Data Reveal Hard Truths for Islanders

For years government studies painted a glowing picture of Asians/Pacific Islanders as highly educated, high wage earners.

It sounded wonderful -- but for Pacific Islanders in the United States it wasn’t true.

“Right now I think we’re in our fourth generation here, and we’re worse off than when we first came,” said June Pouesi of the Office of Samoan Affairs in Carson, a nonprofit social services organization. “You find our people in high-crime, depressed areas throughout the county. There’s a consistent downward spiral because there’s really no understanding.”

What Pouesi could not prove before is now available in black and white.

Thanks to changes in how government agencies collect ethnic data, new studies offer a more accurate view of Pacific Islanders in California than ever before. The emerging image shows a community in distress:

* In five Southern California counties, Samoans and Tongans have per capita incomes lower than any other major racial or ethnic group.

* In every city in San Mateo County, according to one 2002-03 study, Pacific Islander youths were overrepresented in the number of petitions filed by the district attorney. Filing a petition in Juvenile Court is similar to filing criminal charges against adults.

* Only 6% of Bay Area Tongans have a college degree; just 9% of Fijians and 11% of Samoans there have graduated from college, compared with 34% of the general population.

* Nearly a majority of Pacific Islanders in San Francisco County live in poverty.

Now, with data in hand, community leaders across the state are ready to begin advocating for their people.

“We are no longer the model minority as we’ve been perceived,” said Vaka Faletau, a social worker in Los Angeles County who advocates for the Tongan community.

Earlier this year three nonprofit groups released “The Diverse Face of Asian and Pacific Islanders in California,” which is believed to be the first report using data from the 2000 census and other sources to provide detailed information on more than 20 Pacific Island ethnic groups in the state.

“We want to shed light on what those individual communities are experiencing,” said Stewart Kwoh, president and executive director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California.

Over the years, Pacific Islanders have been classified by various government agencies and private groups as “Asians” or “Others.” The Census Bureau also offered a joint category: “Asian or Pacific Islander.”

But Pacific Islander leaders argued that combining the community with larger groups -- Chinese, Japanese, Korean -- masked needs and realities.

“It actually showed us economically and socially doing very well,” Pouesi said. “It was totally the opposite.”

She recalled attending a meeting on Asian/Pacific Islander education at USC. The meeting focused on proposals for a cap on the number of Asian students accepted by the University of California.

“I said, ‘I think I’m in the wrong meeting,’ ” Pouesi said. “I’m dealing with keeping kids from [dropping out of] junior high school.”

There are about 246,000 Pacific Islanders in the state, with about half in Southern California. They make up nearly 4% of Carson’s population, giving the city the highest concentration of Pacific Islanders in the region.

In most communities, there is no “Little Samoa,” but there are churches; and “if there’s a Samoan church, then there’s a Samoan community,” Pouesi said. The churches function as urban villages where language, culture and traditions flourish.

The years-long push by leaders such as Pouesi to gather data solely on Pacific Islanders came to a head in 1997. After a directive from the federal Office of Management and Budget, some federal agencies modified their racial and ethnic categories.

The 2000 census form offered two new categories: “Asian” and “Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islanders.” Pacific Islanders also were allowed to write in their national origin.

The OMB ordered the change to be implemented by 2003, but some federal agencies -- and state agencies that report numbers to them -- have yet to adopt the categories. On its website, the state Department of Corrections includes the number of incarcerated Pacific Islanders in the “other” category.

Agencies that have followed the OMB recommendation have produced striking data.

Asian Americans as a whole have the highest rates of college degree attainment in the Bay Area, but the college graduation rate for five Pacific Islander groups was below average, according to the “Diverse Face” report.

The more precise data have implications for people such as K. Loselea Naufahu and other activists searching for solutions to community problems.

This year two police officers from the San Mateo County cities of San Bruno and Burlingame traveled to Tonga in search of ways to help quell gang violence among Tongan American youth. But Naufahu is searching for ways to quell what she says is police harassment in San Mateo, abuse that “has been going on for nearly half a century now. We’ve been bottling it up and bottling it up.”

Naufahu, who teaches about Polynesian culture at a local community college, began tackling harassment this summer after a nephew and his friends said they were unjustly detained by police, handcuffed, questioned and then released. That incident prompted Naufahu to organize a forum at which Tongan Americans spoke about their experiences with police and the justice system.

San Mateo County has the highest concentration of Pacific Islanders in the Bay Area, though they represent only 1.9% of the population. Their numbers loom large, however, in the justice system.

Between July 2002 and April 2003, Pacific Islander youths in the county were more likely to be arrested and enter the juvenile justice system than any other group, and they were more likely to be ordered detained in a locked facility.

Those findings were collected in a report commissioned in 2003 by San Mateo County supervisors. The study did not quantify how many youths were subject to the equivalent of conviction in adult courts.

County supervisors requested the report after African American parents and others complained about the treatment of their children.

“To see the Pacific Islander rates was just amazing,” said Isami Arifuku, a researcher with the nonprofit Oakland-based National Council on Crime and Delinquency, which conducted the study.

The report went beyond the anecdotal, he said: “This was using [county] data and showing the ways in which there was overrepresentation of some groups in the systems.”

The officers’ highly publicized trip sparked a discussion in the Tongan American community and has been a springboard for increased efforts by police and community leaders to address youth problems and educate parents, said David Taumoepeau, president of the board for the Pacific Islander Assn. of California.

Following the board-commissioned report, San Mateo County officials contacted a foundation for help in reducing the disproportionate presence of minorities in the juvenile justice system.

“We acknowledge that there is a concern, that there is an issue,” Supervisor Rose Jacobs Gibson said.

San Mateo Police Capt. Kevin Raffaelli declined to comment on Naufahu’s claims. He said that an effort with the police departments of San Bruno and Burlingame has produced a strong relationship with faith-based organizations, and that efforts are underway to assist Pacific Islander youths and families.

“Each of our communities have had concerns with the Polynesians with regards to violence and gang activity,” he said. “Our commitment with the faith-based community has been excellent. We’ve made a lot of headway.”

Naufahu sees success in watching Tongan Americans speak up about their experiences. “Tongans are now coming out and talking about the harassment, about the police, the abuse, the profiling, the racial discrimination,” she said.

Concerns about Pacific Islander youths have also been raised in Southern California. Prompted by a number of shootings between Tongan and Latino gangs in the Lennox area, Faletau said, he organized meetings with members of the Tongan community and members of the Sheriff’s Department.

The intent is to let parents and law enforcement know that “youth violence is escalating in our community and we need to pay attention to that,” he said.

As for the future, Pouesi and others say collecting accurate data will play a key role in addressing youth violence and other problems.

Just last year the Carson-based Pacific Islander Council of Leaders visited Washington to encourage several federal agencies, such as the Department of Education, to begin using the “Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander” category.

“We are invisible unless we have the data that demonstrates the needs of this community,” Pouesi said. “It takes the invisibility from us and identifies us as a group within America ... with as much rights as anybody else.”

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Pacific Islanders

The high school and college graduation rates of some Pacific Islander groups lag behind other Californians.

Education levels

All Californians

Less than high school: 23%

High school diploma: 43%

College degree (Associate or higher): 34%

*

Guamarians

Less than high school: 20%

High school diploma: 59%

College degree (Associate or higher): 22%

*

Somoans

Less than high school: 23%

High school diploma: 59%

College degree (Associate or higher): 18%

*

Fijians

Less than high school: 34%

High school diploma: 51%

College degree (Associate or higher): 16%

*

Tongans

Less than high school: 38%

High school diploma: 51%

College degree (Associate or higher): 11%

Notes: Education levels are for ages 25 and older. Ancestry groups include those who reported multiple races/ancestries. Percentages may not total 100 because of rounding.

Source: Census Bureau, 2000 census. Data analysis by Sandra Poindexter