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Title: Race, Asian Americans, and the Works Progress Administration

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2024

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Abstract: While New Deal scholarship has well established that racial divisions profoundly shaped the character and size of the American welfare state, the implications of this research for Asian Americans, particularly Chinese and Japanese Americans, remain unclear. This study moves beyond the White-Black binary that dominates analyses of New Deal programs by examining Chinese and Japanese Americans’ participation in the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Using full-count data from the 1940 census, we employ linear probability models and Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions to assess factors contributing to White-Chinese and White-Japanese employment differentials. While our results highlight the importance of differences in observable characteristics, the differential valuation of these characteristics and the unexplained portion of each employment differential suggest that discrimination led to Chinese and Japanese Americans’ underrepresentation in the WPA.

Url: https://ssha2024.ssha.org/uploads/240741

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Authors: Aveldanes, Jose

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Data Collections: IPUMS USA - Ancestry Full Count Data

Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Race and Ethnicity

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