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Choosing not to do something or to go somewhere is not the same thing as being incapable or viewed as incapable. Stuyvesant is not the pinnacle of high school choices and attending a different program is not less than in any way.</p>
<p>I take it you didn’t read the following where I wasn’t specifically talking about Stuy…but more generally:</p>
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<p>cobrat,</p>
<p>You are correct in saying that Asian immigrants are engaging in the same conduct as immigrants of other ethnicities for many generations before them. That doesn’t make living the experience any different for kids/parents from other groups who find themselves left out of the majority culture. It can be uncomfortable for some.</p>
<p>For example, you said it was silly to reject Manhattan College because it is “too Catholic.” I’m Catholic. I don’t think that it is in the least bit silly for a non-Catholic to decide not to apply because it’s “too Catholic.” (Georgetown is wholly different because it’s only about a quarter Catholic. However, if crucifixes in a classroom make you uncomfortable, I think that’s a perfectly valid reason not to apply. It doesn’t make you an anti-Catholic bigot.) </p>
<p>It’s also not bigotry to say that SOME Asian immigrant parents view kids of other races–and even some Asian-Americans with American values --a/k/a “bamboo” or “banana” Asians-- as bad influences on their kids and actively discourage friendships with them. I know because my D had Asian friends who had to fight the fact that their parents did their best to discourage their friendship…solely because of the color of my D’s skin/shape of her eyes. </p>
<p>It is also an issue at all of the NYC magnet schools that some of the kids from immigrant families persistently speak other languages–especially Mandarin Chinese–when they don’t want kids from other groups to understand them. Again, it’s a long time ago–though not as long ago as you attended Stuy–but there was an ugly incident involving playing cards. A lot of kids would play cards during lunch and the Chinese kids would have side conversations in Chinese–I honestly don’t know what dialect it was. The other kids thought they were cheating by telling each other the cards they held. When someone got up the nerve to finally say this, the Chinese kids got all hot and bothered by their “racism.” It wasn’t racism. The group would have reacted the same way if a few kids had side conversations in Creole (a language spoken by most of the few Haitians at my offspring’s school.) It’s also just plain rude. </p>
<p>The reaction of these kids was actually similar to that of at least one of the kids from the Jewish day school who were thrown off the plane discussed in another thread. When we do something which others disliked and they call us on it, it’s because they are discriminating against us. It can’t possibly be because the way we are behaving is unacceptable. I’m drawing the analogy to make the point that I don’t think this kind of behavior is unique to Asians. It definitely isn’t. </p>
<p>I’m Irish-Catholic. That doesn’t mean I’m an alcoholic or a I spend a lot of time in bars. However, it is simply the TRUTH that Americans of Irish heritage, in the AGGREGATE, drink more than other groups and are more likely to be alcoholics. Irish-Catholic college kids and other young Irish-Catholics are more likely to socialize in bars than kids from other backgrounds. Getting all hot and bothered when someone says that is counterproductive, IMO. Yes, assuming that EVERY “Mick” drinks too much is bigotry. Assuming that there is MORE LIKELY to be free flowing booze at an Irish Catholic wedding reception than at all American wedding receptions in the AGGREGATE is not. </p>
<p>It is also simply the truth that IN THE AGGREGATE Jewish families and families of many Asian ethnicities (though not all) stress academic achievement more than Americans in the aggregate (who in my opinion do not value it enough). For you to say </p>
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is, to me, just plain silly. </p>
<p>I’m NOT assuming that EVERY Asian family stresses academic achievement, but saying that they stress it more in the AGGREGATE that other groups in the US is NOT bigotry.Just read the many posts FROM Asian kids on this board that talk about how much achievement means to their parents. OF COURSE, you can find Asian families for which that is not true…but in the AGGREGATE it is.</p>
<p>I am fully aware that not all Asian groups fit this stereotype. Neither Hmong nor Fillipino families do. But in the AGGREGATE immigrant Chinese families do. Saying that shouldn’t be “off putting.”</p>
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<p>I don’t agree the use of foreign language in public venues…including schools is rude or analogous to the Yeshiva HS student airline incident at all. </p>
<p>If anything, your argument could easily be used by that ignorant ne’er do well busybody who rudely cut into my Mandarin conversation with Chinese international students on a public street in a rural midwest town to tell me I must speak English because I’m in the US. Upon which, I informed him I was a US citizen, lectured him on my First Amendment rights to speak whatever damned language I please, no one appointed him the language/speech police, and anyways…the conversation WAS NONE OF HIS DAMNED BUSINESS. </p>
<p>I really tore into him for being so presumptuous to think he had the right to dictate the language I used for conversations with others on a public street. Now THAT’S rude. </p>
<p>Frankly, no one in a public venue has the right to dictate what language others use…including school unless it impedes academic instruction. It’s different if one’s doing so in more private venues such as professional meetings, parties, and family gatherings. </p>
<p>Also, …playing cards on school grounds is technically a violation of school regulations as stated in my Stuy student handbook and that of 8 years previous. Of course, most of us ignored it. However, back when I attended…none of us would risk drawing negative attention from admins/teachers who could use that rule as a way to hammer us if they felt the need.</p>
<p>The kids who felt they were being cheated would have been better off exercising discretion by refusing to play further, taking any card decks which were theirs, if any…and walking away.</p>
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I guess you haven’t been paying attention to some of the ways students have drawn attention to themselves in this millennium.</p>
<p>Cobrat, </p>
<p>I think you are doing a superb job of illustrating the problem.</p>
<p>At my offspring’s school when my offspring attended it, at least, it was not against the rules to play cards–only to gamble $ or anything else of value on the outcome. Moreover, you are simply evading the real point I’m making. It’s not about the cards–really. </p>
<p>If you are participating in a group activity, talking in a language to some people in a group with the apparent intention to avoid having your conversation understood is rude. If you want to have a private conversation, have it before or after the group activity or withdraw from the group activity. Now, imagine a school where fully a third or more of the kids speak the same language and they often speak it so that non-members of the group can’t understand them. Gee, I wonder why the other groups might be offended. </p>
<p>Do you really think the most likely reaction is to pick up your cards and go home? I don’t. I think the most likely reaction is to say “Lets not play with the kids who belong to the group that talks their own language to one another when we are around.” Then that group of kids think “Oh, they are bigots.” </p>
<p>Adjust my example. A group of kids is playing cards. Some of them start passing notes to each other. The same group always does this. That make up about a third of those playing. They never share the notes with the other kids. If the other kids ask to see them, they say “Oh, it’s private.” Do you really think nobody is going to think they are cheating? Do you really think what was said is "none of their damn business?’ Do you really think that over time, the other kids in that group–the ones who didn’t get to see the notes–aren’t going to take an active dislike to the ones who do pass notes?</p>
<p>My example is NOT the same as the Midwesterner who butted into your conversation. He was not part of your group. If, on the other hand, he was part of your tour group and you gave the tour in Chinese and ONLY in Chinese, would he be wrong to object ?</p>
<p>When kids go to school together diversity accomplishes very little if the various groups don’t interact with one another. And, if one group persists in speaking a language other than English in the school hallways, in the cafeteria, sitting on the bus during a school field trip, etc. they are not benefiting from diversity nor do the other students who attend the same school benefit from it.</p>
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<p>He would be wrong if the tour in question specified it was to be conducted in Chinese and ONLY in Chinese beforehand or the info was all in Chinese and he didn’t bother to check the information specified in the tour documentation or worse yet, chose to ignore it. </p>
<p>In such situations, it makes me wonder about that persons lack of basic common sense from figuring out the situation given the available information.</p>
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<p>As I said, I would agree more with you if we’re talking more private venues like business meetings, family gatherings, parties, or classrooms as this could impede academic instruction. </p>
<p>Then again, this happens in nearly every home I’ve visited where the given family speaks another language whether it’s Chinese, Spanish, Polish, French, German, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Arabic, etc. </p>
<p>I do call it out if it involves my family and I hosting my friends. When they do it to me as a guest…I figure they’re probably more comfortable in the language and so long as they’re not hostile…take it in good graces.</p>
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<p>Oh, I don’t know. If it’s “wrong” to exclude Brandeis for being too Jewish or Notre Dame for being too Catholic, is it also wrong to exclude BYU for being too Mormon?</p>
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<p>Some of us care about the environment that we live in for four years, too. <em>shrug</em></p>