

Still, the survey’s findings suggested strong support within each community to work together. About two-thirds of each of the respondent groups agreed with the proposition that the U.S. “would be a better country if there were more Blacks, Latinos, and Asians in positions of authority at universities, businesses, media, and government,” while a comparable percentage said intercommunal relations are likely to improve over the next three years. Seven of 10 respondents agreed that ethnic media should do more to bring communities together.

Richard Rodriguez, a Los Angeles-based author and prominent commentator on inter-communal relations, stressed that younger members of all three groups were increasingly identifying themselves more with styles and music than with their association with their ethnic or racial communities.

“Society is much more dynamic than these racial/ethnic labels suggest,” he said, adding that among younger adults, “there is an appetite for mixture.”