A mother, mom, mum, momma or mama, is a woman who has raised a child (to whom she may or may not have given birth) in the role of parent. Because of the complexity and differences of a mother's social, cultural, and religious definitions and roles, it is challenging to define a mother to suit a universally accepted definition. The male equivalent is a father.

Biological mother

In the case of a mammal such as a human, a pregnant woman gestates a fertilized ovum. A fetus develops from the viable fertilized ovum or "embryo." Gestation occurs in the woman's uterus from conception until the fetus (assuming it is carried to term) is sufficiently developed to be born. The woman experiences labor and gives birth. Usually, once the baby is born, the mother produces milk via the lactation process. The mother's breast milk is the source of anti-bodies for the infant's immune system and commonly the sole source of nutrition for the first year or more of the child's life.

Non-biological mother

''Mother'' can often apply to a woman other than the biological parent, especially if she fulfills the main social role in raising the child. This is commonly either an adoptive mother or a stepmother (the biologically unrelated wife of a child's father). The term "othermother" or "other mother" is also used in some contexts for women who provide care for a child not biologically their own in addition to the child's primary mother.

Surrogate mother

A surrogate mother is, commonly, a woman who bears an embryo, that is from another woman's fertilized ovum, to term for a couple biologically unable to have children. Thus, she carries and gives birth to a child that is she not the biological mother of. Note that this is different from a woman who becomes pregnant via in vitro fertilization.

Currently, with advances in reproductive technologies, the function of biological motherhood can be split between the genetic mother (who provides the ovum) and the gestational (commonly known as a surrogate) mother (who carries the pregnancy).

Lesbian motherhood

The possibility for women in same-sex relationships to become mothers has increased over the past few decades thanks to new techniques and technology. Modern lesbian parenting originated with women who were in heterosexual relationships who later identified as lesbian as changing social conditions and attitudes provided more options and acceptance for those with homosexual orientations. Another way for lesbians to become mothers is through adopting and/or foster parenting. There is also the option of self-insemination and clinically assisted donor insemination, these are forms of artificial insemination. As fertility technology has advanced, more lesbians have become mothers through in vitro fertilization.

Social role

Mothers have historically fulfilled the primary role in raising children, but since the late 20th century, the role of the father in child care has been given greater prominence and social acceptance in some Western countries.

The social role and experience of motherhood varies greatly depending upon location. The organization Save the Children has ranked the countries of the world, and found that Scandinavian countries are the safest places to give birth, whereas countries in sub-Saharan Africa are the least safe to give birth. This study argues a mother in the bottom ten ranked countries is over 750 times more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth, compared to a mother in the top ten ranked countries, and a mother in the bottom ten ranked countries is 28 times more likely to see her child die before reaching their first birthday.

Mothers are more likely than fathers to encourage assimilative and communion-enhancing patterns in their children. Mothers are more likely than fathers to acknowledge their children's contributions in conversation. The way mothers speak to their children is better suited to support very young children in their efforts to understand speech (in context of the reference English) than fathers.

Since the 1970s, in vitro fertilization has made pregnancy possible at ages well beyond "natural" limits, generating ethical controversy and forcing significant changes in the social meaning of motherhood. This is, however a position highly biased by Western world locality: outside the Western world, in-vitro fertilization has far less prominence, importance or currency compared to primary, basic healthcare, women's basic health, reducing infant mortality and the prevention of life-threatening diseases such as polio, typhus and malaria.

Also around the 1970s, Western attitudes towards the role of women and mothers in society began to change. Females were given more opportunities within the workforce and this resulted in more females becoming mothers for the first time at a later age. This trend peaked within the 1990s, but has since returned to a more traditional view point of fathers being the main breadwinner and mothers taking responsibility for the home and children.

US motherhood statistics

Assorted and non-inclusive statistics on motherhood from the US Census Bureau:

82.5 million women are mothers of all ages in the United States.

68% of women aged 15–44 are mothers in Mississippi, considered high in comparison to a national average for same age group of 56%.

82% of women aged 40–44 years old are mothers.

4.0 million women give birth annually, approximately 425,000 were teenage mothers (aged 15–19) and more than 100,000 were aged 40 or over.

25.1 years of age is the national average age of women for their first births, a record high an increase of 4 years since 1970.

40% of annual births are the mother's first. Another 32% are the second-born; 17%, third; and 11%, fourth or more.

35,000 births in 2002 were attended by physicians, midwives or others outside a hospital facility.

55% of mothers with infant children in 2002 were employed, down from the record 59% in 1998, the first significant decline since the Census Bureau began collating such data in 1976. In 1976, 31% of mothers with infants were employed.

63% of employed women with infant children are college-educated.

72% of employed women, between ages 15 and 44 are mothers without infants.

687,000 child day-care centers operated in the USA in 2002. Of these, 69,000 centers employed close to 750,000 workers and another 618,000 were self-employed persons or companies without paid employees. Many mothers use such centers to juggle the demands of motherhood and career.

Religious

Nearly all world religions define tasks or roles for mothers through either religious law or through the deification or glorification of mothers who served in substantial religious events. There are many examples of religious law relating to mothers and women.

Major world religions which have specific religious law or scriptural canon regarding mothers include: Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Some examples of glorification or deification include the Madonna or ''Blessed Virgin Mother Mary'' for Catholics, the Hindu Mother Goddess, or Demeter of ancient Greek pre-Christian belief.

Synonyms and translations

The proverbial "first word" of an infant often sounds like "ma" or "mama." This strong association of that sound with "mother" has persisted in nearly every language on earth, countering the natural localization of language.

Familiar or colloquial terms for ''mother'' in English are: ''Mom'' and ''mommy'' are used in the USA, Canada, South Africa, Philippines, and the West Midlands of England.

''Mum'' and ''mummy'' are used in the UK, Canada, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland.

''Ma'', ''mam'', and ''mammy'' are used in Netherlands, Ireland, the Northern areas of the United Kingdom, and Wales; it is also used in some areas of the United States.

''Maa'', ''aai'', ''amma'', and ''mata'' are used in India and sometimes in neighboring countries, originating from the Sanskrit ''matrika'' and ''mata''

In many other languages, similar pronunciations apply:

''mamá'', ''ma'', and ''mami'' in Spanish language

''mama'' in Polish, German, Russian and Slovak

''māma'' (妈妈/媽媽) in Chinese

''máma'' in Czech and in Ukrainian

''maman'' in French and Persian

''ma'', ''mama'' in Indonesian

''mamma'' in Italian, Icelandic and Swedish

''mamãe'' or ''mãe'' in Portuguese

''mā̃'' (ਮਾਂ) in Punjabi

''mama'' in Swahili

''em'' (אם) in Hebrew

''ima'' (אמא) in Aramaic

''má'' or ''mẹ'' in Vietnamese

''mam'' in Welsh

''eomma'' (엄마, ) in Korean

In many south Asian cultures and the Middle East, the mother is known as ''amma'', ''oma'', ''ammi'' or "ummi", or variations thereof. Many times, these terms denote affection or a maternal role in a child's life.

Famous motherhood figures

Bachue

Bithiah

Demeter

Yashoda

Dewi Sri

Eve

Gaia

Isis

Jocasta

Juno

Kwan Yin

Mary

Parvati

Queen Maya

Sita

Venus

See also

References

Further reading

Category:Family Category:Human development Category:Mythological archetypes Category:Motherhood

af:Moeder ang:Mōdor ar:أم an:Mai arc:ܐܡܐ (ܒܝܬܝܘܬܐ) ay:Tayka az:Ana bn:মা bjn:Uma zh-min-nan:A-bú be:Маці be-x-old:Маці bh:माई bo:ཨ་མ། bs:Majka br:Mamm bg:Майка ca:Mare cs:Matka cy:Mam da:Mor de:Mutter et:Ema es:Madre eo:Patrino eu:Ama fa:مادر fr:Mère gd:Màthair gl:Nai gan:娘 ko:어머니 hi:माता hr:Majka id:Ibu it:Madre he:אמא kn:ತಾಯಿ mrj:Ӓвӓ la:Mater lv:Māte lt:Motina lij:Moæ ln:Mamá hu:Anya mk:Мајка mg:Reny ml:അമ്മ mr:आई ms:Ibu nah:Nantli nl:Moeder nds-nl:Moor (meens) ne:आमा new:माँ ja:母親 no:Mor nn:Mor nrm:Mère oc:Maire or:ମା pnb:ماں pl:Matka pt:Mãe ro:Mamă qu:Mama ru:Мать scn:Matri si:අම්මා simple:Mother sk:Matka (biológia) so:Hooyo sr:Мајка sh:Majka fi:Äiti sv:Moder tl:Ina ta:தாய் te:తల్లి th:แม่ tg:Модар chr:ᎤᏂᏥ tr:Anne uk:Мати ur:ماں vi:Mẹ war:Iróy wuu:姆妈 yi:מוטער yo:Ìyá zh-yue:阿媽 bat-smg:Muotėna zh:母親

Name	Asia Online Pte Ltd
Logo
Founder	Gregory Binger, Dion Wiggins, Bob Hayward
Location	Singapore
Locations	Singapore, Thailand, Los Angeles, Indonesia
Key people	Gregory Binger, Dion Wiggins, Bob Hayward, Philipp Koehn, Tim Cox, Kirti Vashee.
Industry	Translation / Portals
Products	Language Studio Automated Translation Suite
Services	Automated translation
Homepage	http://www.asiaonline.com, http://www.asiaonline.net, http://www.languagestudio.com
Intl	}}

Asia Online is a privately owned company backed by individual investors and institutional venture capital. Its corporate headquarters are in Singapore, and it has significant operations in Bangkok, Thailand, with R&D activities throughout Asia and expanding sales operations in Europe and North America.

Asia Online is undertaking what it calls the world's largest literacy project by translating vast quantities of the worlds English language knowledge into Asian languages. This is achieved using statistical machine translation (SMT) technologies developed and enhanced in Thailand with a specific focus on Asian languages. Despite the name, Asia Online is not limited to just Asian languages and also supports all 23 official EU languages across each other.

It was founded in 2006 by the University of Edinburgh's Philipp Koehn, Gregory Binger a leading technologist and IT/IP lawyer, and former Gartner senior analysts Bob Hayward and Dion Wiggins.

Asia Online’s statistically-based translation software is an instance of recent advances in automated translation. Until the early 1990s, almost all production-level machine translation technology relied on collections of linguistic rules to analyze the source sentence, and then map the syntactic and semantic structure into the target language. Asia Online uses statistical techniques from cryptography, applying machine learning algorithms that automatically acquire statistical models from existing parallel collections of human translations, in the same way as Google Translate and the systems made using Koehn's own open source Moses tool for SMT.

Portal Initiatives

On January 7, 2011, Asia Online launched it’s Thai language consumer portal. The launch was funded in part by CAT Telecom and the Thai Ministry of ICT. All 3.5 million English language Wikipedia articles were translated from English into Thai. Then Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and Minister of ICT Chuti Krairiksh launched the site as part of Thailand’s Children’s Day celebrations. A crowd sourcing approach is being taken to proof read the articles after they have been machine translated.

Differences from other approaches

Google, Microsoft and SDL Language Weaver have also created SMT systems, some publicly accessible. Asia Online claims there are flaws in the existing processes and techniques of SMT and worked to resolve these issues. It claims three key differences from traditional SMT approaches:

Clean data – The traditional approach leveraged content found on the web in corporate sites, news articles and other similar sources where the same content was available in multiple languages. The quality of the data was very low. Asia Online has focused machine and human resources in this area to ensure that the data is as clean and as accurate as possible. Data is sourced from high-quality translations provided by book publishers and translation companies and is aligned at the segment level (usually sentences) and converted into a consistent format in order to be processed by the learning software. This step includes:

*Extracting segments from files and documents if they are not in a TMX format.

*Aligning segments (if necessary) once they have been extracted. While this is automated by machines, humans are also used to validate the accuracy.

*Converting data to a base UTF-8 encoding for training the SMT system.

*Extracting small subsets from the data to guide training.

*Reviewing, cleaning and analyzing the data to ensure optimal training impact.

Multiple domains - Extensive efforts have been put into a system that allows for training in many domains. This is done by extending a base set of information with multiple additional learning sources.

Real-time corrections

Languages available – Asia Online currently has 518 language pairs available in a baseline form and several with domain data. Another 200+ language pairs are under development. These systems are currently used to build customized translation systems for corporate and language service provider (LSP) customers who add their bilingual parallel corpus to the existing data to create higher quality translation systems.

The company characterizes its products as a "platform". By this they mean that there is a suite of independent tools and products that can work independently and together. Some are locally installed and some are only available in their SaaS. This is described in the CSA blog entry.

The Language Studio product suite was reviewed by Common Sense Advisory, a translation industry market research firm, in their Global Watchtower blog shown in the link below.

Supported Languages

Asian Languages Available Now: Arabic (AR), Chinese (ZH), Japanese (JA), Bahasa Indonesia (ID), Korean (KO) and Thai (TH). Under Development: Bahasa Malay (MS), Bengali (BN), Gujarati (GU), Hindi (HI), Punjabi (PA), Tagalog (TL), Tamil (TM), Vietnamese (VI).

European Languages Available Now: Bulgarian (BG), Czech (CS), Danish (DA), Dutch (NL), English (EN), Estonian (ET), Finnish (FI), French (FR), German (DE), Greek (EL), Hungarian (HU), Irish (GA), Italian (IT), Latvian (LV), Lithuanian (LT), Maltese (MT), Norwegian (NO), Polish (PL), Portuguese (PT), Romanian (RO), Slovak (SK), Slovene (SL), Spanish (ES) and Swedish (SV). Under Development: Russian (RU).

See also

Comparison of machine translation applications

Google Translate

Eurotra

External links

Asia Online Portal Homepage

Asia Online Company Homepage

Language Studio Platform Overview

Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and ICT Minister Chuti Krairoek launch the Thai language Asia Online portal in front of the Thai media as a gift to the children from the government on Children’s Day.

CSA Global Watchtower Blog entry on Language Studio Platform

CSA Global Watchtower Blog entry - The Largest Translation Project…So Far

TAUS Technology Review of Language Studio

dotSUB: CEO Dion Wiggins on Asia Online Vision from Bangkok Localization & Translation Conference, December 2009

dotSUB: Renato Beninatto, CEO, Milengo and former industry analyst looks at the ongoing evolution of the localization business and compares Google translate with Asia Online.

GizMag Article on Asia Online

Category:Artificial intelligence applications Category:Computational linguistics Category:Computer-assisted translation Category:Machine translation Category:Tasks of Natural language processing Category:Translation companies

th:เอเชียออนไลน์ wuu:Asia Online

Theotokos (, transliterated Theotókos) is the Greek title of Mary, the mother of Jesus used especially in the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Eastern Catholic Churches. Its literal English translations include ''God-bearer'' and ''the one who gives birth to God''. Less literal translations include Mother of God. Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and some Protestants use the title Mother of God more often than Theotokos. The Council of Ephesus decreed in 431 that Mary is Theotokos because her son Jesus is one person who is both God and man, divine and human.

Etymology and translation

Theotokos is a compound of two Greek words, Θεός ''God'' and τόκος ''parturition, childbirth''. Literally, this translates as ''God-bearer'' or ''the one who gives birth to God''; historian Jaroslav Pelikan translated it more precisely as "the one who gives birth to the one who is God". However, since many English-speaking Orthodox find this literal translation awkward, in liturgical use, ''Theotokos'' is often left untranslated, or paraphrased as ''Mother of God''. The latter title is the literal translation of a distinct title in Greek, Μήτηρ του Θεού (translit. ''Mētēr tou Theou''). ''Mother of God'' also accurately translates the Greek words Θεομήτωρ (translit. ''Theomētor''; also spelled Θεομήτηρ, translit. ''Theomētēr'') and Μητρόθεος (translit. ''Mētrotheos''), which are found in patristic and liturgical texts, e.g.

Λαβομένη η Θεοτόκος των εκ του αχράντου και παναμώμου αυτής θυσιαστηρίου σαρκωθέντα ζωοποιόν και ανέκφραστον άνθρακα ως λαβίδι ... επί τούτοις παρουσιασάμενος ο δίκαιος και τη προτροπή είξας της διακονησαμένης Θεώ προς ανθρώπους Θεομήτορος ... περιφανώς ιερά θεομήτωρ εξετέλει.

In many traditions, ''Theotokos'' was translated from the Greek into the local liturgical language:

! Language	! Translation(s)	! Transliteration
	والدة الاله	''Wālidat Alelah''
	Աստուածածին	''Astvadzatzin''
Bulgarian, Church Slavonic, Macedonian, Russian	Богородица	''Bogoroditsa''
		''Ti.Theotokós''
	ღვთისმშობელი	''Ghvtismshobeli''
Latin	''Deipara'' ''Dei genetrix'' ''Mater Dei''
	''Născătoare de Dumnezeu'' ''Maica Domnului''
	Богородица / Bogorodica Мајка Божија / Majka Božija	''Bogoroditza'' ''Mayka Bozhia''
	ܝܳܠܕܰܬ ܐܰܠܳܗܳܐ	''Yoldath Aloho''
	Богородиця Мати Божа	''Bohorodytsia'' ''Maty Bozha''
	Bogurodzica Matka Boska	''Bogurodsitsa'' ''Matka Boska''
	Bohorodička Matka Božia	''Bohorodichka'' ''Matka Bozhia''

Translation of the phrase ''mother of God''

Mother of God

The English term ''Mother of God'' is mostly used as an imprecise translation of ''Theotokos'', and frequently requires explanation. The other principal use of ''Mother of God'' has been as the precise and literal translation of Μήτηρ Θεού, a Greek term which has an established usage of its own in traditional Christian theological writing, hymnography, and iconography. In an abbreviated form ΜΡ ΘΥ it often is found on Eastern icons (see illustration above), where it is used to identify Mary.

A hymn normally sung as part of the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom includes both titles in close proximity, in both cases referring to Mary, showing that the titles are not synonymous: "It is truly fitting to call you blessed, the ''Theotokos,'' ever-blessed and wholly pure and the ''Mother of our God'' (...", emphasis added.) The difference between the two terms is that the former, ''Theotokos'' explicitly refers to physical childbearing, while the latter, ''Mother of God'', describes a family relationship but not necessarily physical childbearing.

Within the Christian tradition, ''Mother of God'' has not been understood, nor been intended to be understood, as referring to Mary as Mother of God ''from eternity'' — that is, as Mother of God the Father — but only with reference to the birth of Jesus, that is, the Incarnation. This limitation in the meaning of ''Mother of God'' must be understood by the person employing the term. To make it explicit, it is sometimes translated ''Mother of God Incarnate''.

However, those reading or hearing the English phrase ''Mother of God'' as a translation of a Greek text cannot — unless they know the Greek text in question, or obtain additional information — know whether the phrase is a literal translation of Μήτηρ Θεού or an imprecise rendering of Θεοτόκος or one its Latin equivalents or equivalents in other languages.

Theology

Theotokos specifically excludes the understanding of Mary as Mother of God in the eternal sense. Christians believe that God is the cause of all, with neither origin nor source, and is therefore without a mother or father, or any relation except for what is homoousian to Him: only the persons of the Holy Trinity. He is ontologically separate from all other beings, as Creator to creation. This stands in contrast to classical Greco-Roman religion in particular, where a number of goddesses appear as the physical mothers of other divinities which were considered gods in their own right (cf. polytheism).

On the other hand, most Christians believe God the Son is begotten of God the Father "from all eternity" (see Trinity and Nicene Creed), but is born "in time" of Mary. ''Theotokos'' thus refers to the Incarnation, when the Second Person of the Holy Trinity took on human nature in addition to his pre-existing divine nature, this being made possible through the cooperation of Mary.

Since mainstream Christians understand Jesus Christ as both fully God and fully human, they call Mary ''Theotokos'' to affirm the fullness of God's incarnation. The Council of Ephesus decreed, in opposition to those who denied Mary the title ''Theotokos'' ("the one who gives birth to God") but called her ''Christotokos'' ("the one who gives birth to Christ"), that Mary ''is'' ''Theotokos'' because her son Jesus is one person who is both God and man, divine and human. (Some Protestants still insist that Mary cannot be truly ''Theotokos'', but only ''Christotokos''.) Cyril of Alexandria wrote, "I am amazed that there are some who are entirely in doubt as to whether the holy Virgin should be called ''Theotokos'' or not. For if our Lord Jesus Christ is God, how is the holy Virgin who gave [Him] birth, not [''Theotokos'']?" (Epistle 1, to the monks of Egypt; PG 77:13B). Thus the significance of ''Theotokos'' lies more in what it says about Jesus than any declaration about Mary.

Within the Orthodox doctrinal teaching on the economy of salvation, Mary's identity, role, and status as ''Theotokos'' is acknowledged as indispensable, and is for this reason formally defined as official dogma. The only other Mariological teaching so defined is that of her virginity. Both of these teachings have a bearing on the identity of Jesus Christ. By contrast, certain other Marian beliefs which do not bear directly on the doctrine concerning the person of Jesus (for example, her sinlessness, the circumstances surrounding her conception and birth, her Presentation in the Temple, her continuing virginity following the birth of Jesus, and her death), which are taught and believed by the Orthodox Church (being expressed in the Church's liturgy and patristic writings), are nonetheless not formally defined by the Church, and belief in them is not a precondition for baptism.

Use of Theotokos in the early Christian Church

Many Fathers of the early Christian Church used the title ''Theotokos'' for Mary since at least the third century AD.

Origen (d. 254) is often cited as the earliest author to use ''Theotokos'' for Mary (Socrates, Ecclesiastical History 7.32 citing Origen's Commentary on Romans) but the text upon which this assertion is based may not be genuine.

Dionysius of Alexandria used ''Theotokos'' in about 250, in an epistle to Paul of Samosata.

Athanasius of Alexandria in 330, Gregory the Theologian in 370, John Chrysostom in 400, and Augustine all used ''Theotokos''.

Theodoret wrote in 436 that calling the Virgin Mary ''Theotokos'' is an apostolic tradition.

Third Ecumenical Council

The use of ''Theotokos'' was formally affirmed at the Third Ecumenical Council held at Ephesus in 431. The competing view, advocated by Patriarch Nestorius of Constantinople, was that Mary should be called ''Christotokos'', meaning "Birth-giver of Christ," to restrict her role to the mother of Christ's humanity only and not his divine nature.

Nestorius' opponents, led by Cyril of Alexandria, viewed this as dividing Jesus into two distinct persons, the human who was Son of Mary, and the divine who was not. To them, this was unacceptable since by destroying the perfect union of the divine and human natures in Christ, it sabotaged the fullness of the Incarnation and, by extension, the salvation of humanity. The council accepted Cyril's reasoning, affirmed the title ''Theotokos'' for Mary, and anathematised Nestorius' view as heresy. (See Nestorianism)

In letters to Nestorius which were afterwards included among the council documents, Cyril explained his doctrine. He noted that "the holy fathers... have ventured to call the holy Virgin ''[T]heotokos'', not as though the nature of the [W]ord or his divinity received the beginning of their existence from the holy Virgin, but because from her was born his holy body, rationally endowed with a soul, with which [body] the [W]ord was united according to the hypostasis, and is said to have been begotten according to the flesh" (Cyril's second letter to Nestorius).

Explaining his rejection of Nestorius' preferred title for Mary (''Christotokos''), Cyril wrote: "Confessing the Word to be united with the flesh according to the hypostasis, we worship one Son and Lord, Jesus Christ. We do not divide him into parts and separate man and God as though they were united with each other [only] through a unity of dignity and authority... nor do we name separately Christ the Word from God, and in similar fashion, separately, another Christ from the woman, but we know only one Christ, the Word from God the Father with his own flesh... But we do not say that the Word from God dwelt as in an ordinary human born of the holy virgin... we understand that, when he became flesh, not in the same way as he is said to dwell among the saints do we distinguish the manner of the indwelling; but he was united by nature and not turned into flesh... There is, then, one Christ and Son and Lord, not with the sort of conjunction that a human being might have with God as in a unity of dignity or authority; for equality of honor does not unite natures. For Peter and John were equal to each other in honor, both of them being apostles and holy disciples, but the two were not one. Nor do we understand the manner of conjunction to be one of juxtaposition, for this is insufficient in regard to natural union.... Rather we reject the term 'conjunction' as being inadequate to express the union... [T]he holy virgin gave birth in the flesh to God united with the flesh according to hypostasis, for that reason we call her ''Theotokos''... If anyone does not confess that Emmanuel is, in truth, God, and therefore that the holy virgin is ''Theotokos'' (for she bore in a fleshly manner the Word from God become flesh), let him be anathema." (Cyril's third letter to Nestorius)

Hymns

''Theotokos'' in often used in hymns to Mary in the Eastern Orthodox, Eastern Catholic and Oriental Orthodox churches. The most common is ''Axion Estin'' (''It is truly meet''), which is used in nearly every service.

Other examples include ''Beneath thy compassion'' dating from the third century, the ''Hail Mary'' in its Eastern form, and ''All creation rejoices'', which replaces ''Axion Estin'' at the Divine Liturgy on the Sundays of Great Lent.

Solemnity

In the Roman Catholic Church, the solemnity of Mary as Mother of God (Theotokos) is celebrated on 1 January, on the same day as the Octave of Christmas. Her maternity was celebrated on 11 October in pre-1970 versions of the General Roman Calendar, which some traditional Catholics still observe.

This solemnity comes from around 500 AD and was originally celebrated in the Eastern Churches.

Icons

See also

Eleusa icon

Hymns to Mary

List of Theotokos of St. Theodore icons

Notes

References

Cyril of Alexandria, ''On the Unity of Christ'', John Anthony McGuckin, trans. ISBN 0-88141-133-7

McGuckin, John Anthony, ''St. Cyril of Alexandria: The Christological Controversy'' (1994, and reprinted 2004) ISBN 0-88141-259-7 A full description of the events of Third Ecumenical Council and the people and issues involved.

Saint John of Shanghai and San Francisco,""The Orthodox Veneration of Mary, The Birth Giver of God"(2004, Sixth Printing, Third Edition). ISBN 0-938635-68-9

Ware, Bishop Kallistos, "The Orthodox Way" (1979, Revised Edition, 1995, and reprinted 1999). ISBN 0-913836-58-3

External links

Theotokos article on the ''Orthodox Wiki''

Resources on the Theotokos

Study of the Mother of the Lord the All-Holly Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary by St. Nectarios (in Greek)

Category:Marian dogmas Category:Titles of Mary Category:Eastern Orthodoxy Category:Eastern Orthodox theology Category:Eastern Catholicism Category:Oriental Orthodoxy Category:Eastern Orthodox icons Category:Christology Category:Feminist theology Category:Greek loanwords Category:Ancient Christian controversies Category:Christian terms

ar:ثيوتوكس ca:Mare de Déu cs:Theotokos de:Gottesgebärerin el:Θεοτόκος es:Theotokos eo:Sankta Maria fr:Théotokos ko:테오토코스 hr:Bogorodica id:Theotokos it:Theotókos sw:Mama wa Mungu lb:Muttergottes hu:Theotokosz nl:Theotokos ja:神の母 nn:Guds mor pl:Matka Boża pt:Theotokos ro:Theotokos ru:Богоматеринство sl:Marija Božja mati sh:Bogorodica (titula) fi:Jumalansynnyttäjä sv:Guds moder tr:Theotokos

Group	Asian American
Popplace	California, New York City metropolitan area, Texas, Illinois, Hawaii, and elsewhere
Langs	Commonly Asian languages and English
Rels	Agnosticism, Atheism, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, East Asian religions, other Indian religions, and others }}

Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau definition of ''Asians'' as "Asian” refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam.

It includes people who indicated their race(s) as "Asian" or reported entries such as "Asian Indian," "Chinese," "Filipino," "Korean," "Japanese," "Vietnamese," and "Other Asian" or provided other detailed Asian responses". They comprise 4.8% of the U.S. population alone, while people who are Asian combined with at least one other race make up 5.6%.

The term ''Asian American'' was used informally by activists in the 1960s who sought an alternative to the term ''Oriental'', arguing that the latter was derogatory and colonialist. Formal usage was introduced by academics in the early 1970s, notably by historian Yuji Ichioka, who is credited with popularizing the term. Today, ''Asian American'' is the accepted term for most formal purposes, such as government and academic research, although it is often shortened to ''Asian'' in common usage.

As with other racial and ethnicity based terms, formal and common usage have changed markedly through the short history of this term. The most significant change occurred when the Hart-Celler Act of 1965 eliminated highly restrictive "national origins" quotas, designed, among other things, to restrict immigration of those of Asian racial background. The new system, based on skills and family connections to U.S. residents, enabled significant immigration from every nation in Asia, which led to dramatic and ongoing changes in the Asian American population. As a result of these population changes, the formal and common understandings of what defines Asian American have expanded to include more of the peoples with ancestry from various parts of Asia. Because of their more recent immigration, new Asian immigrants also have had different educational, economic and other characteristics than early 20th century immigrants. They also tend to have different employment and settlement patterns in the United States.

, Asian Americans had the highest educational attainment level and median household income of any racial demographic in the country, and the highest median personal income overall.

Terminology

The most commonly used definition of ''Asian American'' is the US Census Bureau definition of ''Asian'', chiefly because the Census definitions determine many government classifications, notably for equal opportunity programs and measurements. People with origins in the Far East, Southeast Asia and the Indian Subcontinent are included in the Census definition of Asia. The use of a separate "Asian" category in the Census is a recent addition, beginning in 1990. Since then, the Census definitions have varied. The 2000 census divided the ''Asian/Pacific Islander'' group and created ''Pacific Islander'' ethnicities as a separate category.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "Asian person" in the United States is sometimes thought of as a person of East Asian descent. In vernacular usage, "Asian" is often used to refer to those of East Asian descent or anyone else of Asian descent with epicanthic eyefolds. This differs from the U.S. Census definition and the Asian American Studies departments of many universities consider those of East, South or Southeast Asian descent with or without epicanthic eyefolds to be "Asian". In the US Census, people who originate from the original peoples of the East Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia are classified as part of the Asian race; while peoples from Siberia, Central Asia, and Western Asia are classified as "White".

Before 1980, Census forms listed particular Asian ancestries as separate groups, along with ''White'' and ''Black or Negro''. Asian Americans had also been classified as "other". In 1977, the federal Office of Management and Budget issued a directive requiring government agencies to maintain statistics on racial groups, including on "Asian or Pacific Islander". The 1980 census marked the first classification of Asians as a large group, combining several individual ancestry groups into "Asian or Pacific Islander." By the 1990 census, ''Asian or Pacific Islander (API)'' was included as an explicit category, although respondents had to select one particular ancestry. In the 2000 census, people reporting Middle Eastern ancestry but not reporting race are presumed to be in the white race category rather than Asian.

The definition of ''Asian American'' has variations that derive from the use of the word ''American'' in different contexts. Immigration status, citizenship (by birthright and by naturalization), acculturation, and language ability are some variables that are used to define ''American'' for various purposes and may vary in formal and everyday usage. For example, restricting ''American'' to include only U.S. citizens conflicts with discussions of Asian American businesses, which generally refer both to citizen and non-citizen owners.

In a recent PBS interview, a panel of Asian American writers discussed how some groups include people from the Middle East in the Asian American category. Asian American author Stewart Ikeda has noted, "The definition of "Asian American" also frequently depends on who's asking, who's defining, in what context, and why... the possible definitions of "Asian-Pacific American" are many, complex, and shifting... some scholars in Asian American Studies conferences suggest that Russians, Iranians, and Israelis all might fit the field’s subject of study."

Demographics

The demographics of Asian Americans describe a heterogeneous group of people in the United States who can trace their ancestry to one or more countries in Asia. Because Asian Americans total less than 5% of the entire U.S. population, the diversity of the group is often disregarded in media and news discussions of "Asians" or of "Asian Americans." While there are some commonalities across ethnic sub-groups, there are significant differences among different Asian ethnicities that are related to each group's history.

History

In 1763, Filipinos established the small settlement of Saint Malo, Louisiana, after fleeing mistreatment aboard Spanish ships. Since there were no Filipino women with them, the Manilamen, as they were known, married Cajun and Native American women.

Chinese sailors first came to Hawaii in 1778, the same year that Captain James Cook came upon the island. Many settled and married Hawaiian women. Some Island-born Chinese can claim to be 7th generation. Most Chinese, Korean and Japanese immigrants in Hawaii arrived in the 19th century as laborers to work on sugar plantations. Later, Filipinos also came to work as laborers, attracted by the job opportunities, although they were limited.

Numerous Chinese and Japanese began immigrating to the U.S. in the mid-19th century for work, because of poor economic conditions in their home nations. Many of the immigrants worked as laborers on the transcontinental railroad. Although the absolute numbers of Asian immigrants in the late 19th century were small compared to that from other regions, much of it was concentrated in the West, and the increase caused some Americans to fear the change represented by the growing number of Asians. This fear was referred to as the "yellow peril". The United States passed laws such as Asian Exclusion Act and Chinese Exclusion Act to sharply restrict Asian immigration.

Immigration trends

Filipinos have been in the territories that would become the United States since the 16th century.

There were thousands of Asians in Hawaii when it was annexed to the United States in 1898, and they all gained full US citizenship at that time. The United States Supreme Court in United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) interpreted the 14th amendment to mean that every person born in the United States, regardless of race or ancestry is a citizen of the United States.

Congress passed restrictive legislation to nearly all Chinese immigration in the 1880s, which was in effect until the 1940s. Japanese immigration was sharply curtailed by a gentleman's agreement brokered by President Theodore Roosevelt. The immigration restriction laws of the 1920s produced quotas for all countries, with Asian countries getting a zero quota.

After World War II legislation was passed, and judicial rulings gradually increased the ability of Asian Americans to immigrate and become naturalized citizens. Immigration rapidly increased following the enactment of the Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965 as well as naturalization of refugees from conflicts that occurred in the late 20th century in Southeast Asia.

Notable contributions

Arts and entertainment

Asian Americans have been involved in the entertainment industry since the first half of the 19th century, when Chang and Eng Bunker (the original "Siamese Twins") became naturalized citizens. Acting roles in television, film, and theater were relatively few, and many available roles were for narrow, stereotypical characters. More recently, young Asian American comedians and film-makers have found an outlet on Youtube, allowing them to gain a strong and loyal fanbase among their fellow Asian Americans.

Business

When Asian Americans were largely excluded from labor markets in the 19th century, they started their own businesses. They have started convenience and grocery stores, professional offices such as medical and law practices, laundries, restaurants, beauty-related ventures, hi-tech companies, and many other kinds of enterprises, becoming very successful and influential in American society. They have dramatically expanded their involvement across the American economy. Asian Americans have been disproportionately successful in the hi-tech sectors of California's Silicon Valley, as evidenced by the Goldsea 100 Compilation of America's Most Successful Asian Entrepreneurs.

Compared to their population base, Asian Americans today are well represented in the professional sector and tend to earn higher wages. The Goldsea compilation of Notable Asian American Professionals show that many have come to occupy high positions at leading U.S. corporations, including a surprising number as Chief Marketing Officers.

Asian Americans have made major contributions to the American economy. Fashion designer and mogul Vera Wang, who is famous for designing dresses for high-profile celebrities, started a clothing company, named after herself, which now offers a broad range of luxury fashion products. An Wang founded Wang Laboratories in June 1951. Amar Bose founded the Bose Corporation in 1964. Charles Wang founded Computer Associates, later became its CEO and chairman. Jen-Hsun Huang co-founded the NVIDIA corporation in 1993. Jerry Yang co-founded Yahoo! Inc. in 1994 and became its CEO later. Andrea Jung serves as Chairman and CEO of Avon Products. Vinod Khosla was a founding CEO of Sun Microsystems and is a general partner of the prominent venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Steve Chen and Jawed Karim were co-creators of YouTube, and were beneficiaries of Google's $1.65 billion acquisition of that company in 2006. In addition to contributing greatly to other fields, Asian Americans have made considerable contributions in science and technology in the United States, in such prominent innovative R&D regions as Silicon Valley and The Triangle.

Government and politics

Asian Americans have a high level of political incorporation in terms of their actual voting population. Since 1907, Asian Americans have been active at the national level and have had multiple officeholders at local, state and national levels. the highest ranking Asian American is Senator and President Pro Tempore Daniel Inouye.

Journalism

Connie Chung was one of the first Asian-American national correspondents for a major TV news network, reporting for CBS in 1971. She later co-anchored the ''CBS Evening News'' from 1993 to 1995. At ABC, Ken Kashiwahara began reporting nationally in 1974. In 1990, Sheryl WuDunn, a foreign correspondent in the Beijing Bureau of The New York Times, became the first Asian-American to win a Pulitzer Prize. Ann Curry joined NBC News as a reporter in 1990, later becoming prominently associated with ''The Today Show'' in 1997. Carol Lin is perhaps best known for being the first to break the news of 9-11 on CNN. Dr. Sanjay Gupta is currently CNN's chief health correspondent. Lisa Ling, a former co-host on ''The View'', now provides special reports for CNN and ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'', as well as hosting National Geographic Channel's ''Explorer.'' Fareed Zakaria, a naturalised Indian-born immigrant, is a prominent journalist, and author specialising in international affairs. He is the editor of Newsweek International, and the host of Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN. Recently (), Juju Chang, James Hatori, John Yang, Veronica De La Cruz, Betty Nguyen, and Julie Chen have become familiar faces on television news. John Yang won a Peabody Award. Alex Tizon, a Seattle Times staff writer, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1997.

Military

Since the War of 1812 Asian Americans have served and fought on behalf of the United States. Serving in both segregated and non-segregated units until the desegregation of the US Military in 1948, 31 have been awarded the nation's highest award for combat valor, the Medal of Honor. Twenty-one of these were conferred upon members of the mostly Japanese American 100th Infantry Battalion of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team of World War II, the most highly decorated unit of its size in the history of the United States Armed Forces.

Science and technology

Asian Americans have made many prominent and notable contributions to Science and Technology. Chien-Shiung Wu was known to many scientists as the "First Lady of Physics" and played a pivotal role in experimentally demonstrating the violation of the law of conservation of parity in the field of particle physics. Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang received the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics for theoretical work demonstrating that the conservation of parity did not always hold and later became American citizens. Har Gobind Khorana shared the 1968 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work in genetics and protein synthesis. Samuel Chao Chung Ting received the 1976 Nobel Prize in physics for discovery of the subatomic particle J/ψ. The Chinese American mathematician Shing-Tung Yau won the Fields Medal in 1982 and Terence Tao won the Fields Medal in 2006. The geometer Shiing-Shen Chern received the Wolf Prize in Mathematics in 1983. Andrew Yao was awarded the Turing Award in 2000. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar shared the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics and had the Chandra X-ray Observatory named after him. In 1984, Dr. David D. Ho first reported the "healthy carrier state" of HIV infection, which identified HIV-positive individuals who showed no physical signs of AIDS. Charles J. Pedersen shared the 1987 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his methods of synthesizing crown ethers. Steven Chu shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics for his research in cooling and trapping atoms using laser light. Daniel Tsui shared the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physics in 1998 for helping discover the fractional Quantum Hall effect. In 2008, biochemist Roger Tsien won the Nobel in Chemistry for his work on engineering and improving the green fluorescent protein (GFP) that has become a standard tool of modern molecular biology and biochemistry. Yoichiro Nambu received the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the consequences of spontaneously broken symmetries in field theories. In 2009, Charles K. Kao was awarded Nobel Prize in Physics "for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibres for optical communication" and Venkatraman Ramakrishnan won the prize in Chemistry "for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome". Ching W. Tang was the inventor of the Organic light-emitting diode and Organic solar cell and was awarded the 2011 Wolf Prize in Chemistry for this achievement. Min Chueh Chang was the co-inventor of the combined oral contraceptive pill and contributed significantly to the development of in vitro fertilisation at the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology. Michio Kaku has popularized science and has appeared on multiple programs on television and radio.

Space

LTC Ellison Onizuka became the first Asian American (and third person of Asian descent) when he made his first space flight aboard STS-51-C in 1985. Onizuka later died aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986. Taylor Gun-Jin Wang became the first person of Chinese ethnicity and first Chinese American, in space in 1985; he has since been followed by Leroy Chiao in 1994, and Ed Lu in 1997. In 1986, Franklin Chang-Diaz became the first Asian Latin American in space. Eugene H. Trinh became the first Vietnamese American in space in 1992. In 2001, Mark L. Polansky, a Jewish Korean American, made his first of three flights into space. In 2003, Kalpana Chawla became the first Indian American in space, but died aboard the ill fated Space Shuttle Columbia. She has since been followed by CDR Sunita Williams in 2006.

Sports

Wataru Misaka broke the NBA color barrier when he played for the New York Knicks in the 1947–48 season. The next Asian-American NBA player was Raymond Townsend, who played for the Golden State Warriors and Indiana Pacers from 1978 to 1982. Erik Spoelstra is a Filipino-Dutch-Irish who became the youngest coach ever in NBA history. He is currently the head coach of the Miami Heat. Current Kansas Jayhawks coach Kurtis Townsend is Raymond Townsend's brother. After a distinguished collegiate basketball career at Harvard University, point guard Jeremy Lin signed with the NBA's Golden State Warriors in 2010. In doing so, he became the first Asian-American to play in the NBA in over 50 years.

Asian Americans first made an impact in Olympic sports in the late 1940s and in the 1950s. Sammy Lee became the first Asian American to earn an Olympic Gold Medal, winning in platform diving in both 1948 and 1952. Victoria Manalo Draves won both gold in platform and springboard diving in the 1948. Harold Sakata won a weightlifting silver medal in the 1948 Olympics, while Japanese Americans Tommy Kono (weightlifting), Yoshinobu Oyakawa (100-meter backstroke), and Ford Konno (1500-meter freestyle) each won gold and set Olympic records in the 1952 Olympics. Konno won another gold and silver swimming medal at the same Olympics and added a silver medal in 1956, while Kono set another Olympic weightlifting record in 1956. Also at the 1952 Olympics, Evelyn Kawamoto won two bronze medals in swimming.

Amy Chow was a member of the gold medal women's gymnastics team at the 1996 Olympics; she also won an individual silver medal on the uneven bars. Gymnast Mohini Bhardwaj won a team silver medal in the 2004 Olympics. Hapa Bryan Clay won the decathlon gold medal in the 2008 Olympics, the silver medal in the 2004 Olympics, and was the sport's 2005 world champion.

Since Tiffany Chin won the women's US Figure Skating Championship in 1985, Asian Americans have been prominent in that sport. Kristi Yamaguchi won three national championships, two world titles, and the 1992 Olympic Gold medal. Michelle Kwan has won nine national championships and five world titles, as well as two Olympic medals (silver in 1998, bronze in 2002).

In football, Asian Americans' contributions are also gaining notice. Wally Yonamine played professionally for the San Francisco 49ers in 1947. Norm Chow is currently the offensive coordinator for UCLA after a short stint with the Tennessee Titans of the NFL, after 23 years of coaching other college teams, including four successful years as offensive coordinator at USC. Dat Nguyen was an NFL middle linebacker who was an all-pro selection in 2003. In 1998, he was named an All-American and won the Bednarik Award as well as the Lombardi Award, while playing for Texas A&M. Hines Ward is an NFL wide receiver who was the MVP of Super Bowl XL.

Michael Chang was a top-ranked tennis player for most of his career. He won the French Open in 1989. Tiger Woods, who is of mostly Asian descent, is the most successful golfer of his generation and one of the most famous athletes in the world. Eric Koston is one of the top street skateboarders and placed first in the 2003 X-Games street competition.

There are several top ranked Asian American mixed martial artists. BJ Penn is a former UFC lightweight and welterweight champion. Cung Le is a former Strikeforce middleweight champion. Ben Henderson is the former WEC lightweight champion.

Cultural influence

Health and medicine

{|class="wikitable" align="right" style="font-size:85%; margin-left:15px;" |+Origins of foreign doctors in the US |- bgcolor="#EFEFEF" !Country of Origin !width="100"|Percentage of Total IMGs in US |- |India |19.9% (47,581) |- ||Philippines |8.8% (20,861) |- ||Pakistan |4.8% (11,330) |- ||South Korea |2.1% (4,982) |- ||China |2.0% (4,834) |} {|class="wikitable" align="right" style="font-size:85%; margin-left:15px;" |+Origins of foreign dentists in the US |- bgcolor="#EFEFEF" !Country of Origin !width="100"|Percentage of Total IDGs in US |- |India |25.8 |- ||Philippines |11.0 |- |China |3.2 |- ||South Korea |3.2 |- ||Pakistan |2.9 |} {|class="wikitable" align="right" style="font-size:85%; margin-left:15px;" |+Origins of foreign nurses in the US |- bgcolor="#EFEFEF" !Country of Origin !width="100"|Percentage of Total INGs in US |- |Philippines |50.2 |- |India |1.3 |- |Hong Kong |1.2 |- ||Israel |1.0 |- |South Korea |1.0 |} Asian immigrants are also changing the American medical landscape through increasing number of Asian medical practitioners in this country. Beginning in the 1960s and 70s, the US government invited a number of foreign physicians particularly from India and the Philippines to address the acute shortage of physicians in rural and medically-underserved urban areas. The trend in importing foreign medical practitioners, however, became a long-term, chronic solution as US medical schools failed to produce enough physicians to match the increasing American population. Amid decreasing interest in medicine among American college students due to high rates job dissatisfaction, loss of morale, stress, and lawsuits, Asian American immigrants maintained a supply of healthcare practitioners for millions of Americans. It is well documented that Asian American international medical graduates including highly skilled guest workers using the J1 Visa program for medical workers, tend to serve in health professions shortage areas (HPSA) and specialties that are not filled by US medical graduates especially primary care and rural medicine. Thus, Asian American immigrants play a key role in averting a medical crisis in the US.

A lasting legacy of Asian American involvement in medicine is the forcing of US medical establishment to accept minority medical practitioners. One could speculate that the introduction of Asian physicians and dentists to the American society could have triggered an acceptance of other minority groups by breaking down stereotypes and encouraging trust.

Traditional Asian concepts and practices in health and medicine have attracted greater acceptance and are more widely adopted by American doctors. India’s Ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine (which also includes acupuncture) are two alternative therapy systems that have been studied and adopted to a great extent. For instance, in the early 1970s the US medical establishment did not believe in the usefulness of acupuncture. Since then studies have proven the efficacy of acupuncture for different applications, especially for treatment of chronic pain. It is now covered by many health insurance plans.

Meditation and mindfulness practices are taught in mainstream medical schools and hospitals. Increasingly they are seen as part of a holistic approach to health. Doctors and hospitals treating diseases such as heart disease and cancer have adopted meditation as a practice recommended for patients.

Herbalism and massage therapy (from Ayurveda) are sweeping the spas across America. Meditation and yoga (from India) have also been widely adopted by health spas, and spiritual retreats of many religious bases. They are also part of the spiritual practice of the many Americans who are not affiliated with a mainline religious group.

Education

+ Educational Attainment: 2004 (25 and Older)
Ethnicity	High School Graduation Rate	Bachelor's Degree or More

Among America's major racial categories, Asian Americans have the highest educational qualifications. This varies, however, for individual ethnic groups. Dr. C.N. Le, Director of the Asian & Asian American Studies Certificate Program at the University of Massachusetts, writes that although 42% of all Asian American adults have at least a college degree, Vietnamese Americans have a degree attainment rate of only 16% while Laotians and Cambodians only have rates around 5%. According to the US Census Bureau, while the high school graduation rate for Asian Americans is on par with those of other ethnic groups, 48% of Asian Americans have attained at least a bachelor's degree as compared with the national average of 27%, and 29% for non-Hispanic Whites. Indian Americans have some of the highest education rates, with nearly 68% having attained at least a bachelor's degree.

Religious trends

Some scholars see a movement of religions, as Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism have moved into American culture, and Christianity has been adopted by more East Asians. Most Filipinos are also already Christian (Catholic or other denominations) when they immigrate. Many South Koreans, especially, are already Christian when they immigrate to the US, and hence most Korean Americans are born into Christian families. Besides Indian religions, there has also been strong influence of the American adoption of yoga, meditation, Ayurveda and vegetarianism from India.

Many Asians Americans are also Muslim with ancestry from Pakistan, Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, Malaysia and China among others. Eight percent of Asian Americans are Muslim and they represent 33% of the American Muslim population.

Beats on the West Coast were among those attracted to Buddhism in the 1950s. American Buddhist groups established then and in the 1970s have built temples, ordained numerous American Buddhist monks, and taught generations of new practitioners. Buddhist concepts and practices such as mindfulness have penetrated mainstream culture.

While much West Coast practice was first influenced by Japanese Zen Buddhism, which originated in China (known as Ch'an Buddhism), more recent generations throughout the country have been influenced also by Vietnamese and Tibetan Buddhist monks who have lived and taught in the West.

As a historic first, President Barack Obama appointed two Indian Americans, Eboo Patel (a Muslim) and Anju Bhargava (a Hindu), to the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. The Advisory Council is part of the White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and is composed of religious and secular leaders and scholars from different backgrounds.

Cultural issues

Illegal immigration

, Filipinos and Indians accounted for the highest number of illegal immigrants for "Asian-Americans" with an estimated illegal population of 270,000 and 200,000 respectively. Indian Americans are also the fastest growing illegal immigrant group in the United States, an increase in illegal immigration of 125% since 2000. This is followed by Koreans (200,000) and Chinese (120,000).

Model minority

Asian Americans are sometimes characterized as a model minority because the culture encourages a strong work ethic, a respect for elders, a high degree of professional and academic success, a high valuation of family, education and religion. Statistics such as high household income and low incarceration rate, low rates of many diseases and higher than average life expectancy are also discussed as positive aspects of Asian Americans.

The implicit advice is that the other minorities should stop protesting and emulate the Asian American work ethic and devotion to higher education. Some critics say the depiction replaces biological racism with cultural racism, and should be dropped.

This concept appears to elevate Asian Americans by portraying them as an elite group of successful, highly educated, highly intelligent, and wealthy individuals, but it can also be considered an overly narrow and overly one-dimensional portrayal of Asian Americans, leaving out other human qualities such as vocal leadership, negative emotions, risk taking, ability to learn from mistakes, and desire for creative expression. Furthermore, Asian Americans who do not fit into the model minority mold can face challenges when people's expectations based on the model minority myth do not match with reality. Traits outside of the model minority mold can be seen as negative character flaws for Asian Americans despite those very same traits being positive for the general American majority (e.g., risk taking, confidence, empowered). For this reason, some believe Asian Americans encounter a "bamboo ceiling," the Asian American equivalent of the glass ceiling in the workplace.

The model minority concept can also affect Asians' public education. By comparison with other minorities, Asians often achieve higher test scores and grades compared to other Americans. Stereotyping Asian American as over-achievers can lead to harm if school officials or peers expect all to perform higher than average. The very high educational attainments of Asian Americans has often been noted; in 1980, for example, 74% of Chinese Americans, 62% of Japanese Americans, and 55% of Korean Americans aged 20–21 were in college, compared to a third of the whites. The disparity at postgraduate levels is even greater, and the differential is especially notable in fields making heavy use of mathematics. By 2000, a majority of undergraduates at elite California schools such as Berkeley and Stanford were Asian American. The pattern is rooted in the pre-World War II era. Native-born Chinese and Japanese Americans reached educational parity with majority whites in the early decades of the 20th century.

Those who consider Asian Americans a "model minority" fail to realize that Asian American is a broad category encompassing many different ethnic groups with different histories. When divided up by ethnicity, it can be seen that the economic and academic successes supposedly enjoyed by Asian Americans are concentrated into a few ethnic groups. Cambodians, Hmong, and Laotians (and to a lesser extent, Vietnamese), all of whose relatively low achievement rates are possibly due to their refugee status, and that they are non voluntary immigrants as other ethnicities are more likely to be.

Furthermore, the model minority concept can even be emotionally damaging to Asian Americans, particularly since they are expected to live up to their peers who are part of the model minority. However, studies have shown that Asian Americans suffer from higher rates of stress, depression, mental illnesses, and suicides in comparison to other races. The pressures to achieve and live up to the model minority image have taken a mental and psychological toll on Asian Americans.

Race based violence

Historically Asian Americans have been the target of violence based on their race and or ethnicity. This includes, but are not limited to, such events as the Rock Springs massacre, Watsonville Riots, attacks upon Japanese Americans following the attack on Pearl Harbor., and Korean American businesses targeted during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Violence against Asian Americans continue to occur based on their race, with at least one source asserting that Asian Americans are the fastest growing targets of hate crimes and violence.

After the September 11 attacks, Sikh Americans were targeted, being the recipient of numerous hate crimes including murder. Other Asian Americans have also been the victim of race based violence in Brooklyn, Indiana, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. Furthermore, it has been reported that young Asian Americans are more likely to be a target of violence than their peers.

Stereotypes

Until the late 20th century, the term "Asian American" was adopted mostly by activists, while the average person of Asian ancestries identified with his specific ethnicity. The murder of Vincent Chin in 1982 was a pivotal civil rights case, and it marked the emergence of Asian Americans as a distinct group in United States.

Study has indicated that most non-Asian Americans do not generally differentiate between Asian Americans of different ethnicities. Stereotypes of both groups are nearly identical. A 2002 survey of Americans' attitudes toward Asian Americans and Chinese Americans indicated that 24% of the respondents disapprove of intermarriage with an Asian American, second only to African Americans; 23% would be uncomfortable supporting an Asian-American presidential candidate, compared to 15% for an African American, 14% for a woman and 11% for a Jew; 17% would be upset if a substantial number of Asian Americans moved into their neighborhood; 25% had somewhat or very negative attitude toward Chinese Americans in general. The study did find several positive perceptions of Chinese Americans: strong family values (91%); honesty as business people (77%); high value on education (67%).

There is a widespread perception that Asian Americans are not "American" but are instead "perpetual foreigners". Asian Americans often report being asked the question, "Where are you really from?" by other Americans, regardless of how long they or their ancestors have lived in United States. Many Asian Americans are themselves not immigrants but rather born in the United States. Many are asked if they are Chinese or Japanese, an assumption based on major groups of past immigrants.

See also

References

Further reading

Chan, Sucheng. "The changing contours of Asian-American historiography," ''Rethinking History,'' March 2007, Vol. 11 Issue 1, pp 125–147; surveys 100+ studies of defining events; Asian diasporas; social dynamics; cultural histories.

Chan, Sucheng. ''Asian Americans: an interpretive history'' (Twayne, 1991). ISBN 978-0-8057-8437-4

Chau Trinh-Shevrin, Nadia Shilpi Islam, Mariano Jose Rey. ''Asian American Communities and Health: Context, Research, Policy, and Action'' (Public Health/Vulnerable Populations), 2009. ISBN 978-0-7879-9829-5

Chin, Gabriel J., Ed., ''U.S. Commission on Civil Rights: Reports on Asian Pacific Americans'' (2005) ISBN 978-0-8377-3105-6

Chiu, Monica, ed. ''Asian Americans in New England: Culture and Community'' (Durham: University of New Hampshire Press, 2009. xviii, 252 pp.) isbn 978-1-58465-794-1

Kwong, Peter and Dusanka Miscevic. ''Chinese America: The Untold Story of America's Oldest New Community'' (2005)

Lowe, Lisa ''Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics'' Durham: Duke University Press, 1996. ISBN 978-0-8223-1864-4

Okihiro, Gary Y. ''The Columbia Guide to Asian American History'' (Columbia UP, 2005) excerpt and text search

Pyong Gap Min ''Asian Americans: Contemporary Trends and Issues'' Thousand Oaks, Ca.: Pine Science Press, 2005. ISBN 978-1-4129-0556-5

Takaki, Ronald ''Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans'' New York: Little, Brown, 1998. ISBN 978-0-316-83130-7

Tamura, Eileen H. "Using the Past to Inform the Future: An Historiography of Hawaii's Asian and Pacific Islander Americans," ''Amerasia Journal,'' 2000, Vol. 26 Issue 1, pp 55–85

Wu, Frank H. ''Yellow: Race in American Beyond Black and White'' New York: Basic Books, 2002. ISBN 978-0-465-00639-7

Zia, Helen ''Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People'' New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2000. ISBN 978-0-374-52736-5.

Zhou, Min and Carl L. Bankston III ''Growing Up American: How Vietnamese Children Adapt to Life in the United States'' New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1998. ISBN 978-0-871-54995-2.

Journals

''Journal of Asian American Studies''

''Kartika Review''

External links

Population: Estimates and Projections by Age, Sex, Race/Ethnicity, The 2010 Statistical Abstract, U.S. Census Bureau

UCLA Asian American Studies Center

Asian-Nation Asian American History, Culture, Statistics, & Issues

Asians in America - National organizations directory, job posts and news

Korean-Americans in America - National organizations, business directory, job posts and news

U.S. Asian Population, Census 2000, infoplease.com..

Video: Panel Discussion on 'Asian Americans Changing the Landscape' Asia Society, New York, May 19, 2010

Category:Articles with inconsistent citation formats Category:Asian American issues Category:Asian American culture

de:Asiatische Amerikaner fr:Asio-Américains nl:Aziatische Amerikanen ja:アジア系アメリカ人 zh:亞裔美國人

Name	Soulja Boy
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	DeAndre Cortez Way
Alias	Soulja Boy Tell 'Em
Born	July 28, 1990 Chicago, Illinois
Origin	Atlanta, Georgia, United States
Occupation	Rapper
Genre	Hip hop
Years active	2007–present
Label	Stacks on Deck/Interscope
Associated acts	Arab, Mr. Collipark
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DeAndre Cortez Way (born July 28, 1990), better known by his stage name Soulja Boy Tell 'Em, or simply Soulja Boy, is an American rapper, record producer, actor, entrepreneur, and internet personality.

In September 2007, his single "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. The single was initially self-published on the internet, and it later became a number-one hit in the United States for seven non-consecutive weeks starting in September 2007.On August 17 Way was listed at #18 on the Forbes list of Hip-Hop Cash Kings of 2010 earning $7 million for that year.

Way has currently released three studio albums and one independent album: his debut studio album ''Souljaboytellem.com'' (2007) was certified platinum by the RIAA. However, his next two albums, ''iSouljaBoyTellem'' (2008) and ''The DeAndre Way'' (2010) did not match the commercial success of his debut, the latter only selling 80,000 copies, despite the success of several singles across both albums, such as "Kiss Me Thru the Phone" and "Turn My Swag On" (''iSouljaBoyTellem'') and "Pretty Boy Swag" (''The DeAndre Way''), the latter later being certified gold by the RIAA.

Early life

DeAndre Way was born in Chicago and moved to Atlanta at age six, where he became interested in rap music.

Career beginnings

At age 14, he moved to Batesville, Mississippi, with his father, who provided a recording studio for Way to explore his musical ambitions. Way founded his record label "Stacks on Deck Entertainment" in 2004. While Way was signed under Interscope and Collipark Music, he claimed that his label had distribution deals with Interscope, Universal Records, and Koch. In November 2005, Way posted his songs on the website SoundClick. Following positive reviews on the site, he then established his own web pages on YouTube and MySpace. In March 2007, he recorded "Crank That" and released his first independent album ''Unsigned & Still Major: Da Album Before da Album'', followed by a low-budget video filmed demonstrating the "Crank That" dance. By the end of May 2007, "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" received its first airplay and Way met with Mr. Collipark to sign a deal with Interscope Records.

Music career

2007-08: souljaboytellem.com

On August 12, 2007, the song appeared on the Emmy-award winning HBO series ''Entourage'', and by September 1, it topped the Billboard Hot 100 and Hot RingMasters charts. Way's major label debut album ''Souljaboytellem.com'', which was reportedly recorded using just the demo version of FL Studio, was released in the United States on October 2, peaking at #4 on both the Billboard 200 and Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums charts.

For the 50th Grammy Awards, Way was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rap Song with "Crank That (Soulja Boy)". He lost to Kanye West's and T-Pain's "Good Life".

''Souljaboytellem.com'' received a favorable review from Allmusic, but received mainly negative reviews from other sources such as ''Entertainment Weekly''. Several reviewers credited Soulja Boy with spearheading a new trend in hip-hop, while speculating he will likely be a one-hit wonder.

2008-09: iSouljaBoyTellem

The follow-up to ''souljaboytellem.com'', ''iSouljaBoyTellem'', was released on December 16, 2008, to negative critical reception. The first single from the album, "Bird Walk", peaked at number 40 on the ''Billboard'' Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and the top 20 on the Hot Rap Tracks chart it was performed on the first ''YouTube Live'' on November 22, 2008, with an introduction from MC Hammer. "Kiss Me Thru the Phone", with Sammie, followed, peaking at #3 on the Hot 100 and #1 on the Hot Rap Tracks charts. Chris Brown was originally Way's first choice to sing the hook, but respectfully turned down the offer. Way then tried to do it on his own with Auto-Tune but he found it unacceptable. It sold over 2,000,000 digital copies in the United States, becoming his second song to reach the two million mark in downloads.

On January 26, 2009 Way released his third single "Turn My Swag On". it topped the US Rap Charts and peaked at #19 on the Hot 100. it has so far sold over 1,000,000 digital downloads in the US. It became Soulja Boy's third song to sell 1 million or more downloads.

2009-2010: The DeAndre Way

''The DeAndre Way'' is Way's third studio album, Way has stated that the album is intended to be his most personal and successful album thus far. When speaking on possible collaborations, he stated he wished to work with artists such as Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, and Kanye West, Eminem, among others. The lead single from the album, "POW", was released in January 2009 but failed to garner success and was dubbed a promo single. On October 30, 2009 Way released three mixtapes ''Paranormal Activity'', ''Dat Piff'' & ''Cortez''. Then it was announced on February 18, 2010 that the first single from the album was gone be "All Black Everything" but it was cancelled & was just put on his promotional mixtape ''Legendary''. The album was titled "The DeAndre Way" but was changed in early 2010 to ''Dre'' with a commercial video snippet for "Do It Big" as the first single but it was cancelled as well. However it was reverted back to ''The DeAndre Way'' in July 2010.

But on June 8, 2010, the official lead single from the album was "Pretty Boy Swag". The single has reached number thirty-four on the Billboard Hot 100, number six on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and number five on the Billboard Rap Songs chart. The album's second single was due to be "Digital" but it was just used on his promotional mixtape ''Best Rapper''. Then it was announced that "Speakers Going Hammer" was gone be the second single, but "Blowing Me Kisses" was released on August 31, 2010 as the second single instead. On October 13 Soulja Boy performed "Pretty Boy Swag" & a snippet of his third single "Speakers Going Hammer". On October 19, 2010 Way finally released "Speakers Going Hammer" on iTunes the single peaked at #48 on the ''Hot R&B & Hip Hop tracks'' Billboard. ''The DeAndre Way'' was released on November 30, 2010 it has so far has only sold 70,000 copies making this Way's lowest selling album. Soulja Boy was to be part of the Summerbeatz tour held in Australia alongside Flo Rida, Jay Sean and Travie McCoy in November 2010, but in lieu of his current album release date Soulja Boy had declined the offer & just embarked on his Who They Want tour.

2011-present: Mixtapes and Respect My Hustle

On January 22, Way released his first mixtape of 2011 ''Smooky'' which cover featured a cartoon version of Way on a bicycle doing a 360. Then On March 17, 2011 Way released the mixtape ''1up'' which cover was based on the Naruto anime Way stated "If I was in a video game, this mixtape would advance me to the next level with an extra life. Power up with the new offering". On April 20, 2011 Way released his mixtape ''Juice'' which cover was based on the ''Juice'' the movie Way stated he would also released a mini movie of his own to go along with the mixtape Way stated that he was headed to greatness with the mixtape. In September 2011, Way confirmed he is working on a new album, called ''Respect My Hustle'', which will be released in October.

Personal life

Legal issues

On December 9, 2007, Way was sued by William Lyons (a.k.a. Souljah Boy of Mo Thugs Family) who created the stage name "Souljah Boy" in 1996.

On October 7, 2009, Way was arrested on one count of obstruction, a misdemeanor, for running from police when he'd been ordered to stop. The rapper was released on $550 bond.

In May 2011, Way and his labels were sued by a local Pennsylvania promoter for failing to make promised payments in connection with a rescheduled concert.

Victim of robbery and assault

On December 30, 2008, Way was robbed and assaulted in his home. Initial reports indicated that the robbers were six masked men with AK-47s and pistols but on December 31, 2008, video clips surfaced on the Internet of two masked men claiming sole credit for the crime. Soulja Boy described the incident to MTV News a month later: He had come home very late at night after attending an album release party and was recording songs with friends when the robbers came in pointing their guns.

Family tragedies

On March 22, 2011, Way's little brother Deion Jenkins was killed in a car crash on Sunday night. Then on March 24, 2011 Way's older brother threatened to committ suicide.

Controversies

Way's music has been banned from some school dances for sexual and violent content or innuendo. However, he has denied these claims. In the original YouTube video for "Shootout", Soulja Boy demonstrates his dance while holding a handgun in each hand and pretending to shoot into the audience.

Nas

On February 25, 2008, Way said in an interview that "Nas killed hip hop and his own career". Way later apologized for his comments.

Ice-T

In June 2008, on DJ Cisco's ''Urban Legend'' mixtape, Ice-T told Way to "eat a dick" and criticized Way for "killing hip-hop" and his song "Crank That" for being "garbage" compared to the works of other hip-hop artists such as Rakim, Das EFX, Big Daddy Kane and Ice Cube. The two then traded videos back and forth over the Internet. Rapper Kanye West defended Way by arguing that the younger artist created a new, original work for hip-hop, thus keeping the authentic meaning of the music. The feud was parodied in a 2010 episode of The Boondocks.

Charles Hamilton

On December 9, 2008, Charles Hamilton commented in a interview by saying that Way was making it harder for new artists to be signed. Way responded by saying "X out the Sonic and fuck with Mario, you might want to got damn eat a mushroom." Charles Hamilton responded with the diss song "Im You Last Year With Talent". Then the diss song "Word Aight".

Bow Wow

On February 2, 2009, Way challenged Bow Wow to a race in their Lamborghinis and claimed Bow Wow's Lamborghini was a rental. On February 4, 2009 Bow Wow proved that he owned his Lamborghini and said "its halloween in Bankhead for you everyday nigga..you scared..you all nervous and shit". Way responded on twitter by saying "HE FUCKED UP!!!! IM BOUT TO SHITTTT ON THIS NIGGA!! LOL!!!!!". On February 7, 2009 both artist sent diss songs to each other such as Way's "Fuck Bow Wow" & Bow Wow's "What I Think About You". Later that day during a phone conversation both rappers settled their differences.

Fabolous

On December 28, 2010, Fabolous during a radio interview commented on the claim that Way does cocaine, saying "pretty boy swag but never coke my nose though", a reference to Way's song "Pretty Boy Swag. "Soulja Boy went on a tirade on Twitter in response, saying "I ignore dis foo like 5x before this. fuck that. If you send some niggaz to spray me @myfabolouslife at least I die I real nigga fuck you boy." 50 Cent also took to Twitter to say, "leave him the f*** alone before somebody get hurt." Way and Fabolous ended their beef on a radio interview.

"Let's Be Real"

In September 2011, Soulja Boy released the song "Let's Be Real". One of the lines of the song went: ''"Fuck the FBI and the army troops ... fighting for what? Be your own man ... I'll be flying through the clouds with green like I'm Peter Pan."'' After the song was released, Soulja Boy was highly criticized by the military members and their families, especially in regards to the timing relative to the 10th anniversary of the September 11 Attacks. Soulja Boy apologized, "When I expressed my frustration with the US Army, not only did my words come out wrong, I was wrong to even speak them." He adds, "So, I write this to give my sincerest apology to all members of the United States military services, as well as their families that were offended by my most recent lyrics." Representatives for Soulja Boy have indicated that the song has been pulled from his upcoming album, ''Respect My Hustle,'' and will not be available for sale. They are also attempting to remove the video from the internet.

Discography

;Studio albums

''Souljaboytellem.com'' (2007)

''iSouljaBoyTellem'' (2008)

''The DeAndre Way'' (2010)

''Respect My Hustle'' (2011)

Tours

''Americas Most Wanted'' (2009)

''Who They Want'' (2011)

Filmography

Film
! Year	! Film	! Role	! Notes
2007	''YouTube Live''	Himself	Small Role
2008	''What's at Stake?'''	Himself	Small Role
2009	''School Gyrls''	Himself	Cameo
2010	''Malice N Wonderland''	Soulja	Small Role
2011	''TBA''	''TBA''
Television
! Year	! Title	! Role	! Notes
	''The Ellen DeGeneres Show''	Himself
''Last Call with Carson Daly''	Himself
	''Live with Regis''	Himself	Minor appearance
''Access Granted''	Himself	For his music video for "Bird Walk"
	''When I Was 17''	Himself
''The Mo'Nique Show''	Himself
''Late Night with Jimmy Fallon''	Himself
''Lopez Tonight''	Himself
''The Tonight Show with Jay Leno''	Himself

Awards and nominations

BET Awards

*2007: Best New Artist (Nominated)

*2008: Viewer's Choice Award: "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" (Nominated)

*2009: Viewer's Choice Award: "Kiss Me Thru the Phone" (Nominated)

BET Hip-Hop Awards

*'2007: Best Hip-Hop Dance (Won)'

Grammy Awards

*2008: Best Rap Song: "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" (Nominated)

Ozone Awards

*'2007: Patiently Waiting: Mississippi (Won)'

*2008: Best Breakthrough Artist (Nominated)

*2008: TJ's DJ's Tastemaker Award (Nominated)

Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards

*2007: Favorite Male Singer (Nominated)

Teen Choice Awards

*2009: Choice Music: Rap Artist (Nominated)

*2009: Choice Music: R&B Track for "Kiss Me Thru the Phone" (Nominated)

*2009: Choice Music: Hook Up for "Kiss Me Thru the Phone"

*2009: Choice Music: Artist (Nominated)

See also

List of artists who reached number one in the United States

References

External links

Official website

Category:1990 births Category:Living people Category:Actors from Mississippi Category:African American actors Category:African American rappers Category:African-American businesspeople Category:African American film actors Category:American film actors Category:American film producers Category:American hip hop record producers Category:American Internet personalities Category:American music industry executives Category:American music video directors Category:American pop musicians Category:American record producers Category:Businesspeople from Mississippi Category:Hip hop musicians Category:Hip hop singers Category:Interscope Records artists Category:People from Panola County, Mississippi Category:Rappers from Atlanta, Georgia Category:Rappers from Chicago, Illinois Category:Rappers from Mississippi

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