Search

The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated the restaurant industry, with Asian restaurants having perhaps suffered the most, as many reported business losses well before shelter-in-place orders were announced. Media outlets argue that this decline in business reflects biases that are linked to the China- and food-related origin of COVID-19. However, discrimination against Asian Americans and their cuisine is not new, as it is rooted in a long and history of assimilation and racism. Overlooked in this body of literature, as well as in conversations on the impacts of COVID-19 on Asian restaurants, is the role of how government institutions shape these biases against a cuisine that has hundreds of years of history in the US yet remains distinctly 'foreign'. In this study, we use 3-years of New York City restaurant health inspection data to examine trends in citation scores before and after the onset of the news of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a synthetic control approach, we find that Asian restaurants uniquely received more citations after news of the pandemic became pervasive in the US. We end by discussing the implications of this finding for the history of Asian cuisine in the US, theoretical frameworks to understand assimilation, and the restaurant industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies of immigrant families have called for a reconceptualizing of the influence of social class on education, articulated by the one social class model: White middle-class families possess the cultural capital to foster their social mobility. Focusing on three undocumented and mixed-status Chinese immigrant families in New York City for 3.5 years, we found those who arrived in the United States with the most social class resources fared the worst, whereas those who had less in China were able to persist better. We argue the mechanism underlying this reversal of expected social class patterns is the cultural practice of saving face, which reflects the intersection of social class status, documentation status, and intergenerational acculturation. From this article, we demonstrate understandings of social class among immigrants, especially those of precarious legal status, must expand and incorporate social status experiences prior to immigration, notions of belonging in the United States and being undocumented, and changes through acculturation influence practices that can directly affect mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines autism diagnosis prevalence within the New York City (NYC) Universal Pre-K for All (UPK) program expansion into racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse NYC neighborhoods. Here, it is hypothesized that racial/ethnic differences in autism diagnoses may close as more children are referred for testing by UPK programs, which they have more thorough interactions with, instead of by public health clinics or other medical avenues. Using NYC Medicaid claim data from 2006 to 2016, descriptive analyses were conducted by estimating linear probability regression and generalized multiple logistic regression to examine whether the probabilities of being diagnosed with autism in comparison to two other disability types (as counterfactuals), learning disabilities (LD) and physical disabilities (PD), differ by race. Subsequently, a difference in difference (DID) strategy (with pre- and post-UPK expansion cohorts) was used to examine the effects of UPK on the probabilities of receiving disability diagnoses. Notably, Latinx and "Other" racially identified children have much higher odds than White children of being diagnosed with autism. By contrast, all non-White groups had much lower odds of being diagnosed with a LD. These findings offer important insight for future UPK and childhood program implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]