A few days ago, I and four other Brown Asians criticized the New York Times for their disregard of the Brown Asian community. This continued neglect caused serious disappointment and hurts for many Brown Asians who are pained to realize that even though #thisis2016 , people still dont understand that #BrownAsiansExist . In fact, not only do Brown Asians exist, we compose half of the Asian American population !

To be clear, the outcry from Brown Asians isnt about #thisis2016; it was a great vehicle to show America how widespread and damaging racism against Asian Americans really is. What Brown Asians are complaining about is their continued marginalization even within the Asian American community, which the New York Times video painfully showed us is still happening. Brown Asians are just tired of being unseen, unheard, and unappreciated even by other Asians.

We are tired of the fact that when people think of Asian Americans, they seem to always think of East Asians Chinese, Koreans, or Japanese. Were tired of the fact that when people think of getting the Asian American perspective, Brown Asian experiences are not included or if even considered, often disregarded. We are tired of being forgotten and being treated as if we are invisible!

But - you know that nagging feeling that tends to come around whenever you complain about something? That question mark in the back of your mind asking if maybe you are just being overly sensitive?

I got that feeling.

So although this marginalization is something that I and many other Brown Asians have felt to be very true and real, I figured Id look for some basic information to back up our hunch. To do this, I just did a simple search on the websites of four major media outlets using the six largest Asian American ethnic groups as the search terms (i.e., Chinese, Filipino, South Asian, Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese). The media outlets I checked out are:

(1) a major media network whose reach includes multiple television channels, including a recently launched effort to cover issues specific to Asian America;

(2) an Asian American website/blog that operates as a trusted source of information on anything Asian American-related, especially topics about racism, politics, activism - stuff that gets you angry;

(3) an Asian-American magazine that has been around for over a decade; and

(4) a very influential newspaper in a very major city.

Here are the results of my search: