From the “Perpetual Foreigner” to the “Model Minority” to the New Transnational Elite

Asian Americans, now the fastest-growing racial minority group, have faced residential segregation. Asian Americans have experienced significant housing discrimination different than that of other people of color. After Asian immigrants were recruited as laborers, they were excluded and expelled at the U.S. border and through wartime internment. Chinese Americans and Japanese Americans, as well as communities arriving later, have sought to form ethnic enclaves such as Chinatowns and Nihonmachi, respectively. With contemporary white flight from predominantly Asian ethnoburbs, Asian Americans remain socially isolated but to a lesser extent than African Americans and Hispanics. One constant, however, is that the Asian American experience has long been shaped with race in mind.