Why are Asian-Americans so successful in America?

One idea about how legal equality hurt blacks is that with integration, black owned institutions and black professionals were no longer the only choice for the black consumer and a lot of middle and upper class black families suffered.

 

Show your work, please.

 

At least in my area - near Gary, Ind. - the shrinking of industry and factory jobs had a disproportionate effect on blacks. It begs the question, of course: Why were they disproportionately in unskilled and/or "blue collar" jobs to begin with?

 

What jobs did people of Asian descent tend toward?

 

As opposed to the conservatives, who thought things were just peachy keen for decades.

 

In my town, at least, which has a very large Asian population, doctors and engineers, it seems.

 

You know why, right? Or are you waiting for someone to tell you?

 

I'd bet folding money they were disproportionately represented in lower rungs of the service sector. You just saw the doctors and the engineers.

 

The great migration.

 

In the beginning? Absolutely horrendous jobs for slave wages in abominable conditions with shocking mortality rates building railroads and digging in mines.... And then they gradually began moving up to typical blue collar jobs in factories and agriculture ....and then to lower rung white collar jobs and ownership of small businesses ...and then began to disproportionately take over the engineering, medical and tech fields... and now have reached a point where they sit atop our academic and economic totem poles, ranking even higher than ole whitey.

Again, it's not like Asian-Americans started here. But it sure has been an impressive gradual ascent over the last century. As for why other groups have not been able to copy that ascent, I don't know all the reasons. And I'm certain nobody else here does either.

 

This was exactly what I thought, while shaking my head because I just knew it was going to happen, this morning when I made an attempt to provide a possible answer -- but then didn't have the time to follow up before I had to leave for work.

So, I've been thinking about DW's continued question off and on all day, hoping to continue the conversation with another, or a more in-depth response, and I have some thoughts, which I might get into in other posts if I feel inclined. But, as others have alluded to, I'm afraid that Dick just wants someone to say what...well, what he himself said, so he can jump all over it.

To wit:

Is that your answer, Dick? Or are you thinking that that's our answer?

As for myself, I'm with cjericho in wondering just what the hell policy or policies you keep talking about that you've otherwise contended is the culprit in all this.