Is academic achievement commonly associated with Asian students really based on immigration?

Parents Forum
21

Without hard science to back it up, but based on empirical observations of a caucasian in a heavily Asian school district, I would agree that the more generations of being American transpire, the more the Asian kids start acting and performing like everyone else. There is a great amount of pressure to succeed for more recent immigrants and that imperative is pushed upon the children. And yes, I see behavior as described all of the time in terms of parents discouraging relationships with other races (not just Caucasian) - it unfortunately leads to a very segregated HS environment.

And I do not believe that Asians are more intelligent than anyone else, but many are forced/expected to work much harder. My kids have held their own just fine with their Asian counterparts, and I know they do 1/4 of the work others are doing, and no Kumon, tutors or any extracurricular learning stuff. If you are forced to do something for many hours a week, many of even lower talent will eventually learn and succeed. That said, there is nothing wrong with hard work, just as long as it doesn’t come with other emotional issues related to a stressful home environment that demands nothing but total success.

22

When my kid was in elementary school, in a heavily Asian school district, my kid was the only friend of a Hispanic kid. Her mom complained to me the Asian kids group together, didn’t want to play with her kid. She and her husband were both engineer and marketer, own home in a good school district because they work at good hi tech companies.

23

Nigerian immigrants have also done well in the United States, which I think proves it’s more about the immigration thing and less about Asians being “inherently smarter”.

This is from the Wikipedia page on Nigerian-Americans:

And here’s an article about it:
http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2014/02/tiger_mom_amy_chua_says_nigerians_and_other_groups_have_cultural_edge_to.html

24

No different than my Jewish neighbor who only socialize with people from her temple. Or large groups of Jewish students walking through Penn campus to Shabbat services together.

25

Was it last year that someone posted the last names of the NMSF’s in Calif…and the overwhelming number of Asian last names. We don’t know if those kids were 1st or 2nd generation. Do you think that most of them were?

26

There are different degrees of “laziness”.

Not very long time ago, my child (who is always considered as hard working enough by us) was called “being lazy” (not by his parents!) even though he may not be considered as being lazy by most standards.

At one time, he did say he does not want to become a full time researcher because some others across the pond may be willing to put in so many hours working in the lab. “Working” 11-12 hours a day for just a month before a big test may be tolerable for him; but the life of perpetually working for such a long time almost everyday since the middle of high school till 30s yo or even beyond that age likely does not appeal to him. Wonder whether the reason why he was called being lazy is due to this attitude toward the work.

27

Who was the genius who decided to lump together Pakistanis, Japanese & Filipinos and concluded they have anything in common with each other racially, religiously, culturally, geographically…

28

About two thirds of the Asian American population is immigrant. Asian people make up about a quarter of immigrant generation people in the US, an eighth of the second generation people in the US, and less than 1% of the third and higher generation people in the US.

29

“I heard first hand stories (you will never find it on internet) that many Asian parents prohibit the non-Asian friendships because they believe that most American kids are lazy and they do not want to “rub” it onto their kids. They may allow such friendships in in well known case of a highly achieving non-Asian kid.”

I have seen this with Muslim Indians. I have seen this with other clusters of immigrants who come from a more conservative back home culture. And the Chinese immigrants exclude my kiddos, because frankly, they don’t speak Mandarin.

“Was it last year that someone posted the last names of the NMSF’s in Calif…and the overwhelming number of Asian last names.”

My D would be on the 2012 CA NMSF list. Her last name is Caucasian, but she is 1/2 Chinese by me. So even those white names might be tainted with Asian blood.

@ucbalumnus. I do agree with you that, anecdotally, pushing the kiddos hard and having high achieving kiddos does seem to occur more in 1st and 2nd gen Chinese immigrants. My brother (and I) are 4th gen and he is lazy as s**t. My DS is 5th gen and very unmotivated and also half Caucasian.

Also, there are posters on the half-Asian thread, such as @oldfort, @mcat2, etc who I would have never suspected were Asian from their other posts except for the fact that they have revealed it in the half-Asian thread. Anonymous college applications might surprise us all in the same way that an anonymous internet forum does.

30

@ucbalumnus

What is your definition of “immigrant”? Born overseas w a different nationality? I find it hard to believe that 2/3 were born overseas.

Are u counting second & third generation asian-americans as immigrants?

31

“My D would be on the 2012 CA NMSF list. Her last name is Caucasian, but she is 1/2 Chinese by me. So even those white names might be tainted with Asian blood.”

You’re the only one who pulls this “tainted” business. You’ve really got to stop thinking that people think that way.

Regarding the comment that you wouldn’t have known oldfort and mcat2 were Adian if they hadn’t mentioned it - who is being stereotypical now? Did you expect all Asian posters to have the same or similar points of view, even as you were beginning for everyone to be seen as an individual?

32

Very different. Your Jewish neighbor and the Jewish students at Penn are choosing to spend time with people who share their heritage. They’re not being forced to limit their time with people who aren’t Jewish.

I’m not saying that there aren’t Jewish families who impose similar restrictions on their children. There may be. But you didn’t provide evidence of that.

33

Asians are stereotyped in a positive way. Who would complain about this stereotype, the stereotype of very hard working super achiever. I would not and I am very happy with the fact the both my D. and my grandD. happen to be in heavily Asian classes, one at the selective test-in HS in NYC and another at Med. School. I love these type of environment, cannot be better at all. Both have several Asian friends. D’s Chinese friends gave my D. a title of “honorary Chinese”. They said because she is “hard working student who plays an instrument”, I absolutely loved this stereotype that D’s Asian friends promoted about themselves and it reflects the truth. What is wrong with this? I say, be proud if you are the one!!!

34

Ok. This will be controversial but what the heck, I’m home sick in bed and need a little excitement.

Whether this is right, wrong or indifferent I am not saying. I am making no statement about my personal views, just making observations.

Bogibogi, for all your nonsense about “tainted” blood and “desire to keep the campus a certain way”
I am willing to bet that if you took your average white family and asked them to tour a campus, their reaction is a heck of a lot more favorable seeing a whole host of Asian students than a host of black students. And I’m also willing to bet that the comfort level of putting their student in a dorm with a lot of Asian students is a heck of a lot different than putting the kid in a dorm with a lot of black students.

And I’m even willing to bet that the average white person has a lot less resistance to their kid marrying / dating an Asian student than a black student.

In other words, I think you’re overestimating the extent to which Asians “don’t fit in.”

35

@MiamiDAP Sorry, whether a stereotype is positive or negative is not the point, as ultimately they cultivate base anecdotal beliefs about large groups of people. Further, in the present case, they set up expectations and value systems in which you assume parties to hold specific conscripted views–when they in fact, may have different perspectives.

Are Filipinos the sames Hmongs, is a Mongolian the same as a Fukienese? No…not at all.

Finally, and the more salient point, this type of provincial and simple-minded thought process devalues the individual identity of each person. There are numerous studies that have studied this issues on several front…by way of example, and I am paraphrasing–this question was explored in a series of studies by John Oliver Siy and Sapna Cheryan in the January, 2013 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

In one study, Asian Americans were brought to the lab where they engaged in a task along with a White participant (who was actually one of the experimenters posing as a participant). In the experiment, each participant was going to fill out a packet. One packet had math problems in it, while the other had verbal problems in it. After a rigged coin flip to make the selection process appear random, the White participant was chosen to select who would fill out each packet.

In the control condition, the White participant handed the math packet to the Asian participant and said, “How about you take this packet, and I’ll work on this one.” In the positive stereotype condition, the White participant said, “I know all Asians are good at math, how about you take the math packet. I’ll work on this one.”

After completing the packets, participants rated how much they liked their partner and they filled out some other scales including a measure of how much they felt like their partner depersonalized them by reducing them to a member of their racial group.

Positive stereotypes did not make people feel good. When the White participant used a positive stereotype, the Asian participant liked them less and felt more depersonalized. The positive stereotype also made the participants angry. Statistically, the amount of depersonalization they felt explained the amount of dislike they felt for their partner.

Other studies in this series demonstrated a similar effect with women who were told that they were nurturing or cooperative because of their gender. These studies also ruled out some other explanations like the possibility that Asian Americans react negatively to the positive stereotype because it does not acknowledge that they are both Asians and Americans.

Across all of the studies done in this paper, a positive stereotype made people feel less like an individual. Under some circumstances, though, this did not cause people to dislike the person who used the stereotype. In one study, Asian American participants were primed to think of themselves either in independent or interdependent terms. On the other hand, you seem to a grand fan of the anecdotal remark…

36

I still love my kids to be in the class with large number of Asians, no matter who said what, I see great benefits from it based on my personal experience as a parent and grandparent. You hold whatever views you want to hold, I do not need to change mine, right? We are just having fun here, we cannot change the fact that Asian kids get to the most selective placed in the over-represented numbers strictly because of their hard working ethic and nothing else. For god sake, some of them that I personally met have parents that do not speak English and even do not drive!! I admire them because they had to overcome so many obstacles that would be considered insurmountable by many whiny others. The site of a sibling driving parents to ceremony at the Med. School was one that told me a huge story about this family. And try to talk to these parents, they just smile and nod, that tells you even bigger story. My deep admiration go to these people.

37

According to http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/just-facts/asians-america-demographic-overview , “66.5% of people who identified themselves as Asian alone were foreign-born in 2010”.

Digging a little deeper at the referenced American Community Survey table at http://censusreporter.org/data/table/?table=B05003D&geo_ids=01000US&primary_geo_id=01000US , we see that the 18 and older Asian population in the US is even more skewed toward immigrants, but most under 18 are native born (though many of these would be kids of immigrants).

38

“Further, in the present case, they set up expectations and value systems in which you assume parties to hold specific conscripted views–when they in fact, may have different perspectives.”

That’s why I find it the height of irony that bogibogi assumed that oldfort and mcat couldn’t be Asian because of what they said in their postings on CC – as if all Asians on CC were of one mind.

39

@MiamiDAP while I enjoy the exchange of debate, I don’t consider perpetuating stereotypes, again, whether positive or negative, as “just having fun”, as there are much more profound societal issues at play.

40

Even a positive stereotype can be constricting.

But maybe people need to actually meet and get to know people from various groups in order to get beyond stereotypes.

Perhaps, if you don’t know any Italian-Americans, you may have stereotypical views about them. But if you lived for a year or two in the area where I grew up in Connecticut – an area where about half of the white people are Italian – I think you would quickly learn to see Italian-Americans as individuals.