Chinese Population in the US Ziyu (Carson) Xia
Abstract
China is currently the country whose population is the largest in the world. Chinese is also one of the largest races, although in the US, Chinese takes a much less proportion than some other races, like black and white. However, Chinese also play a very important role in the US in many different fields. There are many Chinese Professors and students in universities. More and more Chinese participate elections for members of parliament. Many technical companies hire more Chinese employees. Also, Chinese restaurants can be found everywhere. These are all evidence showing that Chinese is increasing. However, the less proportion also caused the fact that Chinese might go through a tough time, especially in the states where there is only a few Chinese. The aim of this project is to visually represent the Chinese population in each state of the US. The output would be a map of the US with each state. The height of each state would show the absolute value of the Chinese population in each state, and the color would show the proportion of the whole population taken by the Chinese in each state. The color I plan to use is red, since this is the color of Chinese national flag. The color would be closer to red with the increase proportion of Chinese population. With this map, the viewers would know not only the states where there are more Chinese, but also the states where Chinese take a larger proportion. By staying with more Chinese, Chinese are less likely be discriminated or unevenly treated. This can also provide a guidance for the government to manage Chinese citizens.
Process of development
Data collection and processing
In this project, I planned to show the Chinese population in each state of the US. Therefore, the first data is the Chinese population in each state. Initially, I planned to use the report published by United States Census Bureau, since this is the most official statistic undertaken by the government. However, that report is scheduled to be released in August 2023, which is too late for this project. Thus, I found another report published by NameCensus.com. Since I also planned to show the proportion of each state, the total population of each state is also needed. United States Census Bureau has released this report, which is available.
Project Design
While designing the represent of the map, I tried to add more Chinese styles. I planned to use yellow to represent the large proportion of Chinese, since this is the skin color of Chinese. However, most Asians have similar skin color, so it is not typical to use it. Finally, I decided that the color of the state where there are more Chinese population would be closer to red, which is the main color of the flag of China (Figure 1). While choosing the color to represent that there is less Chinese population, I met some trouble. Initially, I wanted to use the yellow, since this is the other color appeared in the flag of China. However, the result might be confusing since it cannot present as the flag of China. Then, I considered the reverse color of red, which is green, but the final map looks quite weird. I also thought about the blue, but the red and blue usually are used to represent the president election. Finally, I decided to use gray. Most of residences in the US are black and white, which mixed to be gray. After setting the color of the map, I decided to add something that can present the yellow stars of the flag, so I planned to use the stars to show the top five cities with the largest Chinese population, which are New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, and Boston.
3D Modelling
Since it is hard to print 3D model with different color, I decide to print the model with plain white, and color print the map covering the top of the model. First, I need to design 3D model for 3D print. I downloaded a US State Map of stl format from Internet and loaded it in SketchUp (Figure 2).
However, such a model cannot be editted the height. Luckily, there is a package called FixIt 101, which can delete the lines on the models. After applying the package to every state, the model looks like Figure 3.
The height of each state can be adjusted now. According to the data I collected, I decided to use 1000 as a unit to adjust the height. The final version of 3D model looks like Figure 4.
Plain Map Design
With collected data, it is not hard to calculate the Chinese percentage of each state (Figure 5). Excel has a function creating the map with data. After adjusting the color to what I expect, it would look like Figure 6. Combining the color with 3D model would look like Figure 7.
Besides the color map, the five cities need to be geocoded in the map. Here, I used ArcGIS to geocode them (Figure 7).
Challenges and Solution
There are an increasing number of Chinese in the US. However, as shown in the artifact, they are not evenly distributed. In California, there are nearly 1000 times more Chinese population than the states in middle area. Although part of the reason is that there are more total population in California, the percentage in California is also the largest. One of potential reason is that California has policies that are friendly to Chinese. The Spring Festival is even a leagal holiday there. By staying in California, Chinese would feel at home. By contrast, in some states, Chinese would feel very dangerous, so there would be a bit Chinese staying there, which makes less Chinese would like to move into there.
From the artifact, Chinese would know where is more appropriate for them. They would also know where is a bit dangerous form them. For libraries, they have the obligations to help build a suitable environment for every groups. They should publish ChineseCrit, advertise Chinese culture, and collect more Chinese publishments. With such actions, more Chinese would like to come and stay in the US, and make more contribution. That is benefit for not only the US, but also the whole world.