This describes many Chinese-American kids I know, who were not raised in China (or Germany, or on a reservation), nor according to stereotype.
Re #115 and “the wall of Asians”
Suppose all of the pictures had generation number since immigration on them (0 for immigrant, 1 for kid of immigrants, 2 for grandkids, etc.). That may make race and ethnicity look a lot less important, since immigration selects for those of high ability and motivation, who like pass that to their kids (either or both of nature or nurture).
I know you did the very best you could for your daughter. However, I hope she doesn’t go through an identity crisis in the future because she had no Asian cultural knowledge and puts the blame on you.
http://hardboiled.berkeley.edu/archived-issues/year-16/issue-16-2/tel/
I wonder if poster really means “Native American” or just born in America.
Just thinking out loud…
Would it be accurate to say that there are a lot of Asian students who are good in STEM? This sample of students who competed to represent the US at international science competitions would indicate that to be somewhat true:
http://www.aapt.org/aboutaapt/AAPT-Announces-the-2015-US-Physics-Team.cfm
http://www.usaco.org/index.php?page=finalists15
http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/students/highschool/olympiad.html
http://www.maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/usamo/USAMO_Winners_2015.pdf
Given that STEM is in vogue right now, wouldn’t it make sense that universities are interested in getting the best STEM students? By coincidence, many of the strong STEM students also happen to be Asian. So it’s conceivable that they overbook Asian students in the STEM departments and need to adjust for it by not accepting so many of them in the humanities. In such a scenario, it doesn’t necessarily mean that Asians are uninterested nor inadequate in the humanities; rather, that the universities need to spread the wealth as far as racial diversity.
@austinmshauri, this alone would not be enough when names can be a dead giveaway of race. As far as people crying about test scores, they are just misinformed and the only thing that we can do is gently remind them that SAT’s are not the only measure of a qualified applicant.
@Pizzagirl, Asian girlfriends are the best. I should know, I used to be one :). Interracial dating/marriage is good for society so that is good news to me!
No more than most kids. I grew up in the US, but blamed my parents for making me too much of an Asian kid. I have Jewish, Korean, Chinese, even White kids, who blamed their parents for raising them to be too much or too little of whatever.
This is why race as a construct is useless.You know very little about a person if they check “Asian.” You might know more about them if they clicked something more specific like “child of immigrant.” However, for some reason as a socieity we have accepted that “Asian” tells us something. Like the original poster I don’t think “Asian” would tell you anything about my children, their experiences, and what they would bring to a university setting. Perhaps it is time to get rid of this outdated concept. More importantly we should focus perhaps on socio-economic level (from FAFSA) or on specific neighborhoods to attract different groups of students.
Well, the same could be said for “white.”
Exactly - the color of a person’s skin tells you little to nothing about their life experiences and what they may or may not bring to a university setting. So why do we continue to check a box? What if everyone refused to do so?
I think knowing that a kid was the first in her family to go to college would tell you a heck of a lot more than knowing what “race” she identifies with.
This is why I think not checking anything is a good option.
She’s been to Chinese heritage camp, Asian clubs, Chinese language classes. She just had no interest. Took her to China, it was fine, no need to go back, I also have a white child who would, IMO, bring more to a college campus because she has an interest in Italian art and French language and geography of the world. She is a citizen of the world, her sister American through and through.
If the school is only interested in the race of a child, then pick my Chinese child to look diverse on the outside. If a school is interested in true diversity, of bringing in different views and cultures and races and ideas, then don’t pick this child. It’s up to the school to decide what is the purpose of asking for race on the application, to look diverse or to be diverse.
The dilemma is that Admissions staff tend to be non-STEM or even anti-STEM. If they could cut it in STEM, they wouldn’t be taking low paying jobs in college admissions.
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Admissions_Officer/Salary
Let the flaming begin…
^^ it’s a young person’s job and most move on to greener pastures. Most adcoms rarely work at schools where they could have been admitted. At the higher level, the pay becomes better as always in academia, a world that exploits the young for the benefit of the older crowd who did hang on for a long time.
Except it’s not a coincidence that many of the strong STEM students are Asian. This is true (in my opinion, at least) because STEM fields are strongly valued in many Asian families. Some years ago, I did some digging to come up with some data on the degree to which Asian students were more likely to choose STEM than similar white students, and I satisfied myself (if nobody else) that the difference was quite significant. That’s in some old discussion–I’m too lazy to look it up, or to do it again, but anybody who’s had contact with a lot of high-achieving high school students should recognize that it’s almost certainly true.
I’ll mention an analogy that’s come up before: let’s say you want your kid to get into a competitive orchestra. What instrument should he take up? What if there were a cultural group that valued the violin over other instruments, and which also valued a lot of hard work and practice? What would your strategy be? If the orchestra took 12 violinists, and your kid was the 13th best violinist, would you think it was discrimination if a bassoonist who was not as good a musician was chosen to play in the orchestra, and your kid wasn’t? This is the STEM point. I think it’s pretty simple.
Also, I’ll mention once again that you have to distinguish between the question of whether selective colleges are taking URMs with stats lower (on average) than non-URM students, and whether colleges are discriminating against Asian applicants in favor of otherwise similar white students with lower stats. The former is certainly happening, but the latter is unproven.
@bogibogi: I completely don’t mean to play comparative victimhood about Jews vs. Asians (of any stripe). As a matter of fact, both Jews and Chinese suffered terrible discrimination here in the 19th Century, and the Chinese probably had it worse with explicit anti-Chinese laws enacted in many places. In both cases, for most of the immigrants, what they were fleeing was considerably worse than the discrimination they found here, and both groups ultimately found a lot of success in America. And to a large extent, both groups had similar cultures: the experience of a large diaspora, a tradition of conducting long-distance trade and finance using family connections and a common language and commercial standards spanning continents (and also often prohibitions on owning land and conducting more traditionally prestigious occupations), and placing a high value on scholarship for its own sake.
I am a little bemused that people in the US tend to be unaware that the initial Chinese experience here is actually not so different from the experience of African people, with working arrangements that would clearly be considered slavery now (and often were then, too), forced breakups of families, and legal segregation. It didn’t go on for as long or involve so much actual buying and selling of human beings, and we didn’t fight a war over it, and the visible effects didn’t linger as long. This isn’t really the place to discuss why the history of mass oppression of Africans has been so much more important politically in this country than the history of mass oppression of Chinese. It has been, and will probably continue to be for a while, but that’s not an excuse for ignoring what happened with the first Chinese immigrants.
Other Asian groups have suffered horrifically in the current generation, especially tribal groups in Southeast Asia and western China.and of course Afghanistan, and when they come here they don’t necessarily face legal discrimination, but they face horrible barriers of cultural (and language) incomprehension. I don’t think anyone is unsympathetic to the difficulties they face.
Do you think there is some reverse engineering here, that if a kid is not playing team sports, is not into band or clubs, but shows some academic talent, they will be steered into STEM?
I really don’t think the average Asian parent is telling their kid to become an engineer. But I do think the average guidance counselor and teacher will tell a kid who is good in math and science to go into STEM because it is an excellent career choice. As early as grammar school.
I would love to see some stats on ECs versus racial profile. My son’s school has few black students (3%), but almost all are on sports teams. My son’s school has many Asians (20%), but few are on sports teams.
I believe that there is some inherent “nerd” mongering where a nerd - someone who has only academics and no physical or soft ECs - is the goal for parents. You don’t get into trouble being a nerd. You have excellent career prospects if you are a nerd. But the problem is that a nerd is not what Ivies want, and that’s why state colleges like where I teach can get quite a few Asian students, some with amazing test scores. And not all parents can afford the colleges their child gets into.
You have to admit that most parents who live vicariously through their children want them to be doctors or lawyers.
I don’t know. I think families value some careers over others, and what they value is often culturally based.
I question this, too. I think it depends on culture–I think a lot of parents who are doctors or lawyers would like their children to be in creative fields.
Do you think most Asian kids have parents who are doctors or lawyers? I don’t think that is the general trend.
My kid and many of her friends play varsity team sports, an instrument in band, join and lead clubs AND are majoring in STEM. I’m not sure why the first few things would preclude being interested in engineering or tech or science or math.