Asian representation in the upper echelons of employment/life

College Confidential Community
1

<p>Disclaimer: I want to make it clear that I'm neither demeaning nor exalting Asians.</p>

<p>Pardon my ignorance throughout.</p>

<p>One of the many observations I have made in my limited observation of the world is that Asians are poorly represented in exactly the title says they are poorly represented in.</p>

<p>-Besides Citigroup, I don't remember the last time I saw an Asian CEO of a non-Asian company.</p>

<p>-We have never had an Asian SC judge.</p>

<p>-Have we ever had any Asian HR's or Senators?</p>

<p>-The only clients going to Asian law firms are Asian themselves.</p>

<p>-Actors, actresses, singers, musicians--entertainers in general.</p>

<p>-Asian-sounding last names popping up as authors or editors in NYT articles are very rare.</p>

<p>Supposedly, Africans Americans received a big break with President Obama's victory, that it was a giant step for ecumenicalists. But is it really true? Have we as a nation moved towards greater unity, or is that only true in regards to the historic black-white struggle?</p>

<p>Are Asians truly 400 years behind African Americans in achieving equality?</p>

<p>For a race that makes up such a great percentage of the upper stratums of education and academia, what I have listed above must be at least a little surprisingly to most if not all of you.</p>

<p>Surely not are Asians are heading into college as pre-med participants or biology majors in hopes of becoming doctors and dentists?</p>

<p>Even in that field, only 1 of the 6 doctors/dentists I have been to in the past year or so has been Asian. No I don't get sick a lot; I just, oh nvm.</p>

2

<ol>
<li>The Upper-Echelons of American companies are not occupied by the smartest people, but mostly by Jews and people from good-ol-boy WASP networks. Thus the lack of Asians is not surprising here.<br></li>
<li>The SCOTUS deal is a moot point. Not enough Asians in the US to warrant a seat. But perhaps Obama will nominate an Asian Protestant to replace Stevens? Unlikely.<br></li>
<li>Do a Search on Asian HR’s and Senators. There are and have been some, but they don’t exist in prominent numbers. This is all due to the RACISM of white people <em>sarcasm</em>.<br></li>
<li>The only clients going to Asian law firms are Asians because they are illegals looking for help, and only Asians will help them. SWPLs lawyers only like to help Mexicans, because the Mexicans kids won’t ruin the math curve. Just kidding. Usually Asians are more trusting of their family members, and race is just a large family, so that’s why Asians go to Asian law firms to solve their problems/find out how to cheat on taxes.<br></li>
<li>Since Asians are a small minority in the US, there aren’t a lot of available roles for Asians in entertainment, besides ones that are specifically designated as an Asian role.<br></li>
<li>The NYT is RACIST against Asians. Seriously though, there aren’t a lot of Asians interested in high-level journalism, and this could be a result of their lower verbal ability. </li>
<li>Obama isn’t really black, in the blackest sense of the word. Sorry. He just pretends to be.<br></li>
<li>I don’t really feel comfortable seeing Asian doctors. I think a good majority of them only did it for their parents or for money.<br></li>
</ol>

<p>None of what you wrote is surprising to me in the least.</p>

3

<p>Asians only make up 4% of the U.S. population.</p>

4

<p>Well, I don’t think Asians have been given enough opportunity to express their talents.</p>

5

<p>Seriously though, there aren’t a lot of Asians interested in high-level journalism, and this could be a result of their lower verbal ability.</p>

<p>-You just generalized that Asians have a low verbal ability…proof?</p>

6

<p>

</p>

<p>You couldn’t be more wrong on both accounts.</p>

<p>The pages of the NYTimes, WaPo, LATimes, Tribune, WSJ, etc. are filled w/ articles written by Asian-Am journalists.</p>

<p>The reason why Asian-Ams are lacking in higher-level positions is due to what is commonly referred to as the “bamboo ceiling”; and while there are often programs to help other minorities (usually black and non-white Hispanic) to move up the corporate ladder, Asians are ofetn excluded b/c they are erroneously seen as not needing any help in that manner (due to the “model minority” stereotype).</p>

<p>According to Census statistics, Asian-Am males make LESS than their WM counterparts w/ the same education level.</p>

<p>Interesting enough, there isn’t a disparity in income w/ regard to Asia-Am females and WFs (in certain age groups, AAFs actually make more).</p>

<p>But then again, this shouldn’t be surprising since it’s pretty common (if not too common) for AAFs in television journalism to get promoted to anchor chair while AAM news reporters rarely do.</p>

7

<p>

</p>

<p>In similar jobs? I’d love to see a cite for this. </p>

<p>BTW, Michiko Kakutani is one of my favorite literary critics of all time.</p>

8

<p>Give me a break here, civil right movements started 150 years ago with reconstruction after civil war, and the lives of millions of colored people are still a gruesome reality today. Discrimination will always exist, but the problem with Asians’ lack of presence in upper echelon of the social life could be reduced not only to the simple prejudices, but the history of Asian immigration and Asian American consciousness, which claimed its full momentum only 4 decades earlier, during the late 60s, with the rise of Asian American consciousness. </p>

<p>We Asians started to come to U.S in 1840s in obscure, small numbers, and was then banned from entering U.S until 1942. The waves of Asian immigration then were halted by either Cold War or international relations.</p>

<p>Only in recent decades did Asian people finally came to U.S and achieved a proud presence in academia, universities, and national labs. I have all reason to believe that these Asian Americans will pioneer and alter the course of U.S race relations in the future. After all, Asians are but a small part of the population, and we have just recently arrived in America deprived of networking advantages and language fluency.</p>

<p>As for your question of why there is no AA editor or writer for new york times, well, why is there ain’t any WHITES in Asia and in America who PUBLISHED a book in Chinese? Compare to the amount of literature Asian immigrations produced during their brief presence in U.S, U.S’s expatriates’ laziness in learning an Asian language is astonishingly provincial.</p>

9

<p>Asians only consist of 4% of the entire population, however, at most colleges or investment banks are higly overrepresented. The issue that we want to examine is whether this is a result of historical conditions or if this has anything to do with a circumstance unique to Asians. Following the first argument, we would have to consider the history of Asian immigration. So Asian immigration started in the 1840s, but was restricted for a long time (Chinese Exclusion Act, Japanese internment camps). It was only after the Immigration act in 1965 when racial quotas were eliminated that Asian immigrants started to increase in large numbers. Therefore, the majority of Asian-Americans can now be considered as first or second-generation in which case it is hard to argue for the existence of a historical condition as the main causality to the “lack of representation in the top echelon of society.”
The next question is whether something inherently unique to Asians are causing this problem. This question can examined in a number of ways. We can examine the wage gaps, education gaps, health gaps and try to find a disparate impact. If we can conclude the gaps in many of these areas cannot be explained by disparities in socioeconomic status, geography, etc. then we would have a disparate impact case. According to a number of papers published on this topic, Asians have better statistics in wages, education and health than Non-Hispanic Whites and much of the disparities can be explained by the education and socioeconomic status of the parents. Since most Asians have only been Americans quite recently (less than 3-4 generations), the most important factor we should consider is the selection of Asian immigrants. If Asian immigrants tend to have a higher socioeconomic status than other immigrants or NHWs then it’s obvious that they will do better. The intuition follows in the data and much of the Asian advantage can be traced to the positive selection of immigrants. The interesting thing is that for southeast Asian immigrants who tend to be of a lower socioeconomic status than other Asian immigrants, poverty rates, education, income tends to be lower. </p>

<p>The conclusion of this is that there is really no conclusive evidence that discrimination plays a factor against Asians. Even in the case of black and white wage or test score gaps, there is a substantial portion that is unexplained which can come from the reinforcement of stereotypes. (Coate-Laury statistical theory) This can be partially true for Asians and to an extent you can consider this as discrimination. But the overall point is that there is no disparate impact for Asians and while that might differ for the higher echelons of society, given the short presence of Asians in the US and their relatively small numbers, it is not surprising to see little representation in the highest ranks of society.</p>

<p>As for the census data, i would like to see how of that “wage gap” is explained by the differences in income between immigrants and natives, given that most Asians are recent immigrants. It is generally understood that immigrants lag behind natives in income until the second or third generation in which case the difference disappears.</p>

10

<p>Then why are asians so disadvantaged in life for being overachievers. Should we “slow down” so the rest of our minority counterparts can catch up even with their affirmative action assistance?</p>

<p>As with the comment about asians only heading to asian law firms because we apparently are “all illegals” now. Really? Maybe if your law firm commercials said more than “Se habla espanol” we would consider contacting your firm only to realize that hey, nobody here speaks chinese. I’m pro closing our borders, yet you seem to be HEAVILY against the new Arizona laws. /thread/</p>

11

<p>Thank you for not listening. It’s because of the immigrant-native wage gap that disappears with time. Most asians are second generations or first. How do you expect them to do as well as natives? Isn’t that obvious. Germans and Italians also faced a similar wage gap which didn’t disappear until the second or third generations.</p>

<p>Also the only reason AA was created was to prevent disparte impact law suits for federal contractors. As long as federal contractors hired a certain number of minorties the court would leave them alone in the 1970s. AA is not a form of assistance, it is a way to get the courts off your back so you can do business. Get your facts right.</p>

12

<p>

</p>

<p>That’s comparing apples to oranges.</p>

<p>Virtually all the whites in Asia are expats and not citizens, much less citizens who were either born or raised there; whereas a good portion of the US Asian pop. are US citizens and were either born or raised here.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Make that 5% and while they may be overrepresented (much like Jews) at IBs, it’s primarily in the lower ranks.</p>

<p>The same can be found in Silicon Valley; despite making up a significant % of the workforce, Asians are underrepresented in management positions (and the one’s who are tend to be the ones who started the business).</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Actually, it’s not only SE Asian immigrants, but also a good % of NE Asian immigrants as well.</p>

<p>For instance, the median individual income for Koreans is $16,300 - not much higher than the $16K median individual income for SE Asians, and significantly lower than the $23,640 median for whites.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Uhh, that would not explain the DISPARITY in comparative median incomes for Asian males and Asian females in comparison to their white counterparts w/ the same education level.</p>

<p>Asian females make the same or more than their WF counterparts, Asian males make less.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>The Census data isn’t for similar jobs/professions - but for the same education level (no HS diploma, HS diploma, some college, 4 yr degree, post graduate degree).</p>

13

<p>

</p>

<p>Actually, there are quite a no. of Asian-Am musicians in indie groups and there are numerous Asian-Am film festivals.</p>

<p>But due to typecasting, many Asian-Americans end up going to Asia to act or sing.</p>

<p>Also, there are numerous Asian-Am fashion designers, as well as architects.</p>