Why are Asian-Americans so successful in America?

You're grafting again.

 

To quote this guy I know: Nope.

 

So what is your hypothesis, at a high level? Is it that without state intervention, American blacks would eventually close the gap naturally?

 

I don't see where increasing or decreasing government's role has much to do with helping black people escape poverty.

The idea should be to put in place a set of progressive, well-considered policies and programs going forward. The experimental HUD program in Texas that provides additional financial incentive to relocate from bad to good neighborhoods seems to be a good example.

It's not about how much you spend, rather whether the policies are effective and address the pretty complex issues involved.

 

I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours ...

 

That's the idea, except you have a certain group that believes the government shouldn't be putting into place any policies or programs, well-considered or not. This certain group's beliefs are "Yeah, past history sucked for you guys and put you way behind us, but just work harder and pull yourself up by your bootstraps."

 

But enough about the posters at SJ.com.

 

Nah. The bootstrap crowd here is too focused on defending low newspaper pay -- because, of course, that's the way it's always been -- and how they drove a bus or drilled for oil or ran a Dairy Queen while they worked at a newspaper to make ends meet.

I don't think that bunch even knows black people exist.

 

Another perspective on Asian-American success in a 2012 study http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/06/19/the-rise-of-asian-americans/

Points from the study:

“Asian American” includes individuals from India, as well as the Far East, Southeast Asia

Nearly three-quarters (74%) of Asian-American adults were born abroad.

Large-scale immigration from Asia did not take off until the passage of the landmark Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. Over the decades, this modern wave of immigrants from Asia has increasingly become more skilled and educated

More than six-in-ten (61%) adults ages 25 to 64 who have come from Asia in recent years have at least a bachelor’s degree. This is double the share among recent non-Asian arrivals, and almost surely makes the recent Asian arrivals the most highly educated cohort of immigrants in U.S. history.

Compared with the educational attainment of the population in their country of origin, recent Asian immigrants also stand out as a select group. For example, about 27% of adults ages 25 to 64 in South Korea and 25% in Japan have a bachelor’s degree or more.2 In contrast, nearly 70% of comparably aged recent immigrants from these two countries have at least a bachelor’s degree.

It is not yet possible to make any full intergenerational accounting of the modern Asian-American immigration wave; the immigrants themselves are still by far the dominant group and the second generation has only recently begun to come into adulthood in significant numbers. (Among all second-generation Asians, the median age is just 17; in other words, about half are still children.)

 

So much for the Asian bootstraps narrative.

 

I'm not sure anyone who knows anything about Asians would be surprised by any of this.

I'm also not sure why some seem to be so cynical, and even, seemingly insulted or put off by the idea of "bootstraps," (although that is not the word I'd use). Unless, of course, everything should just come easily and without any efforts on the part of individuals. It is possible to work hard and to take advantage of opportunities anywhere, whether in a person's native country, or here in the U.S. And to think that anything much can be accomplished, anywhere, without them, is just wrong.

No matter what policies or programs are ever tried or instituted for the benefit of anyone, there still has to be proper knowledge and execution of and effort to use them in order for them to work.

That still wouldn't change the fact that kids still need time, attention, guidance, education and care, and some emphasis on all of those things, in order to succeed. There's no getting around it.

 

People are put off because it implies that blacks just decided for themselves to be unsuccessful. And now they can just decide not to be. It's offensive.