Asian Americans’ Academic Success Misleading, Report Says
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Gale Holland, Los Angeles Times, June 10, 2008
The success of some Asian American and Pacific Islander college students has given rise to a myth of the “model minority” that obscures important differences within a diverse population whose educational needs are often neglected, according to a report released Monday.
The concentration of Asian American students in a relatively small number of elite universities, including UCLA and UC Berkeley, has raised fears of a “takeover” of the upper tiers of higher education in the U.S., according to the report, a collaboration between a national commission, research institutes at New York University and the College Board. In reality, more than half of Asian American students attend community colleges or minimally selective four-year colleges, the report stated.
{snip}
Many Asian American students do excel in higher education, particularly in California, where they make up roughly 40% of admissions to the flagship Los Angeles and Northern California UC campuses, UCLA education professor Mitchell Chang said.
{snip}
As of 2000, 44.1% of Asian Americans had obtained college degrees, according to the report. The average in the United States is 24.4%, the report stated.
But many Asian groups in the U.S. fell far short of those achievement levels. Almost 60% of Hmong—from southern China and Southeast Asia—that same year had less than a high school education, according to the report.
Pacific Islanders fared poorly. Only 15% of Native Hawaiians, for example, had college degrees.
Chang said the lower income groups do not have the stellar high school preparation or other advantages of the more affluent ones.
The majority of Asian American students at UCLA are from low-income families, Chang said. Their choice of colleges is between UCLA and the Cal State system, not pricey private schools, he said.
They often feel “tremendous pressure” to fit the model minority stereotype, continuing to struggle, for example, in science or math programs when they would be better suited to other areas of study.
{snip}
(Posted on June 10, 2008)
Comments
Pacific Islanders are not in the same racial group as Han Chinese,
or Japanese, or Koreans. That’s obvious to anyone with eyes.
Steve Sailer had an amusing post about this, noting that the
success of “Asians” makes blacks look bad, so its natural that
some “professional Asian” will arise, just like the “professional
Black”, and Asians can get on the racial gravy train.
Posted by at 5:34 PM on June 10
wow, this reporter just said Asians are bad at math and science. Shouldn’t she at least said they excel at social studies and language arts? Even I know that much about PC.
Posted by LHathaway at 5:56 PM on June 10
I remember some of the Asian I went to school with many moons ago. Many WERE, very smart kids and studied a lot. But I honestly remember others who cheated and always tried to peek at the answers that the smart kids wrote down. There were more than a few. I am being straight about this.
Posted by Bobby at 6:08 PM on June 10
This misleading article conflates all “Asians” and “Pacific Islanders” as though the census (and affirmative action) category were a scientific classification. The “stand-outs” in intelligence and academic achievement among Asians are Northeast Asians: Chinese, Japanese, Koreans. Outside of India and Persia with their white Indo-European bloodlines, it is the Northeast Asians who historically have had the greatest cultural and civilizational achievements in Asia. Other Asians such as Vietnamese, Pilipinos, and East Indians do better than native blacks and Hispanics, but are not as strong as Northeasterners.
No matter though: All in all, I’d rather live near “Asian/Pacific Islanders” than blacks or Hispanics.
Posted by Zorba_the_Geek at 6:22 PM on June 10
Anybody with two brain cells can see the problem with this article: “Asian American/Pacific Islander” lumps together several very different groups. When you use imprecise terms, you end up with inaccurate conclusions. Separate Northeast Asians from Pacific Islanders and S.E. Asians and you’ll get much more consistent results. Even in this flawed article, if you read between the lines, you can see the we’re speaking of several races and that genetic differences most likely explain their disparate academic performance.
Posted by jewamongyou at 6:23 PM on June 10
“When you use imprecise terms, you end up with inaccurate conclusions. Separate Northeast Asians from Pacific Islanders and S.E. Asians and you’ll get much more consistent results.”
An excellent point. The philosophical name is “categories of discourse” and in practice it refers to the clustering of unrelated peoples in one category. Perhaps the beginning of wisdom would be to use “categories of discourse” when one sees it as a first step toward deconstructing the cascade of verbal abuse cast at the diverse white American peoples. The left-wing racialists adore their own concoctions of categories of discourse, and it is good to call them that when we hear them.
Posted by Billy at 8:23 PM on June 10
So what? When they discriminate against “whites” they do not go “Hey, wait a minute, a large percentage of white Ivy League students are Jewish and not Serbian - thats a disparity!”
So why should we care about Asian sub-groups?
Posted by Patrick at 8:43 PM on June 10
My wife’s brother in law is Chinese. I have never met a dumber or more useless man. He won’t work and lives in a fantasy world where pulling on a finger constitutes an ancient healing method of his ancestors.
Posted by Name withheld at 9:14 PM on June 10
No matter though: All in all, I’d rather live near “Asian/Pacific Islanders” than blacks or Hispanics.
Posted by Zorba_the_Geek at 6:22 PM on June 10
This is like deciding to vote democrat or republican. I prefer white neighbors.
Posted by at 9:26 PM on June 10
I’ve been saying the same thing on these boards for many months. Not all Koreans, Japanese or Chinese are smart and from personal experience some of them border on being incompetent.
Posted by at 9:31 PM on June 10
The media always tries to distort peoples understanding of race. It seems thier ultimate goal is the destruction of any race identity and mixing of all races.
Posted by Mick at 10:32 PM on June 10
The term “Asian” encompasses an enormous variety of different peoples. Hmong and Pacific Islanders aren’t the same as Japanese and Han Chinese. And needless to say, there is a great deal of variation within every race, so you’ll easily be able to find some Japanese and Chinese kids who aren’t the brightest bulbs in the pack. None of this is surprising.
Posted by WR the elder at 1:21 AM on June 11
Really there are three major races here:
Northeast Asians - Japanese, N Chinese, Korean, etc.
Southeast Asians - S Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipinos, Thai, Lao, Hmong, Khmer, Indonesian, Burmese, etc.
Oceanians - Maori, Hawaiians, Samoans, Tongans, Marshallese, Chamorro, Fijians
The very idea of lumping this disparate group together is a bit comical, though they do share ancient racial roots, which is apparent if you are around enough of them for long enough. Some SE Asians such as S Chinese and Vietnamese are highly intelligent. Both NE and SE Asians are vastly better neighbors than Mesoamerican Hispanics or Blacks any day of the week. I’m a bit agnostic on the Oceanians, but I’d rather be around them than Blacks.
Posted by Robert Lindsay at 1:59 AM on June 11
Who puts “tremendous pressure” on Oriental kids to excel at math and science only? The issue is that they and their parents aren’t interested in American history or Western literature. It’s all racist, isn’t it? Math and science are the only subjects taught in American classrooms that they have any regard for. Give them the option of Chinese history, art, and literature, and you’ll see them switch from computer science and engineering. Send them back home and they’ll have that option.
Posted by Schoolteacher at 2:21 AM on June 11
East Asians have on average a higher IQ. Of course, averages are made of highs, lows and everything in between, so it is hardly a revelation that not all of them are high-achievers.
Posted by at 6:45 AM on June 11
Once again, the manufactured PC term “asian” is exposed for the misleading sham it is. Once upon a time, we weren’t afraid to use the racially-descriptive term “Oriental,” and we all knew exactly what racial group was being referenced. Then the PC propagandameisters churned out “asian,” which is supposed to include everything from East Indians to Pakistanis to Koreans, all in one indistinguishable aracial lump.
This entire governmedia “news” story is nothing but an attempt to blur away the embarrassing success of Orientals in our supposedly White Racist society. Mustn’t embarrass our precious blacks and mestizos now, must we?
Posted by at 6:47 AM on June 11
Gee , Only 44% receive college degrees,,, Slackers
Compare that to Blacks, even though they are given a free pass to
a college education … manage an impressive 50% high school graduation rate
Posted by at 12:25 PM on June 11
The White hating media reprints this article every few years. It is really all about creating more and more affirmative action categories so as to make sure that when all the quotas are filled, there will be no jobs or college places for Whites.
Posted by at 2:46 PM on June 11
One of my best friends is Korean, and he’s a self-described slacker. He is pretty smart and witty, but he just doesn’t like to try very hard; mostly he counts on his intelligence to coast through, but I usually have to kick his chair and tell him to get to work.
Posted by Anglokraut at 3:28 PM on June 11
The stereotype of the smarter-than-average Asian kid endures in pop culture - even ‘the Simpsons’ have made mention of it.
Go to China, and you’ll see a full cross-section of the population - the dumb and the smart.
The Asian migrants we come into contact with are just the cream of the intelligent, the motivated, and the hard workers, and sometimes the most devious, ruthless, and uncaring competitors.
Posted by at 7:13 PM on June 11
“So why should we care about Asian sub-groups?”
Do you embrace Moroccans as your racial kin?
Posted by at 11:37 PM on June 11
For the ones that think they’re smarter than whites, ask them, “then why is it you come to white lands for a better life?”
Posted by at 12:33 AM on June 12
Anonymous at 12:33 AM wrote:
“For the ones that think they’re smarter than whites, ask them, “then why is it you come to white lands for a better life?””
You should understand that intelligence is a tool. It can be used for good or evil. In the modern era, for the most part, whites are morally superior to other races (with a few notable exceptions of course). It is not for lack of intelligence that some Asian countries are miserable. It’s for lack of Kantian ethics. Places where both Kantian ethics and intelligence are abundant are wonderful places to live. If one of them is lacking, then life tends to be short and brutish. Generally, where intelligence is low, Kantian ethics cannot thrive (a solid religion can, however, take the place of intelligence in instilling Kantian ethics). The converse is not as true: high intelligence can easily exist within a cruel society. Two examples are Nazi Germany and North Korea. Some would include China in this last category. It is from such societies people flee; their governments being run by exceedingly immoral and corrupt people.
Posted by jewamongyou at 3:07 PM on June 13
“In the modern era, for the most part, whites are morally superior to other races (with a few notable exceptions of course).”
I would say morality in Asia is different. For example pleasing other people or not being upset when someone bumps into is just the norm in Asia (at least China/Taiwan/Hong Kong).
In Chinese culture at least conforming is far more important as is social acceptance. Of course that varies in the West too with Germans being more group oriented than Americans, I was an exchange student in Germany.
However I think what we are seeing is a sort of merging and influence of East upon West and vice versa. The institutions of banking and commerce and finance and finance have been adopted wholeheartedly in the east.
While we in the West are becoming more group oriented and concerned about the “Whole” versuses individual rights per see.
China has developed at an astounding rate over the last 20 years and has really done what took the Japanese over half a decade. We now see a number of Western expats immigrating to Asia and the middle east to live a “better life”. This is not to say that China reigns supreme but I think we are really seeing a blurring of differences and the influence of East upon West and West upon East.
The world we came from is rapidly disappearing and for better or worse in the next few centuries the cultures of East and West will probably be far more similar to one another than they are today.
We are in the midst of a quiet yet profound revolution that goes unnoticed by the majority of people.
Posted by Yellow Man at 8:34 AM on June 14