Community-based Organization Research

ATECAR: Asian Tobacco Education and Cancer Awareness Research 

 Introduction

Asian Americans is among the minority groups in the U.S, and they consist of Chinese, Indian, Filipino, and Bangladeshi among other groups. The ethnic groups have lived in the U.S since the 1800s and immigration has changed the U.S demographic due to voluntary immigration, war, and imperialism which have increased the Asian-American demographics.  Cancer is a threat to Asian Americans, and ATECAR (a community-based organization) was established in 2000 to control tobacco and cancer. The organization aims at developing programs and network for providing knowledge and skills and healthy behaviors related to prevention and intervention.  Even though Asian Americans are overrepresented in higher education, they are the most underserved populations and encounter racial stereotypes.

 

            Dhingra & Rodriguez (2014) asserts that race and ethnicity shapes society and Asian Americans are ethnic groups that lack the privileged of controlling their lives once they enter in U.S.  Asians American encounter all kinds of sociological issues such as inequality and prejudice in the society. They encounter the deprivation of resources and unfair treatment in the labor market and in social institutions such as education and politics due to their gender, sex, age, and race.  Since they lack the opportunity of participating in the institutions and social groups, they are unable to develop their self-identity due to limited choices.  The inequality, underrepresentation in the social institution and lack of self-identify occur due to racism (Dhingra & Rodriguez, 2014). The racial formation theory states race shapes the society and whites use racial ideologies in defining the minorities.  For example, Asian Americans are described as sexually deviant and apolitical among other terms that hinder the promotion of equality. It is essential to understand that race and ethnicity are social constructions where people define others by focusing on biological features such as skin color. White people use the physical differences to divide people between the society and social institutions (Dhingra & Rodriguez, 2014). Racial classification has become an issue of concern in modern societies in that rather than classifying people using biological bases; the community is using the political and social invention. For example, Irish Americans have phenotypic traits, but they were categorized as ‘racially white' until they socialized with whites in voting.

 

 Having understood the social construction of race and the sociological issues that Asian Americans encounter, Ma et al. (2006) assert that health indicators in Asian Americans community shows the diversity.  For example, the health indicators show that the rate of tuberculosis and hepatitis B Virus is higher in the Asian American community compared with other population such as white non-Hispanic and African Americans. Tobacco use is on rising in the Asian American community, and the high prevalence is leading to lung cancer. To address these issues, the ATECAR was established, and its role was to provide comprehensive prevention and control of tobacco and cancer. Primarily, the organization focused on taking collective actions and agreements with leaders of the Asian American community and later developed a National Cancer Institute (Ma et al. 2006). ATECAR collaborated with the Asian Community Cancer Coalition and established common goals and objective which enabled them to meet the social needs of Asian Americans.

 

Conclusion

Asian Americans are underrepresented in social settings, and they are discriminated and prejudiced due to the racial and ethnicity factors despite the higher education performance. Affirmative action and diversity programs have been developed to ensure that the group is not underrepresented. ATECAR has served a significant role in eliminating the diversity which the Asian Americans encounter in the U.S.  As a community-based organization, it has developed sustainable partnerships with the community and ensured that the uninsured and underserved minorities can now access the health care.  By implementing a comprehensive and cultural strategy, Asian population in the U.S has gained empowerment. 

 

 

 

References

 

Dhingra P., & Rodriguez R.M.,(2014). Asian America: Sociological and Interdisciplinary Perspective. Polity

Press

 

Ma, G. X., Tan, Y., Toubbeh, J. I., Edwards, R. L., Shive, S. E., Siu, P., ... & Fang, C. Y. (2006). Asian tobacco

education and cancer awareness research special population network. Cancer, 107(S8), 1995-

2005.

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https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/cncr.22150

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1003.2978&rep=rep1&type=pdf