Asian Americans

Applying to College
101

<p>Tebro, that was an excellent post and analysis.</p>

<p>Here's an anecdote:
My father came to America from Vietnam when he was 26/27 by boat (yeah, how stereotypical). He had just left refuge camps in other Asian countries, where he had suffered big time. He came here with absolutely no English and basically was independent. Needless to say, he was extremely poor. In fact, his first job was cutting up chicken for Tyson, followed by picking berries in the afternoon for another company, and then sewing in a textiles company at night. My father is brilliant; he has a small array of inventions and is your typical Asian mathematical genius. To cut to the point, right now he is no longer poor. Granted, we're nowhere near rich, but we aren't poor. We know this black family who's been in the states for generations. They're practically living in poverty... but they all have shoes that cost more than mine. Poor money managing indeed.</p>

<p>We <em>do</em> have lives, you know. Just because our views aren't the same as hispanics, blacks, or whites, doesn't mean we're all point grubbers and whatnot. In my family, if you do not excel, you're every bit closer to falling back in the hands of the communist (who burned down my mother's family's home in Saigon). We don't just try excel at education; we learn to conserve, to be wise. Many Asians I know are like that... they may be middle class now, but a decade or two or three ago, they were barely sustaining themselves. Like tebro said, how could they go so far in just three decades and accomplish what "URMs" could not in the last century? We simply (generalizing) have a stronger work ethic.</p>

<p>If it were not for the Mongolian migrations, the Chinese would have been the greatest power in the world. European potency was not inevitable. I'm not being prideful... I'm not Chinese after all.</p>

<p>I do admit I'm a tiny bit racist. We'd be lying if we said we weren't.</p>

102

<p>Stronger work ethic my Asian arse. My dad was perfectly healthy when he came to this country. 17 vacation-less years later, he's got hypertension, heart problems, borderline diabetes, and half a head of white hair. Arg. </p>

<p>But we have a house in an excellent town and two FULL COLLEGE TUITIONS. And my mom hasn't had a new coat in ten years. I seriously want to cry sometimes, and then shower them with money from my future successful job!</p>

<p>My dad didn't come by boat, but he was in an economy seat for 29 hours in the air. And the Cultural Revolution totally ****ed my parents over--my dad (b/c of his status) didn't start college until he was 25 because he was raising pigs and watching his dad die of cancer. </p>

<p>Your dad is simply amazing; holding three jobs and managing to retain his math brilliance. I really feel inferior to the older generation...and yeah, none of my shoes cost more than $30. Brands aren't important when you measure them to the committment your parents are putting into you. </p>

<p>I just wish I wasn't totally alienated by fish now, </p>

<p>-L.</p>

103

<p>i totally agree with you tebro</p>

104

<p>Tebro - this was the way i saw Asian Americans before something really important came to me: </p>

<p>Asian Americans, has historically come to the United States SEEKING wealth and a new opportunity in life. All of the miners and the railroad builders came here with one goal in mind; to make a new living. In the 70s-80s when there was another mass immigration into the United States, the Southeast Asians (Laotians, Cambodians, Vietnamese and others) came here with no education, no money and were pretty much FORCED here (by war). Now, we can go back and analyze the high school graduation rates and those that go to college. What we find, is that the Southeast Asians have one of the LOWEST H.S. graduation rates compared with all other races. Now, you have to ask yourself, why is this the case, if asians are so conservative and culturally bound to conserving and working hard. Why are these "hard-working" and "conserving" asians actually ending up on the other end of the social ladder? The reason is because they fall into the category of the native americans, african americans and the latinos. All of these races have been forced (slavery, war, intense poverty) to come to the United States even when they did not want to come. Therefore, there was NO selection about who was able to come. Chinese,Japanese and Koreans (and other east asians) are quite selective in how they came. There was never a massive refugee escape from China or Japan, so therefore, all the people who come to the United States are self-selective. Essentially, you HAVE to be hard-working and capable of making it to the United States in order to get here. Not to mention that a very very high percent of Asian Americans from China and Japan have college degrees and are essentially professionals. Remember, comparing a group of self-selected individuals against a group of individuals that were forced here is an unequal comparison. There is a disparity in wealth, education, and just a general sense of identity. </p>

<p>Now, you may be saying, i dont know jack***** about this... well, i took an Asian American history class and i have been analyzing this myself. Also, unlike some of you who are posting, I am a first-generation immigrant and I was with my parents while i watched my parents work 24/7... (my parents have never been to college, my dad is a car mechanic, and my mom is a factory worker).</p>

<p>Also, the reason who got over here was cause of my mom's dad who escaped during the cultural revolution.. and if you want to know poor, my grandfather(dad's side) didn't know his birthday and was completely illiterate... all of his siblings were starved to death by the Japanese. </p>

<p>Efflugent - Go and look into the wide-majority of Vietnamese and Southeast Asian populations. Chances are, they're wearing better shoes than your black neighbors, even though they are in deep poverty as well. Yes, there are definitely many who come here and makes it big without a college education and without a lot of money, but a very large majority who come here with no sense of identity will end up in poverty.</p>

105

<p>sorry about the crappy grammar above... im still trying to edit my paper.. so im half and half involved.</p>

106

<p>I liked a lot of the thoughts expressed in the essay. Some new ideas on a topic that has been beat nearly to death on CC.</p>

107

<p>i was wondering is asian limited to the oriental (china, philipens and tiwan etc...) or duz it include south asians such as indians and can u still be a URM if you are canadian</p>

108

<p>The general idea of why colleges want minorities is interesting as well. If colleges only accepted the highest scores, the most into clubs and such, then they are missing out on some very very important things that make us human. Our experiences as a person are often much more valuable than the SAT score we have. Everyone would essentially be the same at these top colleges, middle-upper class, educated parents, asian or white. The problem is that there will be no diversity in thought AND in skin color. An African-american kid from the street corner on East Fourteenth will see the world in a very very different perspective from the white kid who lived his whole life in the Beverly Hills. Chances are, this kid who lived in BH his whole life will have SAT tutors, great parental support, and will likely end up with high scores, good grades and end up at a very good college. But this black kid from East Fourteenth probably did not have these opportunities. His parents probably didn't go to college, hell, his mom is probably his only role model, and he doesnt have the luxuris that this kid from the Beverly Hills. My whole point is that people will see things in very distinctive perspective and in order for a college to be great, there needs to be an exchange of ideas and experiences. In order for us to be compassionate, socially aware citizens of the world, we must be in contact with people from all different backgrounds, not just the ones that are like us. So for those, that are b!tc|-|ing about how these minorities are getting in with lower stats, chances are, they also have a more unique and distinctive experience and background to offer to the people around them. As many has said before, colleges seek to build a class.</p>

109

<p>I BELIEVE there may be a BIT of an IMPLICATION involved that MAYBE african americans NEED the help to get into these schools while Asian Americans do not.</p>

<p>thats just what I see.</p>

<p>but, discuss on!</p>

110

<p>irock--you make some very pertinent points in your post. The quality of your post shows deep thought and I definately would not dismiss it. </p>

<p>I believe that both refugees and non-refugees alike came here for the same reason--to get a better life. Doesn't both a poor economy and lack of better incentives in an oppressive government (Tian-an-men) offer just as much "push" as a war-torn zone? </p>

<p>Back in the turn of the century, most of the Chinese immigrants who came over were peasants. If you had land and you were a little princeling with education, why in tarnation would you come over to be blown up by dyanomite (strapped to the chests of Chinese workers) and spit on by Whites AND Blacks alike?! In addition, many college degrees achieved in Asia are rendered void--so immigrants with college educations are consigned to doing the same kinds of manual labor as those not nearly as educated. </p>

<p>I am a first-generation immigrant as well. Like I said in my earlier post, I grew up POOR. "As in eating fish every day because what you caught fishing was free. As in wearing the same clothes for eight years because new clothes were frivolous. My dad worked himself into a heart attack at age 35. He and my mother have not taken a vacation for eighteen years." </p>

<p>My dad's side of the family lives in a village where 70% of people are unemployed and a majority alcoholics. They depended on a single company that produced manual engines for the economics of the village. When high-tech burst on the scene, life, in essence, stopped for them. The apathy and ambivalence towards life is in some aspects, worse than war. These people have lost the capacity to live--they're just sitting around waiting for death! If you had any will, wouldn't you force yourself to escape?</p>

<p>I disagree with your comment on how Japanese and Chinese immigrants are highly selective. If they were, would there be as many restaurants or "Chinese laundries?" They saw a niche, they crammed into it. Being in a constant state of turmoil for one hundred years has made the Chinese very resilient and frighteningly adaptative underneath oppression. The question is, as a race--can you adapt, can you hold on? In any case, wouldn't the immigrants "forced" here have a higher desire to succeed and survive? </p>

<hr>

<p>I would not "bitch" so much about AA if it weren't for the fact that its definition exclusively excludes Asians and DISPROPORTIONATELY emphasizes race. If it offered a slight advantage, fine, it's logical and socially appropriate. When it adds 20 points to an applicant's submissions, where SATs offer <em>6</em>--then I have a problem with it. </p>

<p>Asians, already considered "grade-grubbing life-less student prototypes" have a DISTINCT disadvantage here. In essence, AA punishes them for doing well, and for their families' valuing education above all else! I'm aware that it seeks to diversify the student population, but shouldn't committment to educating oneself and hard work be of utmost importance? </p>

<p>I'd be happy to continue this thread. </p>

<p>PS--irock, as a sidenote to your comment to eff, check my last post for mathematical computations and statistics for Asian/Black American money management.</p>

111

<p>tebro, not only does your post lack any empirical evidence, but it horribly oversimplifies the histories of both the African and Asian peoples.</p>

<p>---Asian Americans have endured just as much pain and humiliation for the yellow of their skin as Black Americans have for theirs. Yet AA does not recognize this!---</p>

<p>There are a myriad of differences between the experiences of Blacks and Asians in America. You cannot simply quantify and qualify the experiences of a people who were forcefully, brutally, systemically carried off by the millions over hundreds of years. What many people do not seem to understand is that the movement of Whites, Asians and other groups into America was radically different from the migration of Africans to the US. All of the before mentioned groups retained some form of family ties and cultural mores that are more or less with them to this day. African slaves were denuded of family and culture over a period of centuries, a phenomenon unlike any other in American history.</p>

<p>---The Civil Rights Movement ended in the 60's. With equality achieved, why haven't Black Americans, in the two generations past, been able to achieve what Asians have in the past ten years? It has nothing to do with color, but with the projected goals of each group. Asian Americans focus on education being the key. Black Americans, like most Americans in earlier times, were more focused on getting a good job.---</p>

<p>Again you make gross oversimplifications based on nonexistent data and falsely conjured up impressions. It continually amazes me that every year someone sooner or later asks the question, “It’s been 40 odd years, why haven’t Blacks pulled themselves up by their bootstraps by now?” Let’s see, for some 245 years (1619-1864) blacks were slaves. During this period the mass majority of the race stagnated, caught in an unending cycle of ruthless suppression and extreme penury. Then for another hundred years (1864-1964) the Jim Cow laws, along with other forms of institutionalized racism, kept a good number of Blacks from attempting to claw their way out of the system. So for 9.625% of the time Blacks have been in America (1964-2004), they have been granted some form of equality (though one could argue that in many places, principally the South, full implementation of Civil Rights measures didn’t really take place until the 80’s.</p>

<p>In essence there was an official government policy of subjugation and suppression for centuries, so AA, in opposition to all those years, is an official government policy working for the educational uplifting of the African American.</p>

<p>"Whenever the issue of compensatory treatment for the Negro is raised, some of our friends recoil in horror. The Negro should be granted equality, they agree, but he should ask nothing more. On the surface, this appears reasonable, but it is not realistic." -- 1964, Martin Luther King Jr.</p>

<p>BTW, your statement that
---For over a century, Asians in the United States [have had] just as much violence and prejudice directed towards them as Black/African Americans.---</p>

<p>Was laughable in its utter, overwhelming ignorance of American history. Why don’t you just peruse this chart on hate crimes in the 90’s? and next time, try to back up your claims with solid, cogent facts instead of callow fallacies and shallow casuistry.</p>

<p>Bias Motivation Incidents Offenses Victims Known Offenders
Race 4,831 6,170 6,438 5,751
Anti-White 1,226 1,511 1,554 2,032
Anti-Black 2,988 3,805 3,945 3,099
Anti-American Indian/Alaskan Native 41 59 59 38
Anti-Asian/Pacific Islander 355 484 496 380
Anti-Multi-Racial Group 221 311 384 202
Ethnicity/National Origin 814 1,022 1,044 958</p>

<p>Federal Bureau of Investigation
Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division
Uniform Crime Reports</p>

112

<p>I'll continue this later, when it's not 2:20 am here. </p>

<p>Does the Rape of Nanking ring any bells? </p>

<p>It's not necessarily a good thing, but Asian mentality is that weaknesses of any kind should not, and will not, be shared with anyone. One should not burden others. One should not demonstrate weakness. If it is truly awful, the most one should do is to burden one's family. If you are a victim, you are the one shamed. Do not, under any circumstances, air your shame to the world like dirty laundry. </p>

<p>Would you tell me of any instance where Asians have gone up to Oprah/Montel/Dr. Phil/Jerry Springer? To our culture, it's as low as you can sink. The idea of the submissive Asian, the emasculated men, is this unwillingness to aggressively confront. </p>

<p>After the Civil Rights Movement, people have become very anxious about the trampling and prejudice toward Black Americans. The controversy over O.J. Simpson is testament of that. However, part of the success of Asian Americans is their tendecy to take blows and think of themselves as the ones who were wrong.</p>

<p>Of the suicides in colleges in the last few years, about half (I can check again) have been Asians. Internalization is rampant among their culture. In addition, you need to take into consideration the different numbers of each group. Asians form 5% of the population, Black Americans 12%.</p>

113

<p>OK all anti Affirmative Action Asian Americans have no idea whats really going on.</p>

<p>In the UC system, after they got rid of affirmative action, Asian enrollment stayed the same. One year it went up, but thats it. </p>

<p>Black enrollment went down.
Native American enrollment went down
Hispanic enrollment went down.</p>

<p>However, white enrollment went up dramatically.</p>

<p>Now remember, Asian Americans are severely underrepresented in upper management of Fortune 500 companies, Board of Directors, etc... even tho Asians make up 20% of most top 20 MBA schools. </p>

<p>Affirmative action is something we need. We haven't benefited at all, its a smokescreen for whats really going on.</p>

114

<p>ALL ASIAN AMERICANS READ THIS NOW!</p>

<p><a href="http://www.arc.org/C_Lines/CLArchive/story2_2_04.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.arc.org/C_Lines/CLArchive/story2_2_04.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Here is an excerpt - notice the 1984 date!</p>

<p>
[quote]
By 1984, Asian American progressives noticed anti-Asian quotas at many elite universities, including those with strong pro-affirmative action leadership—such as Ira Michael Heyman’s Berkeley, Derek Bok’s Harvard, and Bill Bowen’s Princeton. After white alumni began to complain about increasingly diverse campuses, university leaders seemed to cap Asian admissions at no more than 20 percent of the student body.</p>

<p>Led by Berkeley professor Ling-chi Wang, Asian American progressives pressured these universities to review their policies. Audits at Brown, Stanford, Harvard, and U.C. Berkeley later confirmed that campus officials made secretive decisions that negatively impacted Asians’ chances of being admitted. Asian admits were required to have higher test and grade scores than whites, giving whites a distinct advantage in a supposedly open competition for admission. (Not surprisingly, after the audits were made public, Asian admissions usually leaped.)</p>

<p>But liberal pro-affirmative action officials would not acknowledge that they were trying to prop up white admissions. Instead, they characterized the admissions process as a battle between Asian Americans and other students of color. As then-Chancellor Ira Michael Heyman insisted, if Berkeley were to accommodate more Asian Americans, it would have to admit fewer African Americans and Latinos.</p>

<p>Wang was chilled by this line. Berkeley officials, he realized, would sacrifice affirmative action before allowing white enrollments to drop further. Worse, these liberals were forcing Asian American parents to view affirmative action for blacks and Latinos as counter to their own interests.</p>

<p>“The most important thing we learned is that when we push Asian American issues we have to be conscious about the issues of other minorities as well. We tried hard to make sure that we were not in any way undermining the University’s commitment to affirmative action,” he says. “But with the Lowell situation, the people who pushed for the lawsuit really did not have that kind of consciousness. They only see themselves as discriminated against.”</p>

<p>At the time of the 1983 consent decree, African American students were the largest ethnic group in the San Francisco school district, and the most racially isolated. Now Chinese Americans are the largest ethnic group, making up a quarter of the district—and over half of Lowell High. “When you have a situation like that, you are bound to antagonize racially the whites and the blacks alike. They will say, ‘Well, when is it enough for you guys?’” says Wang. “What about the thousands of kids in the other fifteen high schools who are getting nothing?”

[/quote]
</p>

<p>All Asian Americans please forward this article to your friends. There will be no more further gap between generational knowledge among Asian Americans. It stops today.</p>

115

<p>tebro, At Nanking least 369,366 Chinese civilians and prisoners of war were slaughtered by the invading troops. An estimated 80,000 women and girls were raped; many of them were then mutilated or murdered.
The Rape of Nanking, 2nd edition</p>

<p>Statistics concerning the slave trade are often inaccurate or missing. However, it is generally agreed that at least fifteen million Africans, and perhaps many more, became slaves in the New World. About nine hundred thousand were brought in the sixteenth century, three million in the seventeenth century, seven million in the eighteenth century, and another four million in the nineteenth century. </p>

<p>The mortality rate among these new slaves ran very high. It is estimated that some five percent died in Africa on the way to the coast, another thirteen percent in transit to the West Indies, and still another thirty percent during the three-month seasoning period in the West Indies. This meant that about fifty percent of those originally captured in Africa died either in transit or while being prepared for servitude.
DuBois Institute Slave Trade Database </p>

<p>tebro, all I’m trying to get you to realize is that it is impossible to compare the history and experiences of any race, whether that race be White, Black, Asian etc. You simply can’t say group X did such and such in 50 years, so group Y should be able to do the same in the same number of years. Issues of race are complex and multifaceted. In essence, when looking at issues consider not just one part of that issue, but all the parts, look not at the parts that affect only you, but at the parts that affect others as well.</p>

<p>peace</p>

116

<p>necro: I wasn't using the Rape of Nanking as a comparison of deaths and rapes. There are very few instances in history that involve such degradation of human spirit as the history of African slaves in the United States. Instead, I was looking at the Asian mentality towards admitting victimization. </p>

<p>To this day, there has been no pressing of suits against the Japanese, whereas Holocaust settlements have been widespread and publicized. Japanese textbooks do not say anything about their soldiers' actions in Nanking, nor do the Chinese press it. When they are victimized, Asians tend to not go to authorities or seek recompensation since they find it shameful, especially when dealing with a country where they are a minority and have little voice in government. I was victimized in elementary school. My parents told me to forget about it and focus on schoolwork. When I fought back physically, I was the one punished. My father was denied a tenure for six years through an all-white board even as less qualified people got their job security. And this is in liberal Boston! </p>

<p>As I said before, I support the idea of AA, but not to the extent where it overshadows test scores. (For UMichigan, 12 pts are for high SAT/ACT scores and 20 for poverty and race.) In addition, it does not necessarily help URM who are overwhelmed in college. Plus, it cripples poor whites in rural areas in the same economic straits as the poor blacks that AA is trying to help. O_o? </p>

<p>hope</p>

117

<p><a href="http://www.arc.org/C_Lines/CLArchive/story2_2_04.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.arc.org/C_Lines/CLArchive/story2_2_04.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

118

<p>Where Asians get the relative short straw in College Admissions has nothing to do with victimization.</p>

<p>African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans are underrepresented in the college ranks relative to their population; Asians aren't. In addition to redressing that factor, affirmative action is also about providing diversity of experiences and perspective in the classroom. Again...the African American experience, even the middle class African American experience, is very different from the White and Asian experience and underrepresented in the classroom; as one great quote from an LAC put it, "It looks silly to be talking about discrimination and you look around the table and all you see are upper-middle class white girls.</p>

<p>An additional set of factors makes Asian applications face tougher competition: their profiles look too much alike: heavy concentration in the physical sciences and math and similar EC's: if music, it's violin or clarinet; if sports, golf or tennis. Etc. If there are 20 would-be Physics or Math majors who play violin and golf, an adcom--which look at balancing a <em>class</em>--may take 6 on an almost random basis, leaving the other 14 out in the cold. If you don't think this is true, someone on the Old Board who worked with high school admissions, said that if you blanked out the names, even the students had a hard time telling their profiles from one another.</p>

<p>Something that <em>everyone</em> seems to have a hard time remembering: admissions decisions aren't all about the individual, they're also about the whole. The person who is a bassoon player or the Latin scholar or the lacrosse player or who worked 15 hours a week as a pharmacy assistant through high school all may be attractive to an adcom for various reasons and bounce out someone with superior stats.</p>

119

<p>^^ The Dad. It is arrogant for you, a non Asian to pretend like you know the type of discrimination an Asian American has to go through in life. The fact is that in the 1980's in Harvard, the average Asian student had a 200+ higher SAT score than the average white student.</p>

<p>Now while it is certainly commendable that these facts are well hidden from mainstream America, it still does not change the facts of the matter. Please read the article, and remember that whites in California actually perform better on the SAT (especially SAT Math) than whites everywhere else because of the increased competition from Asians specific to California I imagine. So competition from Asians is actually helping whites out, by making them more competitive. </p>

<p>Anyways, audits confirm what Asian Americans have known for years and decades. We have higher standards to meet, higher than whites as well. I am sorry if this bothers you, but it is a fact.</p>

120

<p>I think you are missing the point, California 1600. No one is denying any of the discrimination or hardship that some Asian Americans have had to undergo in life. No is disputing any SAT statistics either. If you re read Thedad's post, he does not address either issue. College admissions at the elite level is often half academic and half holistic. Making the top of the academic review is not going to help the holistic review which is independent. And one very important factor in the holistic review is diversity.</p>