EthnicMajority

SAN FRANCISCO — Mrs. Cheng feels like she’s living under siege in her own home.

In January, an 83-year-old neighbor, also a Chinese immigrant, was beaten into a coma. Days after he died in March, Mrs. Cheng, 53, was attacked and pushed off a public transit platform, coming to minutes later with front teeth knocked out and her mouth full of blood.

Both attacks happened within a block of her house. Now Mrs. Cheng avoids going out, gets rides to work, and keeps her two daughters close to home. She doesn’t want to be identified for fear of retaliation, but she doesn’t want too much to be made of what happened to her, either. She repeatedly said through a translator that she just wants everyone to live in peace.

Still, such attacks and the death of a Chinese immigrant from San Francisco who was assaulted during a visit to Oakland have focused the anger of Asian-Americans here, pushing them to vent in emotional rallies their long-simmering perception that they are targets of racially motivated violence. In all cases, the perpetrators were black teenagers, police said.

Full story…

In a recent New York Times article, the headline screams: “home ownership losses are greatest among minorities”. Given that African and Hispanic Americans were more likely to get subprime loans during the housing heyday up to 2006, you would think they would be the most negatively impacted by more recent foreclosures and more stringent mortgage approval standards.

In reviewing the research conducted by the Pew Research Center that the Times used to reach this conclusion, it does not appear that the news is as bad as the headline purports. Overall home ownership reached a peak of 69% in 2004 and declined to 67.8% in 2008. During the same time period, whites fell from 76.1% to 74.9%, Asians 60.8% to 59.1%, Blacks 49.4% to 47.5%, and Hispanics 49.8% to 48.9%. While home ownership rates declined more than the average for Asian and African Americans, the differences were marginal. And Hispanic declines were less than average, especially for more recent immigrants.

That said, the future does not look bright. African and Hispanic Americans are still two or three times more likely to get a subprime loan, pay 3 percentage points more for it, and borrow more for the same income levels when compared to whites.

This could lead to another foreclosure crisis, and we are still feeling the effects of the last one. But lets not jump the gun by making things sound worse than they really are today.

Ethnicmajority housing page.