Japanese American Minority

Japanese-Americans as a Minority
Japanese-Americans are a minority group consisting of people with ethnic ties to the archipelago of Japan, in eastern Asia. According to Pew Research Center (2012), there were approximately 1,304,286 Japanese-Americans living in the United States in 2011. With the overall trend of Asian-American populations rising (Pew Research Center, 2012), this number has certainly gone up, especially due to, according to Toji (2003), those with mixed ancestry. Japanese-Americans are the sixth largest Asian group in the United States, and with over one million people, any societal attitudes or conditions have large impacts.
Japanese-Americans have many ethnic characteristics that distinguish them from other cultures here
While other minority groups tend to do poorly in school compared to whites, Asians tend to surpass whites. This has resulted in the “model minority” myth, which implies that Asian-Americans have successfully conquered the obstacles that are intrinsically tied to being a minority. They lie on the successful end of the achievement gap, which Golash-Boza teaches may be due to the high rate of parents with a college degree (2015). Another explanation may be due to Japanese and Asian-American’s cultural emphasis on academic success, which deters oppositional culture that may arise in other minority groups. Academic success is directly correlated to high income, which is especially noticeable with
Health insurance and services are readily available to those with wealth. Due to high incomes, low mortgages, and other factors, Japanese-Americans tend to be able to afford more healthful habits, such as buying organic or attending the gym. Additionally, higher wealth means Japanese-Americans can afford to live in higher quality neighborhoods which may not be as toxic as other impoverished areas may be. Japan as a nation is one of the healthiest and longest-lived countries in the world, so many cultural habits that led to this, such as diet, personal care, exercise, etc., may have carried over to immigrants and their families. One aspect that may negatively influence the health of Japanese-Americans is individual racism, which may contribute to stress, which has been known to adversely affect health in large amounts. Stress may exacerbate physical or mental illness, and cause adverse health conditions, like high blood pressure. With regards to negative health disparities, the textbook focuses mainly on black and poor Americans. One could interpret this silence as an admission that Asian-Americans tend to not have as poor health as other Americans, possibly due to higher amounts of wealth. Living in healthier areas would result in Japanese-Americans not having a personal motivation for environmental justice, as they are not as affected by