Asian Americans Are a Racial Group, Not Just Ethnic Groups

Abstract

Asian Americans are frequently studied and described through the lens of ethnicity—emphasizing heritage, cultural values, and immigration history—while their racialization and the structural dynamics that shape their experiences receive less attention. This essay argues that Asian Americans should be understood not only as diverse ethnic subgroups but also as a racial group positioned within the broader racial hierarchy of the United States. We discuss how research in psychology, management, and sociology has disproportionately relied on cultural explanations to account for Asian Americans’ outcomes, in ways that risk reinforcing stereotypes of Asians as perpetual foreigners and obscuring the structural racism and status dynamics that shape their experiences. We highlight the consequences of excluding Asian Americans from scholarship on race and from organizational diversity initiatives, both of which leave gaps in understanding racial inequality and intergroup relations more broadly. Finally, we advance the conceptualization of Asian Americans as an “intermediate status group,” occupying positions of both relative disadvantage and privilege, and argue that recognizing this complexity is essential for both scholarship and practice on race, equity, and inclusion.