<p>GFG- but lots of things have changed. I lived in a town where most of the mother’s stayed at home and the families led nice middle class lifestyles on one income. Dad owned a small carpet store, or was in the wholesale egg business, or sold cars or insurance. In that same town, two professionals (surgeon married to a lawyer) are working like maniacs just to hang on. The town hasn’t changed- but the taxes have, the cost of living has, and the ordinary house my folks bought for 25K in 1965 just sold for over a million dollars (too bad they cashed out early!)</p>
<p>Many things have changed; can’t blame immigrants for a shift in the educational system in your town. I bet your school system spends more on Special Ed now than it did for its entire instructional budget 30 years ago (adjusted for inflation). That’s not a shift brought upon us by immigration… we have each other to thank or blame for that. My city spends more paying to send kids to private schools (either after a lawsuit or just the threat of a law suit) than it does on G&T instruction for the entire school system. I don’t have statistics- but of my acquaintance, not a single one of these families was Asian or Indian. (They are not litigious in matters educational around here.) All of these families are multi-generation Americans “working the system”.</p>
<p>Blossom, using the word “blame” when describing my posts is needlessly inflammatory. I was not assigning blame, because that assumes there was wrong done and I never said that. Things simply are what they are, and yes there are many complex forces at work. However, education and Asians’ dedication to it is what we’re discussing in this thread.</p>
<p>"It used to be possible for a child growing up in our country to go to school on the days school was in session, do his assigned homework well, and study hard for tests and he’d succeed. "</p>
<p>This isnt exactly what you are talking about, but alot of the change to too much homework has been due to educational policymakers who have not studied the full impact of excess homework, the way different students learn, etc. I don’t know I would blame asians for the homework madness of the last few years. </p>
<p>Other than the homework madness, the other issue is how competitive things are at the top. As I have said before, I do not think I could get into, today, the Ivy league school I attended in the late '70s. I am sure that in the late 70s environment my DD would have ended up at a school farther north on the USNWR list than where she will be attending (RPI). But OTOH, in response to that, we have all, I think, broadened our views of what success is, in terms of educational achievement - new ivies, public ivies (and not just UCB and UMich either) etc.</p>
<p>“The library is purchasing large collections of foreign language books and not the languages we learned in school,”</p>
<p>The asian kids who are SUCCEEDING all speak english. Here anyway. The kids reading for lang books cause thats all they can, arent. </p>
<p>" former baseball fields are now set aside for cricket matches" Really? Again, at DDs school, the football team had asians, muslims, etc. Though they havent been any good since the Jewish QB left ;). </p>
<p>“our academic calendar has been changed to accomodate Muslim holidays” and bleeping Fairfax County wont close for Yom Kippur.</p>
<p>“and it’s hard to find a single non-Asian on the honor roll.” Oy.</p>
<p>Chardo–your response is laughable. So Americans “hate” other people because of their success? So that is why some people “hate” blacks, becasue they are successful???..quite the opposite</p>
<p>As for Jews…have you ever heard a Jewish joke? nuff said</p>
<p>^ By the way, I wasn’t implying any of those changes are bad or wrong. Obviously, the local government has a responsibility to respond to its citizens and the needs of the local population. If the local population prefers cricket to baseball, then the fields should be made into cricket fields. My point was just that some of the focus on Asian success is stemming from people trying to figure out who we are as a society now and what we need to do to move forward.</p>
<p>Well yeah, I myself am “unPC” enough to be a strong supporter of assimilation of immigrants to american culture - not just to our constitutional values, but to our substantive folkways, including football, glee club, and a fortiori the English language and literature. But I think thats orthogonal to the “Asian success” meme.</p>
<p>Again, our experience. DD attended a very elite public science-tech magnet. It is now over 50% asian and that has certainly raised some eyebrows locally. But at least as far as assimilation is concerned, I see success. I see kids of foreign birth or parentage becoming regular high schoolers - football, homecoming, marching band, rock music, chorus, high school musicals, the whole nine yards.</p>
<p>Wow, just WOW!!! Substitute Asians with “money grubbing Jews - the recent Jewish immigrant circa 1920-1930” who ruined the genteel tradition of gentlemen’s C’s with their mercenary hardworking and shameless pursuit for economic security, and had the nerve to become powerhouse in the financial world. Does this sound eerily familiar to you? It does to me.</p>
<p>Doesn’t this all sound equally unpalatable to you at all - it’s the same kind of sentiment that created college admission policies that are not based on objective standards (GPA, tests, etc) - the practice that succeeded in limiting the number of Jews in elite colleges? By the way, we all know that for Asian kids, they have to be so much better academically to make it to the top 10 colleges, right? They are an Over Represented Minority, and have to jump to a much higher standard. </p>
<p>Recent immigrants without political & economic base, thus without a platform for “power and establishment” naturally gravitate toward “secure” career choices that provide more solid foundation in a single generation. Recent immigrant Jews from Eastern Europe circa 1920-1930 had a very good reason to enter the field of finance and medicine. Several generations later, they are philosophers, poets, and artists. </p>
<p>Even among Asian groups, Japanese Americans are mostly 3rd, 4th generation folks (no influx of recent immigrants at all). They are far less represented in the math and science field. On the other hand, Chinese kids and THEIR PARENTS know that they don’t have the network of extended family with financial foundation to fall back on. They typically come more or less empty handed, even the ones who come for a Ph.D. degree. Is it any wonder that they will gravitate toward more “secure” professional paths?</p>
<p>I say this to all the folks who are rather miffed by the rising bar for the APs and Honors etc because of the academically hyperactive Asian kids - Consider that these are the kids will go on to keep the American economy competitive and vibrant so that you can all enjoy your retirement age. Do you understand how incredibly hardworking kids are in Asian countries are? By having some of “them” on our side, we are much better off than otherwise. </p>
<p>Instead of dumbing down the majority and lowering the standards, they are keeping everybody on their toes and raising the bar, I say, this is a GOOD THING for all of us.</p>
<p>"Wow, just WOW!!! Substitute Asians with “money grubbing Jews - the recent Jewish immigrant circa 1920-1930” who ruined the genteel tradition of gentlemen’s C’s with their mercenary hardworking and shameless pursuit for economic security, and have the nerve to become powerhouse in the financial world? "</p>
<p>This. </p>
<p>OTOH, it must be mentioned, that at the same time many immigrant Jews aggresively pursued the ladder of success, some immigrant Jews pursued social changes to improve security for all, and make the ladder of succes less important - when we weren’t Sammy Glick’s or eevil bankers, we were “Jew Dealers”. While there are SOME asians prominent in usually moderately liberal politics, I await (eagerly) the appearance of an Asian progressive politics equivalent to the ideology of say, the Daily Forward. Though perhaps this is too different a historical moment for that.</p>
<p>No miffing here. More power to 'em! It’s not a zero sum game. Contrary to posts above, the existence of academically hyperactive Asian kids doesn’t prevent my kid from doing well, too. There’s not a limited number of jobs or money or success in this world.</p>
<p>Well, actually, “academically hyperactive Asian kids” effectively do prevent some non-Asian American kids from doing well in a relative sense, unless said kids choose to also engage in outside classes and tutoring like their Asian peers. If they don’t choose to, then they can’t achieve the required pre-requisites or placement test scores to get into the advanced classes due to tracking issues. Your kid might be able to score 100% on a math test reflecting the skills at, or a step above, his grade level. But if there are 30 Asian kids who are 3 years ahead of him, then he’s out of luck for placement into a higher level. Taking outside classes and getting tutored for acceleration purposes requires a monetary and time commitment that American culture has to accept as both good and necessary. If and when that acceptance comes, an adjustment still has to be made. If a child suddenly wanted or needed to attend the learning center in town to the tune of $3000 this summer, I can assure you that many American parents would still say “No way. We can’t afford it and it shouldn’t be necessary that you go in order to do well in school.”</p>
<p>But if we aren’t talking about relative success, then yeah–there’s plenty to go around.</p>
<p>completely agreed. this is NOT a zero sum game, contrary to some of the outspoken nativists’ claims. we are rapidly evolving into a very different kind of economy, or we should be if we are doing on that path already. Alternate energy, bioengineering, advanced genetics, massive and ubiquitous cloud computing - these are the basis of the continuing American prosperity. </p>
<p>All these fields require math and science. We should be so lucky that all these recent immigrant kids from Asia are filling the void created by the popular culture that denigrates geeks and nerds. We should really rethink our immigration policy. We need a more aggressive policy to let the highly skilled, engineering/science types who come here for their MS and Ph.D. to stay and contribute. </p>
<p>As is, post 911 restrictions and tightening policies are encouraging a lot of highly skilled tech people to go to Europe instead. In fact, a colleague of mine who is a senior executive in a well known European tech firm mentioned that it has gotten much easier to get the top Asian talents recently since USA has a much tighter policy. They used not be able to do that since everybody preferred USA. </p>
<p>Those who are not familiar with the tech world, note this. The founders of Yahoo, Google, Sun Microsystem, Ebay, Youtube, just to name a few (there are too many) are all either children of immigrant parents or first generation immigrants themselves. Furthermore, go to any tech company. These companies will cease to operate, or operate at a much lower level of excellence without first or second generation immigrants from Asia. Can you imagine vibrant American economy without these companies, while manufacturing jobs are disappearing?</p>
<p>It’s not the absolute amount of money. It’s the attitudes that matter. In many (not all, I am sure) Asian families, the priority is clear, education first right after just basic necessities. All other things, better cars, better furnitures, vacation, clothes, eating out, etc come later. </p>
<p>Families will jump through the hoop to pay for that pricey private school education by sacrificing everything else, if they believe that will give their children better start in life. </p>
<p>My son went to a pricey summer pre college program in DC this year. The first day on campus he texted me “Mom, there is no one but Korean and Jewish kids”. </p>
<p>So, if these kids with this kind of emphasis at home do better in school and succeed, more power to them. And, on a macro level, I believe we all benefit from the infusion of such hyper academic and achievement oriented culture and ethos.</p>
<p>If the $3000 was for sports training, more of the non-asian families I know, wouldn’t blink an eye. I have neighbors who regularly do their kids homework so that their ds/dd can keep doing multiple sports.</p>
<p>I fundamentally disagree but I believe it’s a difference of values, so it will never be reconciled. Here is the downside that I see too much of a culture of hyper-competition and achievement oriented culture (in my predominantly chinese immigrant world): kids that can’t have playdates on the weekend, that can’t take circus camp because they have to take chess camp regardless of their interests, that have no say in what they major in, that must take Saturday math for years, SAT coaching over several years, that feel like losers if they come home with only 95% on the exam, that seemed stressed to the gills and are falling asleep in class from the overload. And so on. </p>
<p>Education is one thing. And trust me, we are a family of PhDs, we really truly value education! But the singular focus on a very narrowly defined set of achievement goals and merits looks too often like the loss of childhood and completely unnecessary stress in the most important years of one’s life, as well as the loss of a lot of other extremely more valuable, but less ‘tangible’ and external rewarded developmental opportunities.</p>
<p>^ Gee, if I wanted to, I could be offended at the above posts. Glad to hear that American prosperity rests largely on the capable shoulders of Asian immigrants, to whom we should all be exceedingly grateful because they will save our inferior, math and science-challenged American society from economic annihilation. Now that our world has been saved, I’m going to send my kid out to play. It’s too beautiful a day to stay in and do math homework!</p>
<p>My kids have both attended a summer pre-college program as well, and they have the same observation – their program is very heavily dominated by Asians (both Far East and Southeast) and Jewish kids. I agree with hyeonjlee - more power to them. Completely.</p>
Well, some things are a zero sum game. I posted once (and was ripped apart) about signing my D up for a program that had X spots and being surprised to see some Asian families literally running across the parking lot to get on line. It was a funny visual and not reflective of anything bigger than that. In the situations in which it is a zero sum game, well, then let’s ask for more or create more so that everyone is lifted up, regardless of ethnicity on either the “in” or the “out.” More opportunities are better.</p>
<p>I am curious about something. Why the assumption that Asians are “nerds” or “geeks?” That has rarely been my experience. Let me tell you, Asian lawyers are as articulate, personable and edgy (in the cutting-edge sense) as anyone else. No geeks in this field.</p>
<p>RE #94–yup, we Americans are hyper focused on sports too, and thus need Asians to show us how misplaced are our priorities.</p>
<p>People, America has been a land of unbelievable prosperity. Our culture reflects that privilege, which has included the freedom to focus on sports, leisure and toys more than people can who live in third world countries, later industrialized countries, and Communist dictatorships. The Roman Empire behaved the same way for a long time. We aren’t inherently inferior or lazy–just accustomed to wealth. But now that the world is changing, and our economy is changing, we have to adjust our world view. It’s similar to when cell phones first came out. They were considered an expensive luxury and one that most people echewed as unnecessary. Now almost everyone has one and along with it, a nice bill to pay. We might have to make the same sort of attitude change about educational expenses. We might have to start paying more for what we never used to have to pay so much for–education. Public school for 180 days used to be enough for our purposes. Please don’t suggest that this is merely about non-Asian, non-Jewish Americans having the wrong priorities!</p>
<p>There is WAY TOO MUCH generalization. Asian kids tend to put more energy on academics. However, all this “they don’t ever spend time outdoors” is WAY exaggerated. </p>
<p>I also don’t think Asians are single handedly rescuing American economy, but all data point that continuing influx of this group is making an enormous contribution to the continuing vibrancy of American economy. that said, I do stick to my assertion that the high tech industry won’t survive if all the Asian engineers and managers one day decide to go back to where they or their parents come from. </p>
<p>By the way, why are you continuing to say something to the effect (with sarcasm) that “they” are rescuing while Americans are screwing up. “THEY” are also Americans. Their tax dollars fund all sorts of things for “America”, and “THEIR” children will prop up your social security account.</p>