Southeast Asians in the United Kingdom

Southeast Asians living in the United Kingdom have been present in the country for several centuries, arriving from Southeast Asia, and primarily originating from countries and territories such as the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Burma, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Southeast Asians in the United Kingdom
Total population
Malaysian – 49,886

Singaporean – 40,474
Filipino – 40,118
Vietnamese – 23,347
Thai – 16,257

Burmese – 9,924[1]
All figures except the Filipino and Thai communities are from the 2001 UK Census, with that country as a reported birthplace (i.e. doesn't include British born people of Southeast Asian origin)
Regions with significant populations
London, Belfast, Liverpool, Manchester, Oxford, Cambridge, Glasgow, Edinburgh
Languages
Tagalog/Filipino – 70,342
Thai – 27,366
Vietnamese – 15,168
Malay – 12,576
All other Southeast Asian languages – 11,914
Number of speakers in England & Wales as a main language, of all usual residents aged 3 and over, from the 2011 census[2]
Religion
Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Non-religious, others
Related ethnic groups
Asians

Population history

Southeast Asian is not a category used in official statistics in the United Kingdom,[3] but has been considered as a particular ethnic identity,[4][5][6] including by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office,[7] and Southeast Asians have been studied academically as a distinct group.[8][9]

The country had a small population of Filipinos, Singaporeans and Malaysians until the late 20th century. The number started to grow in the 1970s after the passage of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act and its amendment in 1968 which curtailed extensive rights to immigrate to the UK for Commonwealth citizens. This Act had the effect of more immigration from non-Commonwealth countries, such as the Philippines.

The 2001 UK Census recorded 9,924 Burmese-born people residing in the United Kingdom.[1]

In media

In 2008, ABS-CBN reported that acting parts in the British Film Industry were rare for Southeast Asian British people.[10]

Subgroups

See also

References

  1. "Country-of-birth database" (XLS). Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Retrieved 19 December 2016.
  2. "Main Language in England & Wales by Proficiency in English 2011". Office for National Statistics. 2011. Retrieved 2018-08-16.
  3. Aspinall, Peter J. (2003). "Who is Asian? A category that remains contested in population and health research". Journal of Public Health Medicine. 25 (2): 91–97. doi:10.1093/pubmed/fdg021. JSTOR 45161903. PMID 12848395.
  4. Martin F Norden; Robert F Weir (2019). Pop culture matters : proceedings of the 39th Conference of the Northeast Popular Culture Association. Cambridge University Press. p. 195. ISBN 978-1-5275-3068-3. Prevailing racist codes – be they denigrating African Americans in the United States, or Southeast Asians in Britain.
  5. Anna Triandafyllidou (2011). Handbook on tolerance and cultural diversity. European University Institute. p. 14. Indeed people of different ethnic backgrounds may share the same religion (e.g. southeast Asians in Britain, Moroccans and Turks in the Netherlands or in Germany).
  6. Raymond MacDonald; David J. Hargreaves; Dorothy Miell, eds. (2017). Handbook of Musical Identities. Oxford University Press. p. 535. ISBN 978-0-19-967948-5. While some ethnic minority groups may be related to recent or old migration waves (e.g., Mexicans in the USA or South East Asians in the UK), others refer to populations that gained minority status over time (e.g., the Aboriginal in Canada).
  7. "The South-East Asia Diaspora in the UK" (PDF). Foreign and Commonwealth Office. 2015.
  8. K. White; J.A. Lawrence (2018). "Racial/Ethnic Residential Segregation and Mental Health Outcomes". In Morgan M. Medlock; Derri Shtasel; Nhi-Ha T. Trinh; David R. Williams (eds.). Racism and Psychiatry: Contemporary Issues and Interventions (Current Clinical Psychiatry). Humana Press. p. 46. ISBN 978-3-319-90196-1. The evidence for associations between residential segregation ... among Asian Americans is sparse, although studies of Southeast Asians in the UK are more common.
  9. David Matsumoto (2016). "Culture and Psychological Disorders". Culture and Psychology. Cengage. p. 307. ISBN 978-1-305-64895-1. A comparison of white British and South-east Asian British adolescent females diagnosed with anorexia
  10. Gene Alcantara (27 January 2008). "Fil-Brit 'maid' in BBC comedy show explains why she did it". ABS-CBN Corporation. Acting jobs for southeast Asians in the United Kingdom (UK) are few and far between, so Filipino actors and actresses take what is offered when they come up.
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