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I would say at this point, pretty handily NYC's Asian presence > Bay Area's Black culture. The Bay Area does have some Black culture. There is a rich tradition in Oakland and some parts of SF. But, it seems to have plateaued (or declined) as Asian and Hispanic immigration has risen. NYC, OTOH, is home to huge and growing Asian populations. The Asian influence only grows stronger by the day.
Probably 20 or 30 years ago it would have been a closer match. Replacing NYC with DC, Atl or Hou would make it a much tougher call in my mind.
For sure Asian in NYC > black in Bay Area. Looking at the Bay Area holistically. Isolate the East Bay and compare black in East Bay to Asian in Queens/Brooklyn, and I think it could be a little different.
But the whole Bay Area includes SF, San Mateo County, Marin, and Santa Clara County, none of which are more than 10% black, in some cases really really low (2.6% in San Mateo, 2.5% in Santa Clara County, 2.8% in Marin).
Alameda County in E Bay is 12.2% for a county of 1.6 million
Contra Costa in E Bay is 8.9% for a county of 1.1 million
Solano County going north from each (basically considered E Bay) is 14.6% for 425K people
~355K blacks for 3.125 million (11.4%)
Brooklyn + Queens Asian
Brooklyn is 11.3% Asian for 2.6 million
Queens is 25.2% for 2.3 million (certainly the most Asian place outside of SF/Bay Area as a whole)
~873K Asians in 4.9 million people (17.8%)
I guess East Bay alone is still less black than Brooklyn/Queens is Asian!
Manhattan is also more Asian than E Bay is black. As is Northern NJ.
In terms of black representation out west, which is low taken as a whole, E Bay has enough culture and history and size there to have influenced black culture as a whole. So it's not without substance. I wouldn't say Asian history/culture in greater New York have had the same impact on Asian American culture as Blacks in the E Bay and even into San Francisco have had on black culture in the US.
They have influenced entire generations of other minorities, like me. Those of us who are the children of immigrants, that grew up in the hood, were welcomed and embraced by the Blacks we grew up with and their families.
That's why music, fashion, food etc normally associated with Blacks is so dominant to many of us-the influence of Blacks on us has remained.
Asians in New York like Asians in the Bay, I suspect, tend to be more insular, which is to fine too.
The Asian population in NYC is biggest in the country. I think people are still stuck in the old stereotypes, with Asians all on the West Coast, and places like Brooklyn and Queens supposedly filled with Italians and Irish and Puerto Ricans and the like. If you ride the D train, or the 7 train, or the N train, or the R train, Asians dominate.
Asians are also the fastest growing race cohort in NYC, already outnumber whites in NYC public schools, and will probably, at some point, be the largest nonwhite race category in NYC.
^^^I agree on numbers alone. However, what real "influence", culturally, politically, or otherwise do Asians in NYC yet have relative to what blacks in the East Bay and to a lesser extent San Francisco have historically had.
For instance, MC Hammer is from Oakland. W Coast Hyphe is a whole musical sub-genre that gained popularity by the likes of famous rappers like E-40 also from the area. I believe comedian Dave Chappelle lives in Oakland. Whoopi Goldberg just sold her house there (I know she's from NYC...but kept a house in Oakland, along with lots of other famous black people).
What blacks are missing throughout the Bay Area these days is representation and political power, and their numbers are dwindling relative to growth of whites/Asians/Latinos. But there is a history there that has shaped black American culture. Similarly, LA is <10% black and numbers dwindling, but it has a black history that has also shaped back American culture, and American culture in general.
But Asians in the Bay Area, along with gays in San Francisco, are two of the most powerful political groups in all of CA. I wonder if Asians in NYC, with their high numbers that are getting even higher, enjoy the same?
NYC's Chinatown is larger than SF's. But there, too, whenever you think of something "Chinese" in an American sense, like Chop Suey, or Bruce Lee, etc etc they are all associated with San Francisco's Chinatown.
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Honestly, they both suck. The Bay Area hasn't really been nationally relevant in black culture for decades, since the Panthers. And no, MC Hammer, Too Short and E-40 don't count. The most recent influential thing out of Oakland/The Bay was a police brutality case. Just having a substantial black population doesn't equal national influence. Otherwise, we could be arguing Birmingham, Alabama here.
As for NYC, there's far more Asians there than even in the Bay, let alone black folks, so I guess it "wins" here. But even though "Asians" ( we talking East and/or South btw?) have Queens on lock, and other areas in the metro, as has been mentioned, they tend to very insular until they're Americanized.
Honestly, they both suck. The Bay Area hasn't really been nationally relevant in black culture for decades, since the Panthers. And no, MC Hammer, Too Short and E-40 don't count. The most recent influential thing out of Oakland/The Bay was a police brutality case. Just having a substantial black population doesn't equal national influence. Otherwise, we could be arguing Birmingham, Alabama here.
As for NYC, there's far more Asians there than even in the Bay, let alone black folks, so I guess it "wins" here. But even though "Asians" ( we talking East and/or South btw?) have Queens on lock, and other areas in the metro, as has been mentioned, they tend to very insular until they're Americanized.
I agree with this. The Bay Area has had a huge black influence historically (as Jpdivola said) but nowadays that population is declining as housing prices go up.
As for the bolded portion- I might be nitpicking, but the Tri-State Area and the Bay Area have a similar number of Asians. I don't have exact numbers but the Bay Area recently passed 2 million while NY is somewhere from 2.1-2.2 million.
Based off of that, comparing Asian "presence" for both areas would be a much closer comparison than in the OP- though I think SF would get the edge due to higher percentages.
Last edited by garyjohnyang; 07-31-2015 at 03:47 PM..
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