I'm Willing to Wait For It: A Statistical Disadvantage

Hello all. This week was my week off from my internship because ASU was on spring break. So I delved into the research side of my project and came up with some fairly interesting results. First, I looked up the US census data from 1950-2010 to see what percentage of the population identified as Asian, Asian-American, or Pacific Islander. Now we must take census data from 1950 with a grain of salt because so many Asian-Americans had been displaced from their homes due to the Internment Act during World War II. The data is shows below.

• 1950
• Population of US- 152.3 million 
• Asian population- 321,033
• Percentage- 0.2%

• 1960
• Population of US- 180.7 million 
• Asian population- 980,337
• Percentage- 0.5%
• 1970
• Population of US- 205.1 million 
• Asian population- 1,526,401
• Percentage- 0.8%
• 1980
• Population of US- 226.5 million 
• Asian population- 3,500,439
• Percentage- 1.5%
• 1990
• Population of US- 249.6 million 
• Asian population- 7,273,662
• Percentage- 2.9%
• 2000
• Population of US- 282.2 million 
• Asian population- 15,359,073
• Percentage- 3.8%
• 2010
• Population of US- 309.3 million 
• Asian population- 19,107,368
• Percentage- 4.9%

In the 2010, 4.9% of the US population identified as Asian and the census bureau goes further to provide a racial breakdown of the Asian community in America. Of the 19,107,368 Asians in America, the largest reporting ethnic groups were Chinese (3.79 million), Filipino (3.41 million), Indian (3.18 million), Vietnamese (1.73 million), Korean (1.7 million), and Japanese (1.3 million).

If we look at the break down of musicals that tell Asian stories since 1950, the trend seems to be that every decade less new musicals about Asians are being made. In 1950, the five "Asian" musicals produced were The King and I, Flower Drum Song, Kismet, Shangri-la, and South Pacific. Of those musicals, only Kismet focused on a non East Asian story. Until 1980, not a single new musical was produced that focused on an Asian story. In 1980, Miss Saigon hit the Broadway stage and took the Great White Way by storm. It also earned the leading lady, Lea Salonga, her first Tony award and made her the first Asian woman to win a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. 

So, what needs to change so that more Asian stories are produced and successful? And why can't the Asian story evolve into something modern and more relatable? More to explore and contemplate next week!

P.S. This week's musical reference is from the song "Wait For It" from Hamilton