Ong, Umemoto on Shortcomings of ‘Asian American’ Label

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Research Professor Paul Ong and Urban Planning Professor Karen Umemoto spoke to Vox about concerns that the broadness of the term “Asian American” erases and flattens many of the cultures it encompasses. Asian Americans comprise 50 ethnic groups with more than 100 languages, but using the label “Asian American” fuels the myth that the group is monolithic. Ong, director of the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge, explained that “Pacific Islanders were too small of a group in the mind of key decision-makers to report separately,” which led to their initial grouping as Asian Americans. Umemoto, director of UCLA’s Asian American Studies Center, added, “There has long been a problem of lumping all of the groups together, which makes Asian Americans look well-off by some measures when averaged out as a sociopolitical group. But we’re a bifurcated community, with wide differences in well-being within and across ethnic groups.”

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Ong Featured in APA Tribute to Groundbreaking Urbanists

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Paul Ong

The American Planning Association (APA) featured the work of UCLA Luskin Research Professor Paul Ong in a tribute to Asian American and Pacific Islander leaders who have shaped the nation’s history and communities. Ong, director of UCLA’s Center for Neighborhood Knowledge, was one of 12 planners, architects, historians and community organizers who have “influenced our built environment, fought for historical and cultural preservation, and championed social justice to help make great communities for all,” the association’s Planning magazine said. Ong joins a list including modernist architect I.M. Pei, statesman Norman Mineta, Vietnam Wall designer Maya Lin and racial justice attorney Manjusha Kulkarni, who co-founded the hate crime reporting center Stop AAPI Hate. As a UCLA researcher and educator, Ong has specialized in urban planning, social welfare and Asian American studies, with a focus on labor, environmental justice and immigration. Over the past year, Ong has examined the direct and indirect impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on people and communities as part of the COVID-19 Equity Research Initiative at the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge. The initiative focuses on systemic racial and class inequalities with the goal of developing insights that will lead to a just and fair recovery. The APA said its list of honorees, compiled in consultation with Asian American Studies scholars, is “intended to shine a spotlight on the many ways that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have built careers in service of their communities, especially in the face of adversity.”

Ong Highlights Economic Obstacles Facing Asian Americans

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Paul Ong, director of the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge at UCLA Luskin, was cited in Los Angeles Times and USA Today articles about economic hardships among Asian Americans in the United States. Many hotels, restaurants, shopping centers and beauty salons were forced to close at the beginning of the pandemic, and a report by Ong found that Asian Americans accounted for one in four workers within those sectors. Now, long-term unemployment levels among Asian Americans have been exacerbated by a surge in anti-Asian sentiment. Among all racial and ethnic groups in the United States, Asians have the largest income gap between the top and bottom 10%, and this trend has been accelerated by the economic shutdown caused by the pandemic. Ong explained that Los Angeles’ Chinatown “was hit earlier, even before the lockdowns, and it lost much more business and has recovered much more slowly,” a trend also seen in New York and San Francisco.

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Ong on Increasing Asian American Representation in Biden Administration

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Director of the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge Paul Ong spoke to NBC News about his hopes for increasing Asian American representation in the Biden administration. The White House announced the creation of a new position, Asian American and Pacific Islander liaison, to ensure that the community’s voice is further represented and heard. Details of the duties and responsibilities of the position have not yet been announced, but Ong said the liaison will be effective only if given direct access to key decision-makers in the administration. In addition, he said, a staff is needed to ensure coverage of vital issues to the AAPI community, including education, civil rights, the economy and housing. “Appointing an AAPI liaison could be one of the much-needed solutions to ensure fair and adequate AAPI participation in the administration, but it is critical that the role is impactful and not window dressing,” he said.

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Report Highlights Pandemic’s Racial Disparities

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A San Diego Union-Tribune article cited a report by the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy and Center for Neighborhood Knowledge (CNK) that highlighted the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Latinos and other minorities in California. Latinos account for nearly half of the San Diego County residents infected by COVID-19 in the past year, but only 1 in 5 people vaccinated so far are Latino. CNK Director Paul Ong authored the report, which found that “Blacks and Latinos in California were more than twice as likely to have trouble making monthly rent payments than white people.” The report also pointed out that 23% of those who could not pay rent in the initial months of the pandemic were Black and 20% were Latino. “These systematic racial or ethno-racial disparities are the product of systemic inequality,” Ong wrote. “People of color, low-income individuals, and those with less education and skills are most at risk.”

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Asian American Businesses Hit Disproportionately Hard, Ong Finds

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A report co-authored by Paul Ong, director of the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge at UCLA Luskin, was featured in a CNN article about combating anti-Asian hate and racism. Asian Americans have been the victims of verbal, physical and economic attacks across the country. One study found that anti-Asian hate crimes have more than doubled during the pandemic. Ong’s report, a collaboration between the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge and the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, summarized the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Asian Americans. The report explained that Asian American businesses felt the economic impact of the pandemic earlier and more deeply than others because of xenophobia and racialized blaming. “Unemployment severely impacted the more disadvantaged Asian Americans,” Ong wrote. While many businesses have struggled during the pandemic, discrimination has exacerbated the impact on Asian American businesses.

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Built Environment Vulnerability and COVID-19

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In response to the current public health crisis and racial climate, the UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge launched the COVID-19 Equity Research Initiative in March 2020 to analyze systemic inequality and the pandemic’s impact on the way we live, work, learn, shop, and socialize. The Initiative’s early efforts have empirically and quantitatively examined the direct and indirect impacts of COVID-19 on people and neighborhoods. Newer efforts focus on research to inform a just recovery.

In this seminar, research professor and CNK Director Professor Paul Ong will present a talk that builds on the Initiative’s body of work examining the possible relationship between infections and the built environment (crowding, household composition, building density, neighborhood density, and availability of open space).  We hope you can join us!

Black Mayors and Leadership In the United States

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Can America rewrite its future? As part of a timely virtual series, Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka offers answers on the #wealthgap. Presented by the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues and the Department of African American Studies and African Diaspora Studies at UC Berkeley with the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Paul Ong, research professor and director of the UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge, will discuss “The Wealth Gap” on Wednesday, March 10 at 12 PM PST with Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka and other panelists on the second part of this series “Black Mayors & Leadership in the United States.”

For more details, access the event page here at: https://issi.berkeley.edu/BlackMayors

Register for the FREE virtual event here at: https://berkeley.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_KoHAgP8MR1aXkmJHgoW6OQ

 

Ong on COVID-19 Relief for Vulnerable Businesses

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Paul Ong, director of the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge at UCLA Luskin, spoke to Marketplace about new rules guiding the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program. Since its inception, the COVID-19 relief program has distributed more than $600 billion in business loans, but those funds have disproportionately gone to larger, more established companies that are better able to navigate the application process. So for two weeks, the PPP will be open only to the smallest companies, ones that employ fewer than 20 people. While the change is an attempt to level the playing field, Ong said that prioritizing according to company size alone won’t address all disparities. He recommended targeting businesses in vulnerable neighborhoods, as previous rounds of PPP funding favored majority-white neighborhoods in California over communities of color. “I would like to see much more fine-tuning in terms of, how do we prioritize?” Ong said.

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Ong on Barriers to Securing Unemployment Benefits

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Paul Ong, director of the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge at UCLA Luskin, spoke to KQED about hurdles faced by marginalized communities attempting to secure unemployment benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ong cited the steep escalation of unemployment among Asian Americans, particularly less-educated, low-wage and immigrant workers. In addition to technology challenges, these groups face a significant language gap, he said. “If you go, for example, to California’s unemployment insurance website, it’s in English and there’s also a button for Spanish, but there’s no button for other languages,” he said. “They may provide other material so deeply embedded in the website I couldn’t find it. If I couldn’t find it, other people can’t.” Ong urged the state Employment Development Department to work closely with community groups and researchers “to understand in much more detail the magnitude and the patterns of these inequalities and what’s driving it.” The article provided several resources that provide multilingual assistance in applying for unemployment benefits.

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