Article focuses on Li's concept of the ethnoburb

Timothy Egan, an online commentator for the New York Times, published an article this week discussing the rise of Asian and Latino suburban communities in southern California and throughout the West. His discussion focuses primarily on geography and Asian Pacific American Studies faculty member Wei Li’s concept of the ethnoburb. Egan describes ethnoburbs as communities that are “suburban in look, but urban in political, culinary and educational values, attracting immigrants with advanced degrees and ready business skills.”

Li first introduced the term “ethnoburb” in several 1998 journal articles, and in revisited California’s San Gabriel Valley ethnoburbs in her 2009 book, Ethnoburb: The New Ethnic Community in America.

Timothy Egan is a well-recognized journalist, part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team that wrote the 2001 series “How Race is Lived in America,” and author of several books.

Li comments that this New York Times commentary illustrates how the publication of the book, together with the release of 2010 census data, has moved the idea of “ethnoburb” from the academic realm to a much broader audience.