By Fiona Lu

Asian American (AA) and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) communities have historically been overgeneralized into one racial category. This has minimized the individual struggles of each ethnic group, including disparities in poverty levels and health outcomes across multiple populations. For instance, data from KFF shows that 63 percent of Marshallese live at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty line, while as little as 12 percent of Indian Americans do. As the most ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse group in the United States, the AA and NHPI populations often face distinctive challenges that require thoughtfully tailored services, such as addressing food insecurity.

The Model Minority Myth and Data Aggregation

The model minority myth is at the root of many forms of racial discrimination and invisibility AA communities face. The term was first used in the 1960s to label Japanese Americans as quiet, hardworking, and economically successful, despite Japanese American internment during World War II. The model minority label intended to frame Japanese Americans and, later, all AAs, as the antithesis of Black Americans, who were on the forefront of demanding justice during the Civil Rights Movement. The model minority myth masks the struggles of certain Asian ethnic groups or individual families that grapple with poverty, war trauma, and other challenges. NHPI communities, which are often conflated with AA communities, have their own histories of militarization and colonialism and face displacement from their indigenous lands. These socio-political histories manifest as challenges in attaining education, accessing quality jobs, combating health disparities, and increasing incarceration rates.

To counter the cultural overgeneralization that AAs and NHPIs face, there have been demands to disaggregate data about various AA and NHPI groups. Although the U.S. Census has considered NHPIs as a separate racial category since 1997, many other forms of data collection do not. Disaggregating data can highlight specific disparities the NHPI community faces, such as that in 2020, the average median household income was $91,989 for AAs and $66,406 for NHPIs.

How Food Insecurity Affects AA and NHPI Populations

Just as AA and NHPI populations have the greatest wealth gap, food insecurity is also stratified among various ethnic groups. The 2014 National Health Interview Survey and Data revealed that as many as 1 in 5 (20.5 percent) NHPI adults had experienced food insecurity. Data also analyzed from the California Health Interview Survey about six AA subgroups (Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Filipino, Korean, and South Asian) found that Japanese Californians experienced the lowest levels of food insecurity at 2.28 percent, while Vietnamese Californians experienced the highest levels of food insecurity at 16.42 percent.

Some factors that are particularly correlated with higher levels of food insecurity for AAs and NHPIs include whether individuals are foreign-born, undocumented, older, or have limited English proficiency. These findings highlight the urgent need for more services tailored toward serving vulnerable AAs and NHPIs, who often face language barriers, cultural stigmas, and limited access to resources when seeking help.

The Challenges in Tackling AA and NHPI Food Insecurity

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the most widespread and effective tool for fighting hunger. However, AA and NHPI communities encounter significant barriers to utilizing SNAP, and their participation rates are significantly lower than the U.S. average. Although 25.1 percent of Malaysian Americans experience poverty compared to 15.5 percent of all Americans, only 3.2 percent are enrolled in SNAP, compared to 13.7 percent of the U.S. population. In a qualitative study focusing on Chinese, Filipino, Tongan, and Vietnamese populations in the Greater Los Angeles region, researchers found both structural and cultural barriers to enrolling in California’s SNAP program, including long applications, a lack of translation services, the social stigma of poverty, and a strong cultural emphasis on both family reliance and self-reliance.

How to Support Healthy Food Access for AA and NHPI Communities

Ensuring food security for AA and NHPI communities will require a holistic approach that engages policymakers, community organizations, agencies, and philanthropy, among others. Some examples of how to support food access include:

• Recruiting staff at local human services agencies that represent the cultural diversity of the AA and NHPI communities they serve.
• Equipping non-AA and non-NHPI staff with the resources and knowledge to support both communities.
• Providing resources and materials in the native languages of AA and NHPI populations, even if they do not reach the 5 percent mandatory threshold.
• Supporting AA and NHPI communities all over the country, not only those who live in areas with historically high percentages of AAs and NHPIs.
• Addressing the public charge “chilling effect,” which has left many immigrant communities unsure about their access to public benefits like SNAP.
• Supporting operators of smaller Asian grocery markets to receive approval to accept SNAP benefits in order to increase access to culturally appropriate foods for AA and NHPI SNAP participants.

Addressing food insecurity for our most vulnerable minority populations means understanding the cultural, social, and economic issues those communities face and what processes have shaped and continue to perpetuate them. For the AA and NHPI communities, this means engaging in intentional and culturally responsive solutions, from community engagement in data collection and policymaking to direct service.