Why are Asian-Americans so successful in America?

Same thing with a close friend of mine, when she went to college 30 years ago. Amazing violinist and pianist. Went to Yale. She wanted to major in English (she'd won numerous writing awards) and minor in Music. Nope, said her parents. Computer Science. She was sad about it for awhile, but she did what she was told.

 

Wow, wake up to 7 pages of this? Topic really hit a nerve.

1. Asians were not enslaved; IMHO, makes a huge difference. My grandparents worked their butts off (grandpa ran 1 man laundromat in Cleveland/ 7 days/wk; 20 hrs/day); I'll never forget I was about 18 and someone cut in line in front of my mom and I said she should say something; her response "they didn't ask us to come here", which I understood to mean she willingly chose to immigrate for the better opportunity.

2. Asians on avg. may have higher incomes, but in no way have they reached the pinnacle of power in the US; still a minority and have yet to consolidate into a cohesive unit politically

3. In Asian American studies in college (I got a minor in it), we discussed "the escalator theory", each new immigrant group pushing the previous one upwards while the new one starts at the bottom; for African Americans, when the first "immigrants" are here unwillingly, that's a hard starting point. Immigrants say, I'm going to bust it for the next generation, there is no corollary for the blacks.

4. Although an Asian American studies professor at Univ. of Maryland recently wrote an essay on nbcnews.com that differed and she disagreed with me, I still believe that the emphasis on higher education by Asians has had a definite impact on their economic success (she thought that it was the post-1965 educated wave of Asian immigrants; I told her what about the pre-1965 group?).

 

Why do Japanese citizens not shoot each other up while Americans do?

There are, in DW's world, only two possibilities.

1. A law banning guns absolutely is 99.9999% effective and is the obvious way to run a nation. It's a slam-dunk no-brainer.

OR

2. Japanese are simply superior human beings than Americans. Whether it's in their DNA, their culture, or the DNA of their culture, they are superior to us. Period.

What other possibilities are there?

 

No. The two possibilities would be:

1. Public policy in Japan has shaped society in such a way that gun violence is minimal; or
2. Japanese have superior, i.e. non-violent, DNA.

 

There are people of all shapes and colors who are failures because they're shiftless. And there are people of all shapes and colors who are successes despite whatever happened to those of their type 20, 50, 100, 500 years ago.

Find me someone of any shape/color who's a failure. Then, let's piece together his (or her) life story. I bet if we did so, you and I would agree close to 100% of the time regarding specific choices made/actions taken by that person that led to his or her difficulties*. Further, I bet we'd also agree that many of those choices ran counter to either cultural norms AND/OR policies that were in place.

You offer the board an either/or fable: A) There are vast impersonal forces rooted in history and policy that disproportionately condemn to failure people of certain groups and that can be mitigated only by new policy (likely formulated and implemented by the same people who've been in charge of policy for decades); or B) there is no hope for people of certain groups because those people are simply worthless. Sorry ... I'm all stocked up on fables.



*This works the other way, too. I have heard many a person bitch about affirmative-action this and affirmative-action that. It probably is the case that if you took my resume and made it that of a member of a historically disadvantaged group, I'd be working way the hell higher up the academic pecking order. But I can't, in all honesty, pick out a single instance in my career in which where I wound up was anything other than the result of my own doing.

 

I'm curious how many people here are on board with the "Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it" maxim.

 

Not a single person here mentioned personal responsibility. And I'd point out that not a single person here cast any aspersions on African Americans, that was an issue entirely of your making.

And, just out of curiosity, Dick, why did you so intently try to make this thread about African Americans and racism? Because that's NOT what the the NYT Article underlying the thread topic was about at all. It merely posed the question of why Asians do better on average than the rest of America as a whole, including white America, it never in any way tried to set it up as any sort of Asians vs. African Americans thing. That was entirely you who jumped in and tried to make the debate about something else (and rather successfully, I might add). Why? Because you saw an opening to do your self-indulgent N-word dance?

So, instead of going where you wanted to take this, why don't you first address the article's actual question? Why do you think Asians on average do better academically and economically than the rest of America as a whole, including white americans? Do you think that's because of slavery and insititutionalized oppression? First, give us your response to the actual topic, and then we can move on to other things.

 

Of course.

But the fact remains that African-Americans lag behind whites, Asians, and Hispanics in almost every societal category. Why? They didn't spontaneously all decide not to react properly. Something is and has been shaping this.

 

Because outside factors - public policy, geography, accidents of history - have shaped their culture to this end.

 

If they can't stand the noise, then they should stay in their sandbox.

 

He's making it easy for John Hammond.

 

OK. A baby born to a drug-addicted mother, with no father in the picture.

The baby already is addicted to drugs before it's first breath, has physical and mental defects, which causes them to be a low achiever in school, and there are issues in their home that also have an effect on their life. They grow up doing poorly in school, and learn behaviors that may run counter to cultural norms.

They grow up to be a failure. So what specific choice/actions did they have that led to their difficulties?