One and Many Asian America: Intra-Asian Ethnic Boundaries and Intermarriage

Abstract

As a racialized pan-ethnic group, Asian Americans exhibit ethnically heterogeneous structural and cultural characteristics, but such heterogeneity and its implications for Asian Americans’ pan-ethnic groupness were seldom explored empirically. Using the American Community Survey and the 2016 National Asian American Survey datasets, this paper examines intra-Asian symbolic and socioeconomic boundaries and boundary processes captured in Asian interethnic marriage. I find prominent intra-Asian boundaries distinguishing exceptionally disadvantaged refugee-origin Southeast Asians, yet intra-Asian marriages still occur across these boundaries. This mismatch between intra-Asian boundaries and marriage patterns reflects loose and often unstable interpretations of ethnic similarities and differences. Together, my findings reveal Asian Americans’ contextually salient interpretations of ethnic heterogeneity behind intra-Asian boundary processes, which further reinforce the socially constructed notion of Asian Americans as a racialized group.