Growing up in Auburn Hills, Tony Zhang considered his family — and all the Asians he knew — to be middle class.

His parents, both immigrants from China in the 1990s, are hardworking folks, he said. They own and operate Great Wall, a Chinese takeout, in Pontiac. To help them get by, the Oakland University senior added he would sometimes join them in their no-frills restaurant.

But, new economic data about Asians in the United States — and popular "crazy rich" media portrayals — show that Asian-Americans are now the racial group facing the greatest income inequality, a problem, experts say, that can ultimately thwart the kind of economic opportunity, mobility and influence Zhang hopes to one-day have after he graduates.

"I definitely want to be rich," Zhang, 20, said. "Who doesn't?"

According to an analysis of government data by the Pew Research Center, from 1970 to 2016, the distribution of income among Asians went from being one of the most equal to the most unequal among America’s major racial and ethnic groups.

"An increase in income inequality matters because of the potential for social and economic consequences," the study said. "People at the lower rungs of the income ladder may experience diminished economic opportunity and mobility and have less political influence."

The gap in the standard of living between Asians near the top and the bottom of the income ladder nearly doubled, and the Washington-based think tank concluded, Asians displaced African-Americans as America's most economically divided racial group.

This change, experts said, can be attributed to immigration, education, and, now, the “crazy rich Asian” narrative emerging from Hollywood that portrays Asians as a privileged group more than as a part of the underclass.

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"This is in line with a lot of really important research that shows Asians are an extremely diverse group in the United States and immigration plays an important role of Asians in this country," said Joshua Rivera, data and policy adviser with the University of Michigan's Poverty Solutions initiative. "The category, Asian, encapsulates so many different groups who have journeyed to America in different ways."

Rivera's warning to policy makers: Pay attention to the diversity within the racial category.

"In a classical sense, most people would tend to think among racial and ethnic groups that Asians are on par with white Americans and having relatively higher outcomes," he added. "But this report tells me policy makers need to think about what these categories mean individually."

Why inequality matters

The Pew study found that the difference in inequality among Asians reflected that Asians near the top experienced more growth in income from 1970 to 2016 than any other group while Asians near the bottom experienced the least growth.

Why?

Asians, the study said, tend to attain higher levels of education than other racial groups.

Moreover, inequality was driven in part by immigrants who accounted for 81 percent of the growth in the Asian adult population from 1970 to 2016.

The end to the Vietnam War brought a wave of refugees, and along with it, fewer Asian immigrants in high-skilled jobs and more in low-skill occupations. But new immigration rules in 1990 and a tech boom have led to an influx of Asians for high-skilled, higher-paying jobs.

Now, as new perceptions about privileged Asian-Americans take hold, workplaces, educational institutions, and even Asian-Americans themselves are wrestling with how affirmative action and other policies aimed at helping racial minorities should apply.

A group of Asian-Americans, for instance, is suing Harvard University because they contend the elite, private institution is systematically discriminating against them by capping the number of qualified Asian-Americans who are admitted.

The Ivy League university has denied such claims.

According to Harvard, 22.2 percent of the class of 2021 is Asian-American, 14.6 percent is African-American, 11.6 percent is Hispanic and 2.5 percent is Native American.

Asians make up less than 6 percent of the U.S. population and about 3 percent of Michigan's.

And while Asians are an underrepresented minority group in the United States and fear discrimination, "elite college administrators" also have expressed concerns that they may have "too many Asians" enrolled in higher education, according to an online report from the American Psychological Association.

Schools like Oakland University, the public university in Rochester that Zhang attends, and the University of Michigan, which also seeks to boost racial diversity, are left with what might be considered an enrollment dilemma.

At Oakland University, 75.8 percent of the students are white, 8.4 percent are black, 6.5 percent are Asian and 3.5 percent are Hispanic. At the University of Michigan, 65 percent of the freshman are white,15 percent are Asian, 6 percent are Hispanic, and 5 percent are black.

At the same time, the income gap among Asians is growing — and outpacing other groups, according to the Pew research.

Asians in the highest 10 percent percent of the income distribution in 2016 earned 10.7 times as much as Asians in the bottom 10 percent. In 1970, the difference was just 6.1 times. In contrast, the difference between rich and poor in 2016 was 7.8 times for whites and Hispanics, and 9.8 times for blacks. In 1970, it was just 6.3 times for whites, 6.7 for Hispanics and 9.1 for blacks.

Two Asian Americas?

The concept of an Asian-American group — a single pan-ethnic identity — emerged as Americans with ancestors from east Asia, southeast Asia and south Asia began organizing together to fight discrimination.

The beating death of Vincent Chin — a Chinese-American man who was killed in the 1980s while celebrating with friends at his bachelor party in Highland Park by two white autoworkers angry about competition from Japanese carmakers — galvanized ethnic Asians in Detroit and nationwide.

"For a certain group of leaders, there is a pan-Asian civil rights movement that is striving to unify the community across Asian-American subgroups," said Roland Hwang, co-founder of American Citizens for Justice and a lecturer at the University of Michigan. "The residual effect is having a lot of pan-Asian organizations."

But, Hwang said, while Asians Americans have joined together to fight injustice, they also are a very diverse group in many ways, including income.

"The community is coming of age and all this stuff in the media is finally exposing our community as complex, not monolithic," Hwang, an attorney, said. "There are certain segments of the population that are struggling. There are segments that are new arrivals. And there are parts that are thriving."

But some thinkers have suggested that two Asian Americas are now emerging.

A 2015 New Yorker magazine article, "The Two Asian Americas," concluded: One Asian America was "formed by five centuries of systemic racism," while the other, which the article called a "more genteel version," was created beginning in the '60s, with changes to immigration policy and rising income.

"Asian-Americans are still regarded as 'other' by many of their fellow citizens," the article said, pointing to examples that included then-presidential candidate Donald Trump mimicking an Asian accent. "And yet, one finds among some Asian-Americans a reluctance to call out racist acts, in part because of their supposed privilege in comparison with other minority groups."

Crazy rich Asians

The hit romantic comedy "Crazy Rich Asians," which was released in theaters last month, offers a sliver of insight into the varied economics and status among Asians, mostly through the plot tension that shows Asians from different socioeconomic groups in a relationship.

The latest U.S. Census Bureau rankings of real median household income by race, which also included Hispanics, put Asians at the top of the list, earning $81,300 in 2017. Non-Hispanic whites earned $68,100; Hispanics, $50,500; and blacks, $40,300.

But, the "Crazy Rich Asians" movie also may be feeding a new stereotype: Asians are affluent.

"It's a great movie," Angela Beasinger, the president of the Council of Asian Pacific Americans, said of the new movie "Crazy Rich Asians," starring an all-Asian cast. "But when it comes to how crazy rich they are, I think most people know it's movie drama."

Still, the Pew analysis also found that higher earnings were not shared by all Asians, and from 1970 to 2016, the gains in income for lower-income Asians trailed well behind the gains for their counterparts in other groups.

From 1970 to 2016, the incomes of Asians at the 90th percentile and higher nearly doubled, rising 96 percent. But the income of Asians at the 10th percentile increased only 11 percent, widening the gap between rich and poor Asians.

Beasinger, 45, immigrated to Michigan from China more than 20 years ago to pursue a master's degree at the University of Detroit-Mercy. She now has two graduate degrees and is president of her own consulting firm, WeAct.

On Sunday, CAPA is hosting a leadership summit from 1-5 p.m. at Madison Place in Madison Heights that will bring together a broad cross-section of about 150 Asian-Americans from various professions and industries to discuss issues, including the community's contributions to the state's economy.

"But there is always income disparity regardless of race," Beasinger added. "Income disparity exists everywhere. There are always going to be rich people and there are always poor people, too."

Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwitsil@freepress.com.