data representation methodology

Our project utilizes the U.S. Census Bureau data of Asians and Asian Americans and, in recognition of the complex identities of the Asian diaspora, of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders where available.

The term Asian American is broad and not clearly defined in national databases. In the U.S. Census, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are separately recorded; “Asian” does not include people who self-identify only as Pacific Islander. Moreover, there is some overlap in the numbers for the individual Asian groups because people with origins from more than one group are counted in each group to which they belong. Additionally, data on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders is often missing detailed information of individual subgroups, especially when looking at a smaller scale — for example, metropolitan areas in Ohio.

Based on characteristics of the datasets, seven Asian subgroups were included for analysis for which data is available: Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese and Other Asian. The subgroup “Other Asian” is unspecified in the dataset. Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders were included wherever data was available at the national level and when presenting Ohio’s regional demographics.

Data for the following Asian subgroups is not available for Ohio:

• Bangladeshi
• Bhutanese
• Burmese
• Cambodian
• Hmong
• Indonesian
• Laotian
• Malaysian
• Mongolian
• Nepalese
• Pakistani
• Sri Lankan
• Thai

throughout the project:

** denotes the counts of people who reported their race on the U.S. Census as Asian alone or in combination with other races; these counts were used in the total population of Ohio, the Midwest region and the U.S.

* denotes the counts of people who reported their race on the U.S. Census as that race alone; these counts were used in the population counts of specific Asian subgroups in major Ohio metro areas.

The analysis presented in the project includes the latest data available from multiple data sources.

national data

Data for maps are from Esri’s ACS Specific Asian Groups map layers and contain the most current release of data from 2021 American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year estimates about Asian alone or in any combination by selected groups. Additional data for the Asian population growth map was obtained from the Census 2000 Brief: The Asian Population 2000.

ohio data

Data for Asian populations in Ohio were retrieved from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2021 ACS 5-year and 1-year estimates.

metropolitan area data

Data for detailed Asian populations in each Ohio metro area were retrieved from 2021 ACS 1-year estimates, except for the Dayton metro area, where the most recent data available is from 2018 ACS 1-year estimates. The metropolitan area boundaries in maps for each regional StoryMap are based on Metropolitan Planning Organizations at the regional level from the Ohio Department of Transportation (2022) via ArcGIS Online. Boundaries may not completely match the metropolitan area boundaries in the U.S. Census.

U.S. Census Bureau definitions for “Asian” and “Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander”:

“Asian”: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent including, for example, India, China, the Philippine Islands, Japan, Korea, or Vietnam. It includes people who indicate their race as “Asian Indian,” “Chinese,” “Filipino,” “Korean,” “Japanese,” “Vietnamese,” and “Other Asian” or provide other detailed Asian responses such as Pakistani, Cambodian, Hmong, Thai, Bengali, Mien, etc.

“Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander”: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands. It includes people who indicate their race as “Native Hawaiian,” “Chamorro,” “Samoan,” and “Other Pacific Islander” or provide other detailed Pacific Islander responses such as Palauan, Tahitian, Chuukese, Pohnpeian, Saipanese, Yapese, etc.