Pyong Gap Min Selected for Census Bureau’s Asian Advisory Committee

Pyong Gap Min, a professor of sociology at Queens College and the Graduate Center of City University of New York, has been selected by Secretary of Commerce Carlos M. Gutierrez to serve on the U.S. Census Bureau’s Advisory Committee on the Asian population.

As a member of the nine-person committee, the Oakland Gardens, N.Y., resident will advise the Census Bureau on the new American Community Survey and ways to achieve a more accurate count of the Asian population in the 2010 Census.

“The Race and Ethnic Advisory Committees play a vital role in ensuring that we make the best effort possible to reach race and ethnic groups, not only during the 2010 Census, but also the American Community Survey that is conducted throughout the decade,” Census Bureau Director Steve H. Murdock said.

Min worked as a reporter in South Korea while earning a history degree from Seoul National University in 1970. He taught English at a Seoul high school before coming to the United States and earning master’s and doctorate degrees from Georgia State University in Atlanta. He has been with Queens College since 1987.

Min has written four books. His second book, “Caught in the Middle: Korean Communities in New York and Los Angeles,” won a 1997 National Book Award from the Association for Asian American Studies. He is also a co-winner of the 1998 Outstanding Book Award by the Asia and Asian America Section of the American Sociological Association.

Five race and ethnic advisory committees — African-American, American Indian and Alaska Native, Asian, Hispanic, and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander —advise the Census Bureau on issues affecting minority populations. The committees are assembled from the public at large and representatives of national, state, local and tribal entities, as well as nonprofit and private sector organizations. Members of the committees are academicians, community leaders, policy makers and others interested in an accurate count for their communities.