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Justin Zhang (Editor's note: Justin Zhang is a high school student from the Class of 2025 at The Canyon Crest Academy. Justin is a recipient of Scholarship for API Student Internship 2024 for API Student Journalism Internship. ) Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) leaders from around the country emphasized the importance of data disaggregation during a webinar organized by the non-profit AAPI Data, showcasing their AANHPI Community Data Explorer tool. The leaders presented insights gained from disaggregated data and explained how that data has supported service of their communities.
Disaggregated data is data which has been broken down into more detailed sub-categories. For example, traditionally, data on things like average household income could present AANHPI as one aggregated category, reporting the average household income of all people who identify as AANHPI. Disaggregating that data would mean separating out subcategories, giving the average household income of Chinese Americans, Vietnamese Americans, Native Hawaiians, Indian Americans and so on. This disaggregation allows for a more comprehensive understanding of the data, allowing patterns and trends to be more clearly uncovered. Data disaggregation is particularly important for AANHPI communities, advocates say, because of the large internal diversity and disparity within the umbrella grouping. “I think we all know that data isn’t just a point in a graph or a number in a spreadsheet. Data represents a person, who’s a part of a family, who’s a part of a community, who makes up the fabric of our great nation,” said Erika Moritsugu, deputy assistant to the president and White House AA and NHPI senior liaison. AAPI Data’s online Community Data Explorer tool works to help make that disaggregated data, from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, more accessible. Users can explore data on a range of specific ethnic groups and select from various filters and indicators to cater the tool towards their own interests including states, state subregions, race groups and ethnicity groups. The data can be displayed in different formats, such as tables, bar charts and maps, which can be further customized. “You make the decision of how you want the data to work for you,” said Akil Vohra, director of policy at AAPI Data. AANHPI leaders spoke during the webinar of how they utilized the Community Data Explorer tool to service their own communities. “Our community is the sickest, the poorest and dying the youngest,” said Lucianne Latu, assistant director at Taulama for Tongans, a non-profit serving the Tongan community in San Mateo, Calif. In 2022, after surveying 400 Tongan San Mateo residents, findings showed that basic needs such as housing, financial stability and food security were not met. “Sadly, this wasn’t a surprise to us at Taulama, but without data, we couldn’t get the powers we need to hear us, let alone see us,” Latu said. Using disaggregated data from the Community Data Explorer, the Tongan community’s voices were finally able to be heard. “Having disaggregated data, for us, is the difference between life and death,” Latu said. The Community Data Explorer was also used to foster AANHPI civic engagement in Orange County, Calif., which has the third largest AANHPI population in the country. But because of the lack of disaggregated data, many conservative policy makers have made policies that hurt immigrant and refugee communities, said Mary Anne Foo, founder and executive director of the Orange County Asian Pacific Islander Community Alliance. “At the time, policymakers were saying, ‘Your community can’t vote so why should we care?’” Foo said. Using disaggregated data, Foo explained to policymakers how, despite the AANHPI presence in Orange County being a significant proportion of the population, just a sliver of the budget was allocated to the AANHPI community. Foo utilized the data to work with state legislators, including State Senator Dave Min (D-Irvine) who authored a bill to establish an Office of Language Access. “When we do reports with our local policymakers, these reports really make them stop and think,” said Foo, who added that many of the policymakers don’t realize the true portion of the population that are AANHPI. More and better data on AANHPI communities is a continuing fight for many of the advocates in the space, even as strides have been made on access. “We don’t know what data is being collected across the whole of the government. We also don’t know how detailed that data is being collected,” said Kham Moua, national deputy director of the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center. As one instance of data opacity from the government, Moua explained how Statistical Policy Directive No. 15 (SDP 15), which provides guidelines for the collection of federal data on race and ethnicity, was finally updated only on March 29, more than 25 years after its last revision. The new SDP 15 requires federal agencies to provide greater transparency and to collect more specific ethnicity data. “This is really… a once in a generation breakthrough,” said Nisha Ramachandran, executive director of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. “We’re appreciative of all the efforts, but it does not end here. We have a long way to go.”
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