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Arpita Sharma

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The digital divide in South Asia

As the pandemic wears on, it’s important to address a privilege those of us on social media have, that many South Asians don’t – access to the internet. This lack of access is often referred to as the “digital divide.”

This divide is the gap that exists between those who have access to modern information and communication technology and those who lack access. Even though the South Asian region has the world’s second largest online market, 50 percent of India’s population, 59% of Bangladesh, and 65% of Pakistani people live without the internet.

Now, of course, while this issue is just one of many which affect South Asia, it’s particularly important right now. The pandemic has affected all – but people without internet access are more impacted than others.

In South Asia, the digital divide has impacted access to education for students, access to information about vaccines, the ability to find employment, and more. Let’s break it down further here:

Education

The digital divide has exacerbated existing technological and educational disparities that already existed within South Asian countries. Prolonged school closures have disproportionately impacted vulnerable students. In India, which has the second-largest school system in the world, a total of 320 million learners had to transition to the e-learning industry. In Pakistan, over 300,000 schools closed – and only one million school-age children have regular access to digital divides and bandwidth. In Bangladesh, 59 percent of the population or about 97.4 million people don’t have internet access. There, 38 million students and close to one million teachers have been affected since school closures started on March17th and continued into 2021.

Healthcare

The digital divide is also proving to be a sticky issue for trying to vaccinate everyone. In India, urban districts receive 1.7 times more vaccines than their rural counter parts, which is particularly problematic since 65.5 percent of the population lives in rural areas. In Bangladesh, those without internet registrations were turned away when vaccinations began in August 2021.

Employment

Half of India’s population lacks internet access, and only 20% of Indians know how to use digital services, according to government data. The government has launched online job portals for laborers and e-passes to more around during the lockdown, but they are leaving out those who do not understand how to use the internet. In Pakistan, 46 percent of the 185 million of those who use cellular services have access to 3G or 4G services. Of those, even less have the knowledge or skills they need to use it improve their education, careers, business opportunities, etc.

So, what are governments and various organizations doing to address these issues?

In Pakistan and Bangladesh have been using televisions to teach students. Pakistan has deployed the federal program TeleSchool for Pakistani students, and the provincial program Taleem Ghar for students in Punjab. UNICEF is working with the Government of Bangladesh to offer remote learning through TV, radio, mobile phone and Internet platforms.

In India, organizations such as Women Who Code Delhi, VMinclusion Taara, Feminist Approach to Technology, ThinkZone, and Soochnapreneur have focused on trying to address the digital divide by trying to provide free technical education. Microsoft has helped close to 3 million people from again access to digital skills. In Pakistan, organizations like Community Services Program are providing digital literacy to 1,000 students within Punjab, Pakistan as of March 2021.

Right now, it’s hard to predict what the future holds as this pandemic continues to change our lives forever – but one thing is for sure – we need to learn and do more to address this digital divide moving forward if we want the South Asian region and the world to prosper.

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Nepali and Bhutanese disconnected youth need our attention

We tend to always talk about how South Asian young adults are succeeding, but is that always the case? Data shows that over 1 in 10 Nepali and Bhutanese youth ages 16 to 24 are neither working or in school.

And while the percentage of disconnected youth for our different nationalities has declined between 2000 and 2019, for Nepali youth, they have actually increased between 2010-2019. There was not a large enough population size to determine the percentage of Bhutanese disconnected youth in earlier years.

What is interesting about these stats, and a common trend we have been seeing throughout our discussions, is that immigrants tend to have higher percentages of disconnected youth, compared to their US-born counter parts.

Institutional and systemic barriers contribute to disparities in educational attainment for immigrants, which also varies by immigration status. Disparities in educational attainment also vary by nationality, as different immigrant communities face unique sets of institutional and systemic challenges like language access.

A basic google search did not identify many social services to address the needs of these communities. We will delve into this issue in future blog posts.

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We need to keep data on South Asians accessible…

At this point, you have seen the importance of being able to break down data on the South Asian community in the United States. This week, we wanted to raise an important issue that is happening with the data itself.

In May, the Census Bureau announced plans to replace the American Community Survey (ACS) microdata with “fully synthetic” data over the next three years.

So what is ACS microdata, and why is it important?

The American Community Survey helps local officials, community leaders, and businesses understand the changes taking place in their communities. It is the premier source for detailed population and housing information about our nation. It’s the reason why we can provide you with detailed data about the South Asian community in the United States for issues like poverty, educational attainment, rent burden, and more.

How do the changes impact you and me?

Synthetic data is poorly suited to studying topics that the Census didn’t think about. This is really problematic because ACS microdata is the most intensively used source available for demographic and economic research. Hundreds of thousands of academic researchers, planners, and policy makers rely on the ACS, and according to Google Scholar, they generate about 12,000 publications per year.

If public use data become unusable or inaccessible because of overzealous disclosure control, there will be far-reaching consequences. The quantity and quality of research about U.S. policies, the economy, and social structure will decline precipitously.

The reason the Census Bureau wants to get rid of one of the world’s most intensively used scientific resources is concern about respondent confidentiality. But, they have implicitly acknowledged that there is not a single documented case of reidentification of a respondent in the ACS or decennial census microdata.

Moreover, over 100 countries around disseminate similar microdata through IPUMS, and again there is not a single documented case in which respondent’s identity has been revealed. Not only are the risks of disclosure unmeasurably small, but even if someone’s ACS data were exposed the resulting harms would be minimal. The ACS has no information that could be used to aid identity theft, and most of the information it does include could far more easily be obtained from other sources.

If we weigh the profound cost of eliminating the ACS microdata against the potential harm for respondent confidentiality, the Census Bureau has no case. Such a massive shift in the Nation’s statistical infrastructure would be “arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion” and therefore in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act. Although some Census Bureau staff members treat the synthetic ACS as if it were a done deal, there is still time to avert this disastrous course.

If you like the research presented here, please stay updated on political and legal strategies the research community is using to try and retain open access to our demographic data infrastructure.

The IPUMS website is also posting updates here.

For more details about the issues, check out Steven Ruggles Twitter tread here.

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Caste in the United States

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This week, we are sharing data on an often difficult point of discussion within the South Asian community – caste. There have been several articles that have come out over the years about caste discrimination in the United States. These include discrimination in universities, workplaces, religious institutions, and more.

In 2018, Equality Labs shared a report which identified key points in a survey of 1,500 South Asians to a 47 question survey on Caste. The web-based, self-reported, self-administered questionnaire was directed at those in the diaspora who identified as having subcontinental heritage from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Trinidad/Tobago, Guyana, Fiji, Tanzania, and Kenya. It was open to people of different religions, political, tribal, and caste affiliations.

The survey found that many South Asians who identified as being from the “lower” Castes – especially Dalits, Adivasis, and Shudras tend to “hide their Caste” and tend to worry about being “outed.” The report shares that several respondents expressed significant amounts of psychological turmoil they sustained around the secrecy of their Caste. Being outed meant that they and their families could be rejected from South Asian cultural and religious spaces, lose professional and social networks, and even face bullying, abuse, and violence.

One of the ways this discrimination occurs is in schools. The survey found that 40% of Dalit students reported facing discrimination in educational institutions in the US compared to only 3% of respondents who were from “upper” castes.

Many respondents reported discrimination from their fellow South Asian students. In universities, “lower” Caste students may be asked to move to other living quarters, forbidden from cooking non-vegetarian food, or socially excluded from South Asian student groups and professional networking circles.

People reported facing caste discrimination in the workplace, in local businesses, in places of religious worship. Caste discrimination also may have also influenced whether they rejected a partner or were rejected by one.

Some key findings from the study were:

Their key recommendations for South Asian organizations coming out of the study were to ensure that the organization vision and/or mission statements mentioned Caste explicitly so that every progressive South Asian American community remains committed to the idea that we must fight both white supremacy and Caste apartheid in our journey towards equity for all of our communities.

South Asian American immigrant networks must also work to support Caste, religious, and geographic diversity, especially the communities from Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, Ravidassia, and Sikh backgrounds. They encourage South Asian American organizations to organize cultural events that celebrate this diversity in communities, and not to narrow our experiences to only marking Hindu festivals as our marker of cultural solidarity.

Given this, are there ways that we can do a better job of facilitating conversations around caste amongst our own families? Are there ways that we can make those of “lower” castes feel more comfortable sharing their experiences? Can we choose to be more inclusive and appreciate the diverse experiences of our fellow South Asians? We would love to know what your thoughts are on this topic.

BA-degree

How the model minority myth hurts us…

The model minority myth has followed many of us around our entire lives and we often don’t question it’s truthfulness. But, by not doing so, we are missing out on important yet difficult conversations about privilege in our own communities. This is particularly apparent when it comes to educational attainment.

You will notice from the chart above, that educational attainment varies significantly across the South Asian community. While 81.9 percent of Indians ages 25-64 have a BA or higher in the United States, this success is a sharp contrast to the Bhutanese community, where only 6.9 percent of the population has gotten at least a BA degree.

The Bhutanese population is made up of mostly refugees that have arrived here over the past decade and made their home in America. According to the White House, 85,000 Bhutanese refugees have resettled in the United States, with the largest populations residing in Texas, New York, Indiana, North Carolina, and Georgia.

We can also see that while more South Asians have achieved a BA or higher between 2000 and 2019, this hasn’t been true for ever group within the community. The percentage of people getting a BA or higher actually decreased for those in the Nepali community from 57.5 percent in 2010 to 46.5 percent in 2019. It is unclear from the few research articles we found on Nepali immigrants why the percentage of people with a BA or higher declined – but this could definitely be an area of further research.

When we broke down the percentage of people receiving a BA or higher by nativity (whether residents were US-born or immigrants), we found that Immigrants tended to also have lower percentage with a BA or higher across all the South Asian groups where it was possible to compare.

This is important because education is an important metric to evaluate economic mobility for the Desi community. South Asian immigrants have varied educational backgrounds and expanding avenues for our immigrant communities to utilize their skills and contribute matters. Providing pathways for more immigrants in the United States to access education is also important in improving the overall health and economic wellbeing of everyone in our society.

There have been groups that have popped up across the United States which are making an effort to integrate those in the Bhutanese refugee community such as the Bhutanese Community of Central Ohio and Bhutanese Community Association of Pittsburg (BCAP). These organizations provide social assistance to refugees and help them begin their new life in the US. But more can be done to support these groups and others who are helping to support those who are struggling amongst us.

Poverty

Poverty amongst the Desi community in the United States

Poverty for South Asians looks different for those living in the United States compared to those in other parts of the world – but it is still important to address. Poverty is a type of social exclusion that comes when an individual or family fails to meet an established threshold. Two ways poverty can be measured are as absolute poverty or relative poverty.

Economists define absolute poverty as when a person or household does not have the minimum amount of income needed to meet their minimum living requirements over an extended period of time. In other words, they cannot meet their basic needs. When an individual goes below this threshold their survival is threatened.

Relative poverty is the level of poverty changes based on context- it is relative to the economic climate. In the United States, the federal poverty level is the minimum amount of income earned by a household, below which they are eligible to receive certain welfare benefits. The federal poverty threshold in 2019 for a family of four with two children was about $25,000 per year (thus, 200% of the federal poverty threshold was about $50,000). Now, this is very different from what would be considered poor in South Asian countries – and an example of how this is measured can be looked at here.

Here, eight percent of the South Asian population lived below the federal poverty line in 2019. However, when we break this down further – we can see that people from certain nationalities are much more likely to struggle with poverty compared to others. Specifically, 22 percent of Bangladeshis, 20 percent of Bhutanese, 17 percent of Nepali, and 15 percent of Pakistanis lived below 100 percent of the federal poverty level.

Between 1990 and 2019, the percentage of Bangladeshis living at the federal poverty level has increased from 14 percent to 22 percent, while the percentage of Indians and Sri Lankans have slightly declined.

In 2019, the poverty level amongst immigrant Indians, Sri Lankan, and Nepali groups tended to be higher compared to US-Born residents, while the opposite was true for the Bangladeshi and Bhutanese populations.

This is important because oftentimes, immigrants are unaware of their ability to access social service programs such as healthcare, food, and rental assistance. Organizations such as South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) help to com­bat poli­cies, rhetoric, and action stem­ming from sys­temic racism, Islam­o­pho­bia, and white suprema­cy; acknowl­edg­ing the transna­tion­al con­nec­tions to this vio­lence and its impact on the U.S. Dias­po­ra. They provide assistance to the Desi immigrant community around immigrant rights, gender justice, racial justice, and civic engagement.

It’s important that those of us who can do advocacy work voice the importance of Census data collection like this more so that we can actually understand the needs of our communities.

5 sites that breakdown data on South Asians

As a South Asian woman who grew up in the Inland Empire – a suburban community in Southern California, I was exposed to very few other South Asians growing up. It was only when I arrived at the University of California, Berkeley that I became aware of the significant amount of Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshi students on campus, and also enamored with the South Asian clubs and associations.

My understanding of the world before then was limited simply by a lack of connection and awareness about other Desi communities. As an adult, I now work on providing data that illustrates the variety of challenges that various communities – including South Asians face around immigration, job access, housing burden, and more.

Here are a few tools that I have found useful in understanding the varying needs of the South Asians in my community in the US, and others around the world.

1) AAPI Data

AAPI Data is a nationally recognized publisher of demographic data and policy research on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, with hundreds of news mentions in national and local outlets. It was originally founded by Dr. Karthick Ramakrishnan associate dean of the UC Riverside School of Public Policy, and professor of public policy and political science. The site is used by journalists, community organizations, government agencies, and decision-makers to better understand key aspects of AAPI communities.

2) National Equity Atlas

The National Equity Atlas is a first-of-its-kind data and policy tool for the community leaders and policymakers who are working to build a new economy that is equitable, resilient, and prosperous. It is a comprehensive resource for data to track, measure, and make the case for racial equity and inclusive prosperity in America’s regions, and states, and nationwide. The Atlas contains data on demographic change, racial and economic inclusion, and the potential economic gains from racial equity for the largest 100 cities, largest 150 regions, all 50 states, and the United States as a whole.

3) The SHRUG 

The Socioeconomic High-resolution Rural-Urban Geographic Platform for India (SHRUG) is a geographic platform that helps researchers working in India share data. It is an open access repository currently comprising dozens of datasets covering India’s 500,000 villages and 8000 towns using a set of common geographic identifiers that span 25 years.

Prior to the SHRUG, linking different Indian datasets has been a major burden for researchers. The common geographic frame of SHRUG makes it easy for researchers to share information and link to each others’ data.

4) CERP Labs

The Centre for Economic Research in Pakistan, or CERP, is an independent non-partisan policy institution focused on improving decision-making in Pakistan through rigorous quantitative research, engaging with policy counterparts with real policy challenges, and designing and advising on high-impact reforms based on data. The site has several projects which collect and provide data on various social issues in Pakistan.

5) UN Data

UNdata is a web-based data service for the global user community. It brings international statistical databases within easy reach of users through a single-entry point. Users can search and download a variety of statistical resources compiled by the United Nations (UN) statistical system and other international agencies. The numerous databases or tables are collectively known as “datamarts” contain over 60 million data points and cover a wide range of statistical themes including agriculture, crime, communication, development assistance, education, energy, environment, finance, gender, health, labor market, manufacturing, national accounts, population and migration, science and technology, tourism, transport, and trade.

If you have any of your own useful sites you would like to share, please let us know.

Olympics

Indian Women in Tokyo Olympics 2021

Indian women athletes do not just have to fight with opponents to win at the Olympics, they have to fight cultural norms, the patriarchy, finances, and sometimes family too.

Women have won 7 out of the 15 Olympic medals for India since 2000. They have overcome several societal issues and performed with strength and grace.  From Manipuri weightlifter Mirabai Chanu (silver) to Assam boxer Lovlina Borgohain(bronze), India’s last four Olympic medals including PV Sindhu (silver) and wrestler Sakashi Malik (bronze) at Rio 2016 have all come from women.

Important to note that athletes from northeastern India who most of these medals. They have done so despite the discrimination they may face  from mainland Indians. We express our deep gratitude towards these athletes.

Women are making India proud in the sports arena. Here is the list of all the women who had made India proud in the summer Olympics.

KARNAM MALLESHWARI 

Weightlifter Karnam Malleshwari won the bronze medal in the 54kg category hence becoming the first Indian woman to win an Olympic medal.

MARY KOM

 

Nicknamed Magnificent Mary, is the only Indian female boxer to have qualified for the 2012 summer Olympics, competing in the 51kg category and won a bronze medal.

SAINA NEHWAL

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by SAINA NEHWAL (@nehwalsaina)

Saina Nehwal became the first Indian badminton player to win an Olympic medal when her opponent China’s Wang Xin, was forced to retire hurt during the match in the semi-final.

PV SINDHU

 

Pv Sindhu returned to India with an Olympic bronze medal from Tokyo 2020. Sindhu is the only Indian woman to win two Olympic medals.

SAKSHI MALIK

Sakhsi Malik is the first Indian woman to win an Olympic medal in wrestling. She won a bronze medal in 58kg at Rio 2016.

MIRABAI CHANU

 

Weightlifter Mirabai Chanu won a silver medal at the ongoing Tokyo 2020 Olympics, the young athlete had to take numerous lifts from truck drivers for her daily commute from her home in a tiny village to her training academy in Imphal, to express her gratitude she organized an event for them and honored them for their contribution in her achievement.

LOVLINA BORGOHAIN

 

On her games debut, Lovlina Borgohain has been assured of at least a bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics after beating Chinese Taipei’s Nein Chinchan in the quarter-finals of women’s 69kg category.

Story

Where does my story fit?

Very few people openly discuss the challenges that South Asians in the United States face as they grow up and define what it means to be successful in the multitude of personal and professional arenas in their life. No matter the career field or status one has achieved, the dangerous and suffocating “model minority” trope is never far. Is there room in the South Asian community to define success outside of the stereotypical journeys we typically see modeled?

 

My name is Arpita Sharma, and I am a 30 year old researcher, artist, and filmmaker living in Los Angeles, California. I work at the University of Southern California Equity Research Institute where I help make tools, such as the National Equity Atlas, Bay Area Equity Atlas, California Immigrant Data Portal. Further, I have the privilege of creating reports that help philanthropists, nonprofit leaders, and local policymakers create a more inclusive economy and address inequities in race, gender, immigration status.

 

My perspectives as a South Asian woman have largely been shaped by my relationships with my parents and brother. My parents are hard-working and loving people who immigrated to this country from India when I was just a child and worked as cashiers at a gas station in San Bernardino for the majority of their working life. My brother, Akshat, had a genetic disability and passed away at the age of 26. For the last several years of his life he was paralyzed from the neck down and on a ventilator. My parents considered themselves extremely privileged to have access to resources for Akshat that would not have been available to our family in India without overwhelming financial strain, such as MediCal, doctors and nurses to care for him throughout his life as his disease progressed, and facilities and assistance for his education. When debating about poverty in the United States, we often forget about the significance of such safety nets for low-income households, such as my family. 

 

Approximately 1.3 million Asian Americans identify as disabled, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and there are over 500,000 working-age Asian Americans with disabilities. Having a disability often means being ostracized in society and having less access to health care, transportation, resources, and human rights. I frequently think about this devastating truth and how valuable these public systems were to keeping our family going in some of the most difficult moments of our lives. 

 

Though seeing how many Asian American individuals and families are impacted by disability sheds light on the reaching impact of an issue so often left undiscussed, disabled South Asians and the people who care for and love them are more than just a statistic. When disability in our community is discussed, the conversations frequently shift to grouping those impacted by disability as “others” and not as “us.” I often struggle in feeling a strong sense of community in the South Asian context because I have no role models I can look up to who dealt with the impacts of disability in their own families. When you grow up with a story that doesn’t fit a “model minority” narrative it is often hard to know where you belong.

 

I share my family’s story to implore our community to open up the floor to non-standard narratives that will breathe life and truth into our interconnected history and future. We must support South Asian Americans who struggle with physical health issues and mental health issues and don’t fit a model minority narrative to join the conversation about what it means to be successful. These non-standard narratives will strengthen our communities by expanding our understanding of what it means to grow up as a South Asian in the United States.

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Let’s cultivate a Desi community

Growing up, I would have loved to be part of a progressive Desi community – one that was focused on cultivating joy and belonging. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the best experience of what it means to be South Asian in my youth. There were many culture clashes, disappointments, and deep wounds that arose at the time.

Now, as an adult that has been able to work through many of these issues, I’ve been thinking deeply about what it means to be South Asian. As a first-generation immigrant from India who has been in the US since I was six – that perspective may be very different on certain topics compared to someone who arrived from Pakistan a few months ago for graduate school or a professional program or residency to become a doctor or engineer.

There are also lots of shadow sides of South Asian society, culture, religion, economics, politics that we shy away from discussing because it may ruffle some feathers. I know I’ve had to grapple with many of them growing up – everything from “you have too much freedom” to “what boy will want to marry you” and it has taken decades to reshape my own parent’s perspectives on certain topics. It’s a very lonely experience trying to be a bridge between Western culture and South Asian culture – and it’s often difficult to know whether we are always making the right choices in what we defend.

So, I am excited to announce that my friend Manu Multani and I are starting a Rethink Desi community platform. The platform will make space for a decentralized community of contributors to engage in discussions over culture and society, and to collectively run campaigns, do art projects, book/poetry clubs, and any other collaborations we want to build community. We are partnering with Curry Changemakers, a facebook group with over a thousand subscribers, to create space for informal discussion. We will also take and compile resources from those discussions onto the website – so that more of the South Asian community can be exposed to these resources. We ultimately hope to use some of the content this community shares to create more YouTube videos that will spotlight the topics we are most passionate about.

So, why might you consider joining?

This is a headless movement. We want to provide an organic space for collaboration and creation. We hope this space sparks new ideas, new friendships, and new visions of what it means to be South Asian.

As a former community organizer – I am excited to host zoom calls to facilitate some grounded and thought-provoking discussions that lean into our discomfort around mental health, sexuality, gender discrimination, caste, and more. We hope this will be a space that really engages folks’ hearts and minds and helps provide each of us with fresh new perspectives on what it means to be Desi.

If you are interested in joining, please fill out our short survey. Your responses will help us to capture the resources that have been most useful and impactful in shaping the South Asian lens abroad. We will then clarify, organize, reflect, and engage with this material through Curry Changemakers and Rethink Desi.

We hope to see you there!

Warm wishes,

Arpita