WONG: And I'm Wailin Wong. Today on the show, how we ended up with this weirdly broad and - some would argue - nonsensical racial category. We'll talk about why it matters and whether there's a better way to understand the fastest-growing demographic in the country.

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MA: What do people think of when they hear the phrase Asian American?

KARTHICK RAMAKRISHNAN: If you look at how Asian Americans are covered in news stories or the kind of stereotypes about Asians in America today, they probably think of a Chinese American who is highly educated, has a very large house - maybe they watched that movie "Crazy Rich Asians" - definitely not poor and probably living in California or New York.

WONG: Karthick Ramakrishnan knows what he's talking about because he studies AAPI demographics at the University of California, Riverside. He says the problem with the statistics on Asian Americans writ large is not that they're wrong necessarily, but most of the time they're painting this really broad, overall picture, kind of like an average.

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