Psychology of Ethnic Minorities

The term “Asian American” can be used to reference over ten million or more Americans who can trace their ancestry to Asia, to more than some two dozen countries in Asia, or to a Pacific Island. The term includes people of diverse backgrounds. Some people, relative newcomers to the United States, some people who may be third, fourth, or fifth generation Californian. The term includes people of different ethnicities, different faiths, different linguistic backgrounds, and different walks of life. According to the 2000 census report, Asian Americans comprised approximately four percent of the nation's total population.

Asian Pacific Americans (APA's) have and continue to face several issues when it comes to their educational experience. Perhaps the main issue that APA's still face is actually the most ironic. In the past, Asian Pacific Americans were fighting prejudice, exclusion, and institutional discrimination that prevented them from even attending certain academic institutions and therefore receiving a fair education. But recently, APA's have been, and continue to be touted as the one ethnic minority group that has successfully overcome racism and achieved the American dream, primarily through education.

Commonly perceived as being the "model minority", Asian Pacific Americans are often viewed as the minority group with little or no social or psychological problems, are not typically thought of as economically disadvantaged, and have successfully integrated into all walks of society, unlike other ethnic minority groups. This myth has been systematically used to justify the denial of federal funding, preferences in college/university admissions, and special programs that benefit ethnic minority populations. Furthermore, this myth has been used to deny that racism towards this population exists.

The issue of student perceptions concerning affirmative action policies in higher education has been at the forefront of controversy among ethnic minority groups within the past few decades. Moreover, there has been much debate surrounding the issues of Asian Pacific Americans and affirmative action, much of it – or I should say some of it – tending to suggest that APA's are victims of affirmative action policies. However, despite several research studies on the attitudes of college students' toward affirmative action and diversity, Asian Pacific Americans attitudes and perceptions are very often overlooked and are only typically discussed when compared to research findings regarding other ethnic minority groups.

Karen Kurotsuchi Inkela's article, Diversity's missing minority: Asian American undergraduates' attitudes toward affirmative action (2003), examined the affirmative action attitudes of Asian Pacific American (APA) college students and the personal characteristics and facets of the college experience that influence their beliefs. Inkela (2003) examined the growing number of APA college student enrollment within the last thirty years at various colleges and universities where affirmative action has been highly contested. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education (1998), APA students comprise between one-quarter and one-third of enrollment at several of the most selective college and universities across the United States. With these numbers projected to expand well in to the 21st century, Inkela's study on the racial attitudes of APA students is extremely significant for faculty, administrators, and student affairs professionals.

Most research on Asian Pacific American college students indicate their reactions to affirmative action policies in higher education vary. Furthermore, these studies also suggest that APA students have multiple views on affirmative action and that their views may be influenced context. Inkela's study examined a number of both sociological and psychological theories, as well as incorporates an extensive literature review to help gain insight on how individuals react to affirmative action according to how they perceive their own self-interests. The combination of social-psychological literature strengthens this study by hypothesizing the relationship between the Asian Pacific American college student's stage of racial identity development and his/her racial attitudes. Based on the review of literature in this study, one can conclude that there is not one single factor, but a multitude of factors that greatly impact one's views toward affirmative action.

Inkela combined these sociological and psychological theories with Astin's (1993) inputs-environment outcomes (I-E-O) model and the Weidman's (1989) undergraduate socialization model as the foundation for the study's conceptual framework. This organizational framework measured the impact of Asian Pacific American college students' experiences and the impact