A telling sign

The online New York Times includes, at the bottom of each article, a list of other articles in the same section or the same topic.

For a piece on a new TV show based on Eddie Huang's memoir Fresh Off the Boat, the related articles are all TV-related. Wait, that's not true: there's a piece about ticket sales for the Broadway production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. But of links to other articles about Asian Americans, nary a one.

If the piece had been about African Americans or Jews or Hispanics, I'm pretty sure there would have been links to several other pieces about some aspect of those groups.

I think this speaks volumes for the low profile Asian Americans have in the mass media.

Perhaps this is only numbers talking: Asian Americans are only a small percentage of the U.S. population. I strongly suspect Native Americans are in the same boat, profile-wise, and for the same reason.