ABSTRACT
According to the U.S. Census 2000, there are about 11.9 million Asians in the United States, which represent 4.2% of the total U.S. population. For various reasons, domestic violence within Asian communities tends to shy away from the view of the mainstream society. Nevertheless, as in many cultures, domestic violence is not uncommon within Asian cultures. Thousands of women within Asian American communities have been adversely impacted as victims of domestic violence in their lives and development. Since the rise of the feminist approach in criminological research in the 1970s, awareness and concerns of domestic violence have been growing within the Asian communities, as in other ethnic communities. Due to limitations of data on other types of domestic violence within Asian communities, such as child abuse, the discussion of domestic violence in the present chapter will be centered on violence between intimate partners.
