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.”