Asian Americans Go Missing When It Comes to TV

Done by UCLA researchers for the Asian American Justice Center(AAJC), the study found there are few quality roles for Asian Pacific Islander Americans (APIAs) on television.

Among the highlights of the report are that while APIAs make up 5 percent of the population in the U.S., regular APIA characters comprise only 2.6 percent of the prime time television regulars.

Even programs set in cities with large populations of APIAs – San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York – feature few if any regular APIA characters.

San Francisco had a nationwide leading 33.8 percent APIA population, but none of the three programs set in San Francisco in 2004 primetime had APIA regulars.

Although APIAs make up 13.2 percent of Los Angeles County, none of the 13 programs set in the county included APIA regulars.

For New York with 10.3 percent APIAs, Law and Order: SVU (NBC) featured one APIA regular. There were no APIAs on King of Queens(CBS) even though Queens, NY is 20.4 percent APIA.

There are programs set in cities with high concentrations of Latinos and African Americans with homogeneous casts but none featuring only APIAs.

There were no sitcoms with APIA actors in 2004-05. There were three sitcoms with APIA actors in 2005-06 – Hot Properties (ABC), That‘70s Show (Fox), and Half and Half (UPN).

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