The Leadership Conference Education Fund identified four main barriers facing Asian American and Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander communities when it comes to filling out the Census:
1) Language Barriers: 75 percent of Asian Americans and 41 percent of Native Hawaiians & Pacific Islanders speak a language other than English.
2) Poverty: Overall, using the official poverty measure, about one in eight Asian Americans is in poverty (12 percent), while the same is true for one in five NHPI (18 percent).
3) Education: While at least 85% of Asians and Pacific Islanders have attained a high school degree or higher, there are great disparities within different API subgroups. For example, while at least 95 percent of Japanese Americans have a high school degree or higher, only 53 percent of Burmese Americans do.
4) Housing Insecurity: Almost half (47 percent) of Asian Americans who are low-income and 40 percent of NHPIs who are low-income live in locations with the highest housing costs in the country, often leading to greater challenges in finding stable and affordable housing.
Irregular housing, lower education attainment, poverty and low rates of English proficiency are key factors that impact undercounting in our communities. Find out more here.