Who has more influence from Asian culture: Australia vs. California.
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If you're saying that California is more Asian influenced than California (and we are restricting Asian to mean East Asian, Southeast Asian, and the Indian subcontinent, thereby excluding Middle Easterners from being Asian) then I can see that. California does have a much larger Korean, Vietnamese, and Filipino population than Australia.
But Australia seems far more Chinese than California. Higher percentage, for one. And also, westernized Chinese food like PF Chang's has many locations in Southern California, while PF Chang's does not have a single location in Australia. Which would make sense, if authentic Chinese food is more pervasive and mainstreamed in Australia than in California.
In Canada, PF Chang's closed all its locations outside Quebec, because apparently authentic Chinese food is just phenomenal in Canada's big cities, except in Quebec Province, which doesn't have much Chinese people.
Interestingly, PF Chang's has several South Korean locations. But then again, South Korea actually has very few Chinese people, at around only 0.5 percent of the population, so maybe there's really not much authentic Chinese food in South Korea.
So a perspective from an older generation ( what we call a 'Boomer' ie a post WW2 baby ) bloke.
Historically Australia has been sh*t scared of Asia, We passed laws prohibiting immigration during the gold rushes of 1850's- 1900, there were serious anti Chinese riots on the goldfields of Victoria, NSW and Queensland during these times. After Australian Federation in 1901, Governments passed 'White Australia' laws to restrict Asian immigration. These laws remained on the statute books until the early 1970's.
Anti Asian sentiment was heightened during WW2 during the Pacific War against Japan, indeed the brutal treatment of Australian POW's at the hands of their Japanese captors even today skews feelings towards Japan. ( my father refused to buy Japanese goods and services well into the 1980's )
Australia also fought a series of small scale conflicts in Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam during the 1950's-early 1970's.
Starting post Vietnam in 1975, Australia welcomed Indo Chinese refugees and in the last 30 or so years there is an open immigration policy that does not discriminate by race, religion or culture. ( on a personal note, Vietnamese people have a bit of a beer drinking culture, so they have fitted in pretty well IMHO....lol ! )
Now, I have made a home for myself in Australia's most multicultural city, Darwin... 12*S of the Equator and closer to the major Asian Capitals than the southern states Cities. We pride ourselves in welcoming anyone and everyone.
My kids primary school classes ( 40 students ) had kids from 15 or more different ethnic backgrounds. And all those kids developed Aussie ( Northern Territory style ) accents, kicked a footy, played cricket, and for all intents and purposes became Aussies in one, no more than two generations.
However, I will admit ( a little bit shamefully ) to being rather surprised at the Sydney suburbs that have become 'ethnic enclaves'. My sister is married to a bloke from Hong Kong, and my two nephews are ethically half Cantonese half Anglo Aussie.... of course the don't categorise themselves this way... they are full blow Aussie suburban young fellas....Rugby League fans, played Cricket, one has a 4wd, they're beer drinkers.... the list goes on.
I remember being shocked about 10 years ago during a visit. The suburb of Penshurst is majority Chinese ethnically. and the Hurstville Mall one could blink and be in down town Singapore... the street signs and shop signs are all in Chinese writing.... My sister and I took the nephews to get a haircut and we were the only two Anglos in the whole Mall ( it seemed ) And even the barbers were a couple of Lebanese fellas.....haha. So yeah, older 'Boomer' Aussies have a bit of atavistic fear ( unfounded of course ) of the 'foreign' enclaves in our major cities. We are simply not used to the cultural differences.
But as I said earlier, in my home town of Darwin, people do not congregate on racial/ethnic lines, so to see otherwise I found un nerving....
I’ve been to both. California having a lot of Latino/Hispanic influence and a fair bit of African-American influence does not mean that California has less Asian influence than California does. Asian influences intermingle with thr Hispanic and African-American communities, too. California has about as proportionally as high an Asian population as Australia does, but is larger in raw numbers.
Only because California has more non-whites in general than Australia does. Australia is still predominantly European (specifically Anglo-Saxon) at 76%. California is only like 60% white. So of course there will be more Asians, Latinos, Blacks, etc, in California.
That said, our multicultural influence is heavily Asian influenced, followed by Middle Eastern. In California, it's mostly Latino and African American culture. These two sort of wane the Asian influence of California. Not saying California has less Asians, but it's a very diverse region and other cultures would have prominent influence there as well. But in Australia, the Asian culture stands out a lot, especially in the pool of the predominant Anglo-Celtic culture. Many suburbs in Sydney, like Cabramatta, are like 80% East Asian.
In the CBD of Los Angeles, I remember seeing mostly Latinos. Whereas in Sydney and Melbourne, I saw more Asians (followed by Indians). So Australia wins in this regard, but maybe by a hair. It's about the percentage anyway, not numbers.
Only because California has more non-whites in general than Australia does. Australia is still predominantly European (specifically Anglo-Saxon) at 76%. California is only like 60% white. So of course there will be more Asians, Latinos, Blacks, etc, in California.
That said, our multicultural influence is heavily Asian influenced, followed by Middle Eastern. In California, it's mostly Latino and African American culture. These two sort of wane the Asian influence of California. Not saying California has less Asians, but it's a very diverse region and other cultures would have prominent influence there as well. But in Australia, the Asian culture stands out a lot, especially in the pool of the predominant Anglo-Celtic culture. Many suburbs in Sydney, like Cabramatta, are like 80% East Asian.
In the CBD of Los Angeles, I remember seeing mostly Latinos. Whereas in Sydney and Melbourne, I saw more Asians (followed by Indians). So Australia wins in this regard, but maybe by a hair. It's about the percentage anyway, not numbers.
39.4% Latino
36.5% White
15.5% Asian
6.5% Black
4.0% Mixed
Also, Asian culture is vastly more prevalent in Cali than Black culture, which has been in decline now for 30 years in California due to high cost of living and Blacks moving to cheaper cities in the South.
Large Asian majority cities are quite common too. See Cupertino, Daly City, Fremont, Monterey Park, San Gabriel, Walnut, etc. A city like Fremont is 60% Asian and has 250,000 people, or ~140,000 Asians. And that's just one example (California has 6.2 million Asians).
Asian cities in California are usually either wealthy exurbs or poorer inner suburbs. In both cases, neither tend to be on the tourist circuit. Not to many tourists need to visit Fremont, Irvine or San Marino.
Last edited by manitopiaaa; 09-09-2020 at 11:44 PM..
In California yes but just had a quick browse and in LA there is 1.6million Asians in the met area including South Asians. São Paulo definitely has more than that and when I was in São Paulo in 2018 it definitely felt that way.
There are about the same number of US-Americans and Brazilians here in the UK (about 200k each) and I've yet to meet my first Asian from the US, on the contrary I have met 6 Brazilians of Asian descent and 2 Peruvians of Chinese descent as well as 2 Asian Aussies. São Paulo beats LA in this regard.
So the Los Angeles CSA (18.7 million) alone has more Asians than Brazil (210 million).
New York CSA has 2,370,999 Asians too, and San Francisco CSA has 2,196,645 Asians. Toronto, if you use the Golden Horseshoe, is also over 2 million.
If anything, I think Sao Paulo would struggle to crack the Top 5 biggest Asian hubs in the Americas today, especially since not every Japanese Brazilian (1.5 million according to the Brazilian government) lives in Sao Paulo. Hundreds of thousands are in Parana, Rio de Janeiro, and Rio Grande do Sul. You even have major clusters in Para in the North.
I lived in Australia for a few months in 2013 and there was a fairly heavy Asian influence. Looking at demographic estimates just now, it seems that Australia has a slightly higher percentage of people with Asian background than California (though they are neck and neck essentially). Still, I argue that Australia's Asian influence is felt much more than California's Asian influence, which is blunted not only by a significant white population (as is the case in Australia), but by a significant Hispanic population and not so insignificant black population. Australia is still overwhelmingly populated by people of predominately or exclusively European descent. California is a minority majority state, where one particular minority community (the Hispanic community, particularly those with Mexican ancestry) dominates above the rest.
So a perspective from an older generation ( what we call a 'Boomer' ie a post WW2 baby ) bloke.
Historically Australia has been sh*t scared of Asia, We passed laws prohibiting immigration during the gold rushes of 1850's- 1900, there were serious anti Chinese riots on the goldfields of Victoria, NSW and Queensland during these times. After Australian Federation in 1901, Governments passed 'White Australia' laws to restrict Asian immigration. These laws remained on the statute books until the early 1970's.
Anti Asian sentiment was heightened during WW2 during the Pacific War against Japan, indeed the brutal treatment of Australian POW's at the hands of their Japanese captors even today skews feelings towards Japan. ( my father refused to buy Japanese goods and services well into the 1980's )
Australia also fought a series of small scale conflicts in Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam during the 1950's-early 1970's.
Starting post Vietnam in 1975, Australia welcomed Indo Chinese refugees and in the last 30 or so years there is an open immigration policy that does not discriminate by race, religion or culture. ( on a personal note, Vietnamese people have a bit of a beer drinking culture, so they have fitted in pretty well IMHO....lol ! )
Now, I have made a home for myself in Australia's most multicultural city, Darwin... 12*S of the Equator and closer to the major Asian Capitals than the southern states Cities. We pride ourselves in welcoming anyone and everyone.
My kids primary school classes ( 40 students ) had kids from 15 or more different ethnic backgrounds. And all those kids developed Aussie ( Northern Territory style ) accents, kicked a footy, played cricket, and for all intents and purposes became Aussies in one, no more than two generations.
However, I will admit ( a little bit shamefully ) to being rather surprised at the Sydney suburbs that have become 'ethnic enclaves'. My sister is married to a bloke from Hong Kong, and my two nephews are ethically half Cantonese half Anglo Aussie.... of course the don't categorise themselves this way... they are full blow Aussie suburban young fellas....Rugby League fans, played Cricket, one has a 4wd, they're beer drinkers.... the list goes on.
I remember being shocked about 10 years ago during a visit. The suburb of Penshurst is majority Chinese ethnically. and the Hurstville Mall one could blink and be in down town Singapore... the street signs and shop signs are all in Chinese writing.... My sister and I took the nephews to get a haircut and we were the only two Anglos in the whole Mall ( it seemed ) And even the barbers were a couple of Lebanese fellas.....haha. So yeah, older 'Boomer' Aussies have a bit of atavistic fear ( unfounded of course ) of the 'foreign' enclaves in our major cities. We are simply not used to the cultural differences.
But as I said earlier, in my home town of Darwin, people do not congregate on racial/ethnic lines, so to see otherwise I found un nerving....
I personally love living in ethnically diverse areas. I find more choice, more open minds generally, more worldliness, great verities of dinning on the doorstep, even a street culture, where people walk and perhaps gather to talk and hang out.
That was a big reason a love cities like London and Amsterdam and Paris to live. (especially the first two)
Now I have lived in Darwin, while it is indeed quite multi cultural, the big difference from where you speak about in Sydney, Hurtsville, is numbers.
A simple glance at the demographics, shows only 3.6% of Darwins population was born in The Philippines.
That birth place being the number one foreign born locality in Darwin.
Hence, no overseas born national group, has the numbers, to colonize, any particular area of that city.
Hurtsville, is of course a totally different proposition. Almost 40% of residents are born in China. 49.8% identify with having Chinese ethnicity.
Then 6.6% are Nepali born. Still way, way more than the top Philippines, overseas birth place of Darwin residents.
I usually go to Cabramatta at least once , when in Sydney for the food as well as the' ethnic enclave feel',
There 35% are Vietnamese born, 8.6% Cambodian, 4.7% China, as examples.
Very high overseas birth rates but not exactly diverse in the sense of places originated from.
Australia is only in modern times getting 'the feel' of multi culturalism. It will, most likely not be a case of assimilation, the way you describe it in Darwin. More real difference in preferences, will likely emerge.
But then was it so different in times past ? Things like Soccer and foreign food that was put down are now mostly considered a part of the landscape.
One can but imagine the Asian influence will continue to influence this country, in ever greater ways, over the coming decades, in ways that hasn't been realized to date.
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