SURVEY: Measuring discrimination against South Asians in the U.S.

Arpana Inman and Anju Kaduvettoor of Lehigh University are conducting a survey meant to measure how frequently South Asians experience discrimination.

By understanding the impact of discrimination in detail, we believe that we can add to the limited research for this population. We also believe that this research may help professionals working with South Asian populations provide more culturally appropriate services and gain a greater understanding of the experiences of South Asian men and women. This study has been approved by the Institutional Review Board at Lehigh University.

You can take the survey here. Some of the questions relate to how often you've experienced discrimination at the hands of teachers, employers, neighbors, strangers and people in the service sector. All answers would be confidential, and the full survey is supposed to take 20 to 35 minutes.

Here's the contact info for the authors of the study:
Anju Kaduvettoor, ank9[at]lehigh.edu and Arpana G. Inman, agi2[at]lehigh.edu

Both are part of the counseling psychology program at Pennsylvania-based Lehigh (Inman is a professor and Kaduvettoor is a doctoral candidate). They were on a Lehigh team that went down to help Hurricane Katrina victims in Louisana - the team wrote about their experience here.

That's Kaduvettoor on the extreme left and Inman right in the center during their post-Katrina project.

And here's a list of earlier research on the same topic:

New York City Commission on Human Rights. (Summer, 2003). Discrimination
against Muslims, Arabs, and South Asians In New York City Since 9/11. Retrieved from: http://www.nyc.gov/html/cchr/pdf/sur_report.pdf

Alvarez, A., Juang, L., & Liang, C. (2006). Asian Americans and racism: When bad things happen to "Model Minorities." Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 12, 477-492.

Cheryan, S. & Monin, B. (2005). Where are you really from?: Asian Americans and identity denial. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 717-730.

Inman, A. G., Yeh, C. J, Madan-Bahel A., & Nath, S. (2007). Bereavement and Coping of South Asian Families post 9/11. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 35, 101-115.

Mattar, S. (2004). A quest for identity: Racism and acculturation among immigrant families. In The psychology of prejudice and discrimination. Praeger Publishers, Wesport, CO.,137-159.

Mio, J. S., Nagata, D. K., Tsai, A. H., Tewari, N. (2007). Racism against Asain/Pacific Island Americans. In F. T. L. Leong, A. G. Inman, A. Ebreo, L. H. Yang, L. Kinoshita, & M. Fu (Eds.), Handbook of Asian American Psychology (2nd ed.) (pp. 341-361). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Sheth, M. (1995). Asian Indian Americans. In P. G. Min (Ed.) Asian Americans:
Contemporary trends and issues (p. 169-198) Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Comments

[Yogendra Solanki]

Yes, 1000%, it is not new thing in western culture. Racial discrimination is there and will be there. We, asians and south asians, this is not our country. This is country of white people. I do not think it is going to end. M. K, Gnadhi faught against apartheid and Martin Luthar Kind fought for racial discrimination but it is still there, and it will be there so far you do not respect your own culture and your own country.