Asian Latinos: These blended families represent California’s future
LOS ANGELES -- Emily Liu’s life is a series of balancing acts.
She speaks Chinese with her father and Spanish with her mother. Visiting her parents’ homelands takes her to Harbin in northern China and a small town in the Mexican state of Zacatecas.
Perhaps most of all, it’s how she’s perceived by others, as if she were a living Rorschach test — Asian to some and Latina to others.
“Some friends say they see Asian features. I don’t see any,” the soft-spoken teenager said. “I also don’t see any Latina. I don’t see any of it.”
Asians and Latinos are the two fastest-growing ethnic groups in the country, making up about a quarter of the U.S. population, according to 2019 Census data.
But even in places like the San Gabriel Valley, where more than 80% of residents are either Asian or Latino, few people are both. To belong to both groups simultaneously can
