Custom «The Population in the Asian Pacific» Essay Paper Sample

Indeed, it is factual that legislative changes in the United States impacted greatly, the size and growing diversity of the population in the Asian Pacific. Among the laws which can be considered pertinent to this situation is the 1989 American Homecoming Act which allowed all the Amerasian children in Vietnam to migrate into the US. The most prominent of the factors that had catapulted the billing and passing of the act was the devastating environmental, economic and socio-political conditions and consequences that had been caused by the ravages of the Vietnam War. America felt that it was under moral obligation to safeguard the welfare of these children who had greatly been resultantly orphaned, given that America had participated actively and indirectly in the war.

Secondly, the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments are also known to have affected the Asian Pacific American population. This is because, the acts brought about, the elimination of racial or/ and nationality-based forms of discrimination in the American immigration quotas. This allowed free movement of the Asians from other countries, and into America.

In 1952, the Walter-McCarran Act was also billed and passed, leading to the nullification of all the anti Asian exclusion laws or policies by the federal government. This did not only encourage the immigration of Asians from other countries into America, thereby leading to the emergence of the Diaspora Asian population, but also made America increasingly a reflection of a cultural melting pot, as the Asians were able to access social amenities and services (Shinagawa, 75.

There are several common pressures which are known to have greatly impacted the second generation. The adoption of liberalism as a way of life and governance remains supreme. For instance, the liberalization of the media as a facet of liberalism has had it that the media and the content aired by it should be controlled by the media moguls and empires such as the CNN, BBC and Sky News. This development has always left the American population, the second generation Asiatic Pacific population included being bombarded with liberal ideals such as self determination, choice, reason instead of religion and culture, and self expression. The downside of this development is that this generation has succumbed to the reality of the raunchy culture, materialism and the lure of free sex and pornography. Like the rest of the American population, conservatist ideals have also been replaced by liberal and consumerist ideals among the second generation.

Thus, the key areas of contention between the first and second generation have come about in the latter trying to exercise its independence. This expression of independence is mostly seen to be being manifested in dressing, with the second generation seemingly following the variable winds of fashion in lieu of cultural values which emphasize decency. Second generation ladies are also seen as being readily susceptible to ideas such as dressing sexily as a means to an end, thereby manifesting the reality of the raunchy culture (Shinagawa, 84.

It is a fact that there are social and economic factors which have shaped the Asian American ethnic group's ideas of the home. As Yen Le Espiritu would have it, among the social factors which have reshaped views on the home is the adoption of the postmodernist thoughts such as the importance of the individual, over the family. At the moment, individualism is being mooted as being superior to familism. The gravity of this shift from familism (the belief that the family is the basic social unit) to individualism (the belief that the individual is the most important and basic social unit) has led to the disintegration of societal values. This is due to the fact that individualism stifles the strength of the ethical values which can only be best entrenched by the family. To surmise that the individual can do as he pleases in the absence of the family is to open up a Pandora Box for the disintegration of the societal values and the staining of the social fabric (Shinagawa, 125).

The adoption of naked capitalism has also reshaped the Asian American's position on the family. With the liberalization of the economy, the strengthening of globalization and the subsequent movement of capital from one country to another, families have been cut asunder as the quest for jobs, and the pursuit of business ventures abroad have become the common trend. Thus, it is also true that the first and second generations have been affected by the social and economic factors divulged upon, above. The second generation was affected by the ubiquitous adoption of liberal and postmodernist concepts into government policies.