Quote:
Originally Posted by saffronleaf
In the US it feels like the existence of a pan-Asian identity depends on whether the subgroups have sufficient numbers to perform certain functions. For example, in a metropolitan area like Denver which has few Asians, you tend to find South Asians, Southeast Asians and East Asians represented in groups like the Asian American Chamber of Commerce, the Asia-Pacific American Law Students Association, the Asia-Pacific American Bar Association, and in organized events on places like meetup.com. In those cases, there appears to be some sort of Pan-Asian identity.
Conversely, places like the San Francisco Bay Area tend to have large enough South Asian, Southeast Asian and East Asian populations that they have thriving subgroups, including for example the South Asian Law Students Association (separate from the Asia-Pacific Law Students Association, which is mostly East Asians). I think in places like that a Pan-Asian identity is weaker.
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True, in places like the Greater Toronto and Greater Vancouver areas, there are few organizations representing "Asians" as an umbrella group as a whole, where each individual subgroup probably has its own identity groups and associations. I wonder if Pan-Asian identity exists in provinces or cities in Canada though with smaller Asian populations.
The Bay Area as you mention is probably similar, though to be fair that's the region in the US where a collective Asian American identity (that started to see themselves as Asian Americans specifically, rather than individual immigrant groups) got its beginnings in the 1960s to start with, especially with university students, like those at Berkeley. The
Asian American movement at the time was responsible for coming up with "Asian American" instead of "Oriental" as a term which they felt was derogatory and reflected the attitudes of the past, and back then the movement included ideas like solidarity with other American minority groups, solidarity with the Third World and anti-colonialism, and the anti-Vietnam war movements.
I think there really wasn't as much of a university student-led equivalent of an "Asian American" movement in Canada. Even today, stateside, it appears that an Asian American identity is often heavily associated with colleges/universities, where there are Asian American sororities and fraternities, ethnic studies etc. which there are a lot fewer of in Canada.