Below is a solicitation for respondents for an online survey about parenting practices among Asian American fathers. As always, the announcement is provided for informational purposes and does not necessarily imply an endorsement of the research study being conducted.

My name is Zuzanna Molenda-Kostanski and I am a doctoral student in the Counseling Psychology Ph.D. program in the Department of Professional Psychology and Family Therapy at Seton Hall University. I am interested in gaining a better understanding of the experiences of Asian American men as fathers by exploring how certain factors, including acculturation, gender-role conflict and parenting self-efficacy may impact father’s involvement with children. I would like to invite you to participate in my study.

The study consists of a survey that is quick and easy to fill out. You can complete it online at your own convenience, and it may take approximately 15 minutes to complete.

Participation in this study is completely voluntary and anonymous. The survey will not ask you for any identifying information about you and you are free to withdraw at any time. Additionally, any information gathered from the study will be kept on a USB memory key and stored in a locked secure office that will only be accessible to myself and my research advisor, Dr. Laura Palmer.

If you are at least 18 years old and are willing to participate in this study please click on the following link:
https://shucehs.co1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_5uJYdeSa6QVoVrn
Your consent to participate in the study is indicated by clicking on the link and completing the survey. The survey will be running between August 2015 and January 2016.

If you have any questions about the study please feel free to contact me or my research adviser using the contact information provided below. This study has been approved by the Seton Hall University Institutional Review Board.

Thank you for your time and consideration of your participation in my study.

Zuzanna Molenda-Kostanski, M.A.
Counseling Psychology PhD Program
Seton Hall University
Zuzanna.molendakostanski@student.shu.edu

Laura Palmer, Ph.D.
Counseling Psychology PhD Program Seton Hall University
psych@drlaurapalmer.org

Mary F. Ruzicka, Ph.D.
Director of Institutional Review Board
Seton Hall University
Mary.Ruzicka@shu.edu

Here are some more announcements, links, and job postings about academic-related jobs, fellowships, and other opportunities for those interested in racial/ethnic/diversity issues, with a particular focus on Asian Americans. As always, the announcements and links are provided for informational purposes and do not necessarily imply an endorsement of the organization or college involved.

Postdoc: Diversity and Educational Policy, Univ. of Delaware

The President’s Diversity Initiative at the University of Delaware, in collaboration with the Center for the Study of Diversity, invites applications from recent Ph.D. graduates for two postdoctoral positions. The purpose is to promote early career scholars who are doing work that furthers our understanding of diversity. We are particularly interested in those who can contribute to the interdisciplinary understanding in any of the following areas:

Diversity, Access, and Educational Policy
Health, Environment, and Social Inequalities

These positions will be awarded for a one year period, appointment for September 1, 2013 through August 31, 2014, renewable for a second year. Postdoctoral scholars will work with senior mentors and peers and will be expected to teach one course during each year in residence, as well as participating in faculty development opportunities provided by the Office of the President’s Diversity Initiative. The time in residence will include mentoring experiences that will help these scholars publish their scholarly work, develop strong teaching skills, and learn about funding opportunities.

Postdoctoral scholars will be expected to engage with the activities of the Center for the Study of Diversity and may also be affiliated with other Centers/Institutes at the University, depending on the area of research. These scholars will be expected to share their work with other UD faculty either by a formal lecture, colloquium, or other appropriate venue.

All requirements for the Ph.D. must be completed before the start date, with strong preference for those who have earned their degree within the last two years. Applicants must not have another employment obligation to follow this appointment. Postdoctoral scholars will receive a salary of $60,000 plus University health care benefits. Postdoctoral scholars will have full access to the University of Delaware Library and will be given $5000 in support for research and /or professional travel expenses, as well as a computer and full access to the university IT resources. The term for these positions extends from September 1, 2013 until August 31, 2014.

Applications will be evaluated based on:

• The quality of the applicant’s research scholarship
• The significance of the applicant’s research for the interdisciplinary study of diversity
• The ability to benefit from collaboration with colleagues at the University of Delaware
• The contribution candidates are likely to make to higher education in the future through teaching, research, and professional service
• Demonstrated accomplishments in working with diverse populations

Applicants must submit all of the following information as one pdf document to http://www.udel.edu/udjobs/ by February 1, 2013:

1. Academic vitae.
2. A statement of no more than 1,500 words describing the proposed research project(s) to be completed while in residency, including how the candidate meets the criteria listed above; the statement should include a statement about the match between the candidate’s work and that of faculty mentors at the University of Delaware with whom the candidate would like to be affiliated.
3. Contact information for three references (at least one from someone who was not a dissertation supervisor); please do not send letters with the application.

Incomplete applications will not be considered. Postdoctoral scholars must not have accepted employment elsewhere.

Doctoral Fellowship: Policy, Migration, & Gender, Univ. of Utahh

Presidential Fellowship in Sociology
State Policy, Migration & Gender
Utah State University

The Sociology Program at Utah State University seeks applicants for a Presidential Doctoral Research Fellow with research interests in state policy, migration and gender. The Presidential Fellow will receive an annual stipend of $20,000 for four years. Qualified applicants will have an MS in sociology or a related field, GRE scores above the 70th percentile and a cumulative GPA above 3.5. The Presidential Fellow will work closely with sociology faculty on one of several on-going research projects related to policy, migration and gender.

Applicants should complete an application and provide a letter of intent outlining one’s research interests, curriculum vitae, a writing sample, official transcripts and GRE scores and three letters of reference. To apply for the position go to http://sociology.usu.edu/grad summary.aspx. We will begin reviewing applicants on February 1, 2013 and will continue until a qualified candidate has been selected. The Sociology Program is committed to excellence through diversity, and we strongly encourage applications from women, persons of color, ethnic minorities, international students, veterans and persons with disabilities.

Fellowship: Asian American Studies, UCLA

The Institute of American Cultures, in conjunction with the Asian American Studies Center, invites applications for support of research on Asian Americans for 2013-2014.

Applications must be received no later than 5:00 p.m., Wednesday, February 6, 2013, at the Asian American Studies Center, 3230 Campbell Hall. Awards will be announced in April. Application forms and additional information are available On-Line at: http://www.iac.ucla.edu/docs/2013-2014/Visiting%20Scholars%20Application.pdf

Fellowship Period: October 1, 2013 through June 30, 2014.

Visiting Scholar and Researcher Fellowship Program
The UCLA Institute of American Cultures (IAC), in cooperation with UCLA’s four Ethnic Studies Research Centers (American Indian Studies Center, Asian American Studies Center, Bunche Center for African American Studies, Chicano Studies Research Center) offers fellowships to visiting scholars and researchers to support research on African Americans, American Indians, Asian Americans, and Chicanas/os.

Visiting Scholar appointments are for persons who currently hold permanent academic appointments and Visiting Researcher are for newly degreed scholars. Applicants must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents and hold a Ph.D. from an accredited college or university at the time of appointment. UCLA faculty, staff, and currently enrolled students are not eligible to apply.

IAC Visiting Scholars/Researchers will receive up to a 9-month academic-year stipend of $32,000 to $35,000 (contingent upon rank, experience, and date of completion of their terminal degree) and will receive health benefits. For Visiting Scholars, these funds can be used to supplement sabbatical support for a total that does not exceed the candidate’s current institutional salary.

Visiting Scholars will be paid through their home institutions and will be expected to continue their health benefits through that source as well; Visiting Researchers will be paid directly by UCLA. All awardees can receive up to $4,000 in research support (through reimbursements of research expenses), $1,000 of which may be applied toward relocation expenses. In the event that an award is for less than the 9-month appointment, the stipend will be prorated in accordance with the actual length of the award.

Please see attachment for more information or contact AASC’s IAC Coordinator, Melany De La Cruz-Viesca, at melanyd@ucla.edu.

Call for Papers: Indonesian Studies Conference, Yale

Call for Papers: 10th Biannual Northeast Conference on Indonesian Studies

Yale Indonesia Forum (YIF) and Cornell Indonesian Association (CIA) invite submissions for their 10th Northeastern Student Conference on Indonesia. This event will be held on March 29 – 30, 2013, with a workshop by invited scholars on the first day and a student conference at Henry R. Luce Hall, Yale University on the second day.

We welcome submissions from graduate and undergraduate students at any stage engaged in original research related to Indonesia. The theme of the conference is ‘Social Dynamics of Sustainable Development in Indonesia’ and participants are encouraged to discuss the impact of development, broadly interpreted, on societies, environment, language, ideologies, public policy and other aspects. Papers related to a wide variety of subjects related to this theme are encouraged.

Interested participants should submit abstracts to the following email address: northeastconference10@gmail.com. All abstracts should be limited to 250 words and sent in MS Word format. Please name your abstract using your first initial and last name (for example, jsmith.doc for John Smith’s abstract). The subject of the message should specify “Abstract” and the body should include the following information:

• Author’s name(s), affiliation(s) and a primary email address
• Title of paper
• Paper topic and at least 2 keywords

Submission Deadline: February 22nd, 2013

The Yale Indonesia Graduate Committee will review the abstracts, select presenters, and organize sessions by theme. Selected authors will present their work as part of a panel at the conference and paper abstracts will be included in the Conference Program. Notification of Acceptance: February 29th, 2013. Confirmation of Attendance: March 4th, 2013.

We regret that no travel subventions are available for participants in the conference and encourage applicants to seek travel funding from their home institutions. YIF will provide presenters with one night’s accommodation in New Haven. Please contact the organizers at northeastconference10@gmail.com with any questions.

Sponsored by the
Council on Southeast Asia Studies, Yale University

Conference Co-Coordinators:
Rauf Prasodjo, Corey Pattison and Faizah Zakaria, Yale University

Visiting Position: Asian American Studies, CUNY

The City University of New York is seeking job applicants for the CUNY Thomas Tam Visiting Professorship for the 2013-2014 academic year. The City University of New York is hiring a Visiting Professor at the senior faculty level of full or associate professor for the Dr. Thomas Tam Visiting Professorship in Asian-American Studies. Applications are due February 28, 2013.

The Dr. Thomas Tam Visiting Professor will be based at one of the four City University of New York campuses participating in the search, Brooklyn College, Hunter College, Queens College or the Graduate Center. He or she will teach one class a semester at that campus and will engage with students and faculty members during the appointment. The Dr. Thomas Tam Visiting Professor will participate in public events designed to raise the visibility of scholarship in Asian American studies. This will include working closely with CUNY’s Asian American/Asian Research Institute (AAARI), a University-wide institute that promotes undergraduate and graduate education in Asian-American studies and educates civic, business, academic leaders, and the general public, on issues of concern to the Asian American community.

This distinctive position presents an opportunity for a leading scholar to work in New York City’s diverse and dynamic environment while also working with AAARI and CUNY faculty to develop and enrich the CUNY research agenda in Asian American studies. The search committee contains representatives of the four CUNY colleges involved in the search, with appointment to a particular college dependent on the candidate’s fit with that college’s goals and academic priorities.

Qualifications: Ph.D. degree in area(s) of experience or equivalent. Also required are the ability to teach successfully, demonstrated scholarship or achievement, and ability to cooperate with others for the good of the institution. Substantial research experience, expertise and publications on the Asian American experience are required. Areas of focus may include: trends and evolution of Asian American communities, civic and political engagement, entrepreneurship and economic development, religious and ethnic identity, gender and sexuality, intergenerational relations, critical race theory, diaspora and transnational experiences and communities and others.

Fellowship: Diversity and Education, UConn

Diversity Dissertation and Post MFA In-Residence Fellowship

The University of Connecticut is pleased to announce a call for applications for the first Pre-doctoral In-Residence Fellowship to advance diversity in higher education. The program will support scholars from other universities while they complete their dissertation or post-MFA study for the term of an academic year. Fellows will have access to outstanding resources, faculty expertise, mentoring and other professional development opportunities.

The Asian American Studies Institute, Institute for African American Studies, Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean and Latin American Studies, and the Women, Gender and Sexualities Program will each host one fellow in-residence per year, for a total of four fellowships awarded annually. The faculty in the host institutes currently hold joint-appointments in three different schools at the University: The Neag School of Education, School of Fine Arts, and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. All fellows will be appointed jointly between an institute and one of these Schools and College.

The program will provide a stipend of $27,000, medical and dental benefits, office space, library privileges, and computer access. A research/travel budget of $3,000 is also included. As part of the program terms, the fellows must be at the University of Connecticut for the duration of the fellowship and will be expected to teach one class and share their work in a public forum.

The four Fellowships will be awarded on the basis of academic achievement and merit, and must meet several eligibility requirements. Applicants must:

• Be a US citizen or permanent resident
• Be enrolled in a PhD program or be within one year post-MFA in the liberal arts and sciences, fine arts, or education at schools other than UConn
• Be conducting research in an area that can contribute to any of the following: Asian American Studies; African American Studies; Latina/o, Caribbean and Latin American Studies; or Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies
• Have passed their PhD qualifying examination and be in either the research or writing phase of an approved dissertation or in the case of post-MFA have a project to be completed within the term of a year
• Have a demonstrated commitment to the advancement of diversity and to increasing opportunities for underrepresented or disadvantaged groups

All candidates should submit the following:

• Cover letter
• Full curriculum vitae
• A two-page teaching statement
• PhD project description outlining the scope of the project, its larger significance, methodology, and timetable for completion
• Appropriate example of recent work not to exceed 20 pages
• Identification of the academic unit to where the application is directed:
  • Asian American Studies Institute
  • Institute for African American Studies
  • Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean and Latin American Studies
  • Women, Gender and Sexualities Program
• Three confidential letters of recommendation, one of which is from the academic advisor, sent directly in electronic form from the referees with the applicant’s name in the subject line

Post-MFA applicants should include an appropriate project description:

• Choreographers/Dances: documentation of performance
• Film and Video: links to works
• Musicians: complete list of works or significant performances
• Theatre Artists: sample of design portfolio
• Visual Artists: 20 images
• Writers: 2-3 short stories, 10-15 poems, or novel passages not to exceed 50 pages

Recipients of the In-Residence Fellowship will be appointed by the Vice Provost for Diversity upon the recommendation of a faculty selection committee in consultation with appropriate departments. All applications must be sent electronically no later than March 1, 2013 to: Courtney.wiley@uconn.edu under subject heading, “In-Residence Fellowship”

Call for Proposals: Immigration, Univ. of Arizona

Request for Proposals in Immigration Research

The National Center for Border Security and Immigration (BORDERS), headquartered at the University of Arizona, is pleased to announce a competitive research opportunity to address current challenges in immigration studies.

Each project will be funded at approximately $100,000. The performance period is one year and will begin on June 1, 2013. Proposals are due March 1, 2013.

This effort, sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of University Programs (OUP), invites qualified researchers to propose projects that will provide DHS stakeholders, policy-makers and the public with contemporary and innovative research that addresses current research challenges in immigration studies.

Through this Request for Proposals (RFP), BORDERS encourages proposals for research that will inform the public as well as assist the government in effectively managing the nation’s immigration system. BORDERS is seeking proposals in the following five broad topic areas:

• Impacts of Enforcement on Unauthorized Flows
• Population Dynamics
• Immigration Policy
• Immigration Administration
• Civic Integration and Citizenship

BORDERS is a consortium of 16 premier institutions headquartered at the University of Arizona whose mission is to provide scientific knowledge, develop technologies and techniques, and evaluate policies to meet the challenges of border security and immigration. For more information about the Center please visit.

Position: Asian American History, Oberlin College

The Comparative American Studies Program at Oberlin College invites applications for a full-time non-continuing faculty position in the College of Arts and Sciences. Appointment to this position will be for a term of one year, beginning in the Fall semester of 2013, and will carry the rank of Visiting Assistant Professor.

The incumbent will teach a total of five courses in Asian American History. For this position, preference will be given to candidates with training in history and related interdisciplinary fields with research and teaching interests in comparative approaches to race and ethnicity, immigration history, transnational social movements, gender and sexuality, and/or urban history. The Comparative American Studies Program is committed to interdisciplinary and theoretically informed intersectional pedagogy at the undergraduate level. Faculty are expected to integrate issues of gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and citizenship within comparative and/or transnational frames throughout their teaching.

Among the qualifications required for the appointment is the Ph.D. degree (in hand or expected by the first semester of 2013). Candidates must demonstrate interest and potential excellence in undergraduate teaching. Successful teaching experience at the college level is desirable.

To be assured of consideration, a letter of application, including a curriculum vitae, graduate academic transcripts, course syllabi if available, title and brief descriptions of 2-3 courses the candidate could teach, and at least three recent letters of reference should be sent to: CAST AAST Search Committee, Comparative American Studies Program, Oberlin College, 10 N. Professor Street, King 141D, Oberlin, OH 44074 (Phone: 440-775-5290; fax 440-775-8644) by March 15, 2013. Application materials received after that date may be considered until the position is filled.

Call for Submissions: Women, Gender, and Families of Color

Women, Gender, and Families of Color (WGFC) invites submissions for upcoming issues.

WGFC is a new multidisciplinary journal that centers the study of Black, Latina/o, Indigenous, and Asian American women, gender, and families. Within this framework, the journal encourages theoretical and empirical research from history, the social and behavioral sciences, and humanities including comparative and transnational research, and analyses of domestic social, cultural, political, and economic policies and practices.

The journal has a rolling submission policy and welcomes manuscripts, proposals for guest-edited special issues, and book reviews at any time. Manuscripts accepted for review receive an editorial decision within an average of 45-60.

Photo: anemoneprojectors (Peter O). Flickr/Creative Commons.

My colleague Leta Hong Fincher published an op-ed in the New York Times yesterday about China’s “leftover women,” or shengnü (剩女). “Leftover women” is a very direct translation–the character 剩 is the same as in shengcai, or leftover food.

The confluence of a traditional preference for boys over girls and a strict one-child policy for urban families has led to a surplus of men. Changing social norms and greater educational and career opportunities for women mean that many women are delaying marriage; when they partner up, they have higher standards than ever before.

Worried that a glut of unmarried men and women will be detrimental to social stability, the state has begun to promote the stigmatization of unmarried women in their late 20s and beyond. They are particularly targeting educated women, since those are the least likely to marry:

In 2005 fully 7 percent of 45-year-old Shanghai women with college degrees had never married, according to Wang’s research. […] “It’s a sharp departure from before, from near-universal female marriage.” Indeed, there’s a common joke that there are three genders in China: men, women, and women with Ph.D.s. Men marry women, and women with Ph.D.s don’t marry.

How exactly does the government scare educated women into marrying? By making the state feminist organization tell educated women that they are in school because they are ugly, and that their expiration date is fast approaching! For her article, Fincher translated some excerpts from the All-China Women’s Federation website. Among them was this gem:

Pretty girls don’t need a lot of education to marry into a rich and powerful family, but girls with an average or ugly appearance will find it difficult. These kinds of girls hope to further their education in order to increase their competitiveness. The tragedy is, they don’t realize that as women age, they are worth less and less, so by the time they get their M.A. or Ph.D., they are already old, like yellowed pearls.

How are Asian American women dealing with pressures to marry? The government might not be comparing them to cold pizza, but many have families with “old country” ideas about marriage and relationships. To boot, some Asian American groups have higher levels of educational attainment than the national average, meaning more years in school–years in which all genders might feel like they are off the marriage market.

Asian American women: what do you think of this shengnü business? Are your families pressuring you to get married? How do you deal with that? Please tell us in the comments.

Today, March 8, is International Womens Day. To commemorate this event, The Daily Beast (an online magazine that is part of the Newsweek media corporation) has compiled a list of “150 Women Who Shake the World.”

Since this site focuses on Asians and Asian Americans, I am particularly glad to see that the list includes numerous women from Asia and a couple of Asian Americans as well, specifically Kamala Harris (Attorney General of California) and Ai-Jen Poo (community activist for immigrant domestic workers).

In reading their descriptions, it is clear that while many of their contributions may benefit women most immediately, their work uplifts us all as human beings. Keep up the good work and the good fight, ladies.

Here are some more announcements and links out that have come my way relating to Asians or Asian Americans. As always, links to other sites are provided for informational purposes and do not necessarily imply an endorsement of their contents.

Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts: Special Issue Call

Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts invites submissions for the first issue of its fourth volume that will focus on “Intersections of Race and Gender.” Race/Ethnicity uses a classic piece as a point of departure for treatments of critical issues within the field of race and ethnic studies. While the classic piece establishes the thematic parameters of each issue, authors are under no obligation to actively engage the arguments posed by that work.

The issue will explore the multiple points where race and gender intersect across the globe, the range of consequences that meets those intersections, and the dynamics that occur at those intersections. Our focus on race and gender recognizes that there are numerous ways in which racialized and gendered identities intersect and that their intersection is often influenced by a variety of other cultural factors. We also welcome the viewpoints of practitioners working in the field. Deadline: February 28, 2010. Contact: Leslie Shortlidge at shortlidge.2@osu.edu; www.raceethnicity.org/coverart.html.

2010 Law & Social Inquiry Graduate Student Paper Competition

The editors of Law & Social Inquiry announce a competition for the best journal-length paper in the field of socio-legal studies written by a graduate or law student. Direct submissions as well as nominations of student work from faculty are invited.

The winning paper will be published in Law & Social Inquiry and the author(s) will receive a total cash prize of $500 (US). Law & Social Inquiry publishes both empirical and theoretical studies of socio-legal processes from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. Deadline: March 1, 2010. Contact: (312) 988-6517; lsi-abf@abfn.org; www.blackwellpublishing.com/LSI.

American Institute of Indian Studies 2010 Fellowship

The American Institute of Indian Studies announces its 2010 fellowship competition and invites applications from scholars who wish to conduct their research in India. Junior fellowships are awarded to PhD candidates to conduct research for their dissertations in India for up to 11 months. Senior fellowships for scholars who hold the PhD degree are awarded for up to nine months of research in India. Deadline: July 1, 2010. Applications can be downloaded at www.indiastudies.org. Contact: (773) 702-8638; aiis@uchicago.edu.

Vietnamese American T-Shirts

My name is Ky Truong from San Jose, Ca. I recently started a line of Vietnamese inspired t-shirts called 3 Stripes Clothing. We are in the process of launching the line, but we decided to do something unique and let the people dictate what designs get printed by holding a poll on our Facebook fan page.

The reason why I started this line of t-shirts was because I felt that the Vietnamese community, especially those that are 2nd, 3rd or even 4th generation Vietnamese lack representation on the apparel market. When you look at the Filipino community, there are an abundance of shirts that represent their culture and pride. I would like to achieve that within the Vietnamese community.

It’s a well known and documented fact that in almost all Asian cultures, boys are systematically valued more than girls. Based on centuries of institutionalized patriarchy and traditional cultural practices, most Asian families would rather have children who are boys than girls. This gender bias is one of the reasons why an overwhelming majority of children given up for adoption in Asian countries are girls. This bias has also led to growing gender imbalances in many Asian countries, with some analysts predicting that such a gender imbalance may evolve into a threat to national security as this overpopulation of males become adults.

Here in the U.S., we might think that things are different among Asian Americans. That is, being a part of American society and within its social norms of gender equality, Asian Americans would have more “modern” views about the value of boys and girls so that there would not be any kind of systematic preference of one gender over another when it comes to our children. However, as the New York Times reports, recent Census data shows that at least among Indian Americans, Chinese Americans, and Korean Americans, there is a notable gender imbalance among their children in which boys are much more common than girls:

In general, more boys than girls are born in the United States, by a ratio of 1.05 to 1. But among American families of Chinese, Korean and Indian descent, the likelihood of having a boy increased to 1.17 to 1 if the first child was a girl, according to the Columbia economists. If the first two children were girls, the ratio for a third child was 1.51 to 1 — or about 50 percent greater — in favor of boys. . . .

Demographers say the statistical deviation among Asian-American families is significant, and they believe it reflects not only a preference for male children, but a growing tendency for these families to embrace sex-selection techniques, like in vitro fertilization and sperm sorting, or abortion. . . .

Dr. Norbert Gleicher, medical director of the Center for Human Reproduction, a fertility and sex-selection clinic in New York and Chicago, said that from his experience, people were more inclined to want female children, except for Asians and Middle Easterners. . . . The Fertility Institutes, which does not offer abortions, has unabashedly advertised its services in Indian- and Chinese-language newspapers in the United States. . . .

Efforts by clinics to appeal to Indian families in the United States provoked criticism and some community introspection in 2001. Some newspapers and magazines that ran advertisements promoting the clinics, which offered sex-selection procedures, expressed regret at the perpetuation of what critics regard as a misogynistic practice.

This emerging gender imbalance and “son-biased” sex ratio (illustrated in the accompanying New York Times graphic on the right) seems to reflect one fundamental point — that many Asian Americans still have very direct and strong family and cultural connections to their ancestral country. These traditional cultural ties can manifest themselves directly in the form of Asian immigrants still having the “son is superior” mentality that leads them to favor having boys more than girls.

Or, as the New York Times article also mentions, the other way that these traditional cultural ties become exemplified can be that even younger Asian American immigrant couples accept the U.S.’s norms of gender equality, various pressures from family, relatives, or friends in their ancestral Asian country lead them to favor boys over girls. As one example of this, perhaps couples in this situation have parents in the home country who will only give inheritance to male descendants and not female ones.

Ultimately, these demographic patterns (at least among Indian Americans, Chinese Americans, and Korean Americans) show us that the connections between Asia and America run deeper than just geographic distance.

That said, we should also recognize that this article and research studies that provide the basis of these demographic trends all note that these findings seem to be limited to Asian immigrant couples in which both spouses are foreign-born. In other words, there does not seem to be any data or evidence that this trend exists among Asian American couples in which both spouses are U.S.-born.

This last point goes to show just how powerful a force American assimilation is in the lives of most Asian Americans.