<p>Good point mathmom. I'm not a WASP, but I'm not thrilled with the coarsening of our culture. But it's been a long time coming. I didn't suddenly jump in & expect things to change to my liking.</p>
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If I went to Japan, I wouldn't need to show assimilation by indulging in the seedier aspects of Tokyo night life (or anything else associated with appearance & surface), but I'd be in big trouble if I didn't ACCEPT that this is a culture built on respect and built on tradition & a certain social structure. If I just paid lip service to that and kept saying "but, but, but" when things didn't go according to the more informal American expectations, I'd spin a lot of wheels thrashing about -- not to mention offending the native Japanese in the process. But mainly, I would be fighting a losing battle & wasting a lot of words & energy trying to change THEM to be like me.</p>
<p>I'm sorry if I offend anyone, but I need to be honest & say that I see way too many Asian <em>parents</em> trying to change American (college admissions) culture to reflect Chinese, Japanese, Korean values. Probably these are mainly immigrant parents, perhaps fairly recent immigrants. But either they are not helping themselves to make the adjustment to full acceptance, or Americans are not helping them enough to show them important differences, while still understanding & acknowledging their own cultural norms. I see so many examples of this in my own personal life, not to mention on CC.
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<p>First off I agree with you on what it means to assimilate. However, I think the way you have presented may make it seem far easier than it is. Just recognizing that Japan is "a culture built on respect and built on tradition & a certain social structure." is far different from actually understanding and being able to live by those values. Same for immigrants adapting to american culture.</p>
<p>But I don't think that there are very many asian parents who are actually trying to change american college admissions culture. Those who have been pointed to as representing the worst excesses simply cannot or will not understand that things are different. So after their child gets rejected from HYPS they have a huge adjustment to make and realize that they were wrong after all. </p>
<p>Let's make it clear. The vast majority of asian parents do make this transition in mindset with varying degrees of difficulty. Hopefully through the intervention of a helpful teacher or counselor early in the process, or perhaps through repeated arguments with the child, or most tragically not until after the admissions process is over. I think the lack of more complaints of racism or discrimination shows that by and large these immigrant families are NOT trying to change american culture, but are just struggling to adapt.</p>
<p>Excellent reply, PhatAlbert. I appreciated all your points.</p>
<p>(And yes, of course I realize that the intellectual understanding alone does not necessarily result in changed behavior within the adopted culture, but I was just trying to illustrate that at bottom, this is the <em>least</em> that is necessary.)</p>
<p>I also appreciated what you said on another thread about authority figures (I think you meant) being a more effective communication link between assimilating student and seemingly intransigent parent. Even more effective, i.m.o., would be if those authority figures were themselves Asian and understood American differences by having had to make that adjustment themselves at one point.</p>