Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Comparing scenarios of a child being "disadvantaged" due to his/her parents being immigrants compared to being disadvantaged due to your dad leaving the household and/or getting arrested is like comparing apples and oranges(heck, maybe even bananas in some cases). The AA and Latino disadvantaged groups deal with the latter scenario to a tremendous degree. It is rare I hear of an Asian growing up in a single parent household. In fact, I often hear Asians being raised by not only their biological parents, but also within the confines of a communal-based context . Ever hear of the saying "it takes a village to raise a child"?
AAs and Latinos, like other ethnic groups, have extended families.
As for Asians, Asian doesn't equal ideal family. There's a lot of prostitution/massage parlors full of Asian women who are being pimped out. That's organized crime right there. You have criminal issues in all ethnic groups.
Dude, Asian is a whole 'nother level. This is coming from someone who dated an Asian and has a friend who is Asian. Getting excellent grades/going to top schools/scoring the highest on exams is a big cultural thing as stereotypical as that sounds. My ex boyfriend, who attended Sarah Lawrence and Yale, used to tell me about the cram schools he attended on top of his normal schooling (weekends included).
I'm not sure I'd want to put my children under the same pressures that my ex had to deal with in Japan. There's a happy medium, I think. We're involved with our children but we'd definitely keep things in check.
Yet this does not make Asian kids any better than anyone else. When it comes to truly high levels of performance, no amount of parental pressure/cramming is enough to do the deed. To truly move ahead in a field, you actually have to LIKE the field and be good at it. A number of the Asian kids you talk about burn out entirely, and some even kill themselves. My last year at Cornell we had 10 deaths/suicides. Not all of them were Asian, but there are limits to how much pushing someone to study will work.
If you're talking about creating a new business, doing groundbreaking research, having excellent political skills, being an A list artist, etc., these are rare talents and they won't always be reflected in grades (doing well academically is a factor, but not THE factor). I've known kids who were trying to get all As to get into medical school who ended up by intellectually bankrupt and who fell apart when their parents dreams for them could not come true (in part because the kid has no real interest/talent in the subject or field).
I'm a first gen asian american from poor immigrant chinese parents so I think I am qualified to talk about this subject.
My poor immigrant tiger parents drove it into my mind to succeed from an early age. My parents came penniless to america.. we lived in crime-ridden Wycoff/bushwick in the late seventies, and eventually after years of struggle they succeeded enough to move to Great Neck where I had a top notch suburban education.
I personally am a financially sucessful doctor so it all paid off.
If it makes any of you asian haters out there feel any better... my second generation asian-american son will probably be just as lazy and stupid as any other american, since he will not experience the struggle I did growing up.
The problem with working class people is that doctor isn't the only job that requires or make use of a college education. So many freshmen of multiple races are pre med. That changes by the sophomore or junior year when kids have a better idea of career options.
I went to BTHS in the 70's. Looking at the yearbook and there was a pretty strong percentage of minorities. I remember speaking to some of my classmates back then and found out certain minorities had a lower threshold (test score requirement) for entrance. If it's a level playing field now, that may be a reason for lower passing scores. I can't blame the schools, because my primary school was pretty weak (but NYC required the Regent exams, so at a minimum kids needed to pass them in order to pass the class). It all came down to doing homework, studying & parental involvement. We may not have been a video game generation, but we did have play time which had rules to follow and required thinking to strategically play many of them.
Are people here aware that in many foreign nations (def in asia this is true) that math levels are ahead of USA? When immigrants come here, its too easy.
For Asians, summer school or should I say enrichment schools are pretty popular in nyc. My friend who is Asian owns such a school and makes boat loads of $$$. He hire nyc teachers to teach kids all the summer. Many kids continue to go after school as well throughout the year.
I remember studying pretty hard in the summer as a child while many of my neighbor's kids my age went to play all summer or went to camp. When fall hits, the curriculum was almost too easy for me.
Are people here aware that in many foreign nations (def in asia this is true) that math levels are ahead of USA? When immigrants come here, its too easy.
On top of that, math is a universal language. Much more so than English or Spanish. And definitely even much more so than Korean or Chinese. It is much easier for them to concentrate on math once in the states than any other subject. For example, Filipinos always come to America fluent in English, and they do not excel as much in math as other Asians. So if you put a quota on all Asians, you will be discriminating unfairly against certain types of Asians. On the other side, Argentinians could potentially get an unfair advantage since they are also Hispanics.
Are people here aware that in many foreign nations (def in asia this is true) that math levels are ahead of USA? When immigrants come here, its too easy.
For Asians, summer school or should I say enrichment schools are pretty popular in nyc. My friend who is Asian owns such a school and makes boat loads of $$$. He hire nyc teachers to teach kids all the summer. Many kids continue to go after school as well throughout the year.
I remember studying pretty hard in the summer as a child while many of my neighbor's kids my age went to play all summer or went to camp. When fall hits, the curriculum was almost too easy for me.
That doesn't mean that all those kids in those nations are math geniuses. When high school students in say China are about to graduate, they have to take examinations that determine whether or not they can go to an university or what level of university they can go to. Only a small number score high enough to go to a prestigious university. Those who score poorly (that's many people) have to either just get a job or go to vocational school. Those who score high enough to get into a bad college have to pay lots of money, and will graduate with uncertain job prospects. The few who score well enough to get into the top universities don't have to worry about funding, but that is not the majority of people.
People are using the hard working immigrant model person behavior as a political weapon, when the reality is NYC has plenty of immigrants who are poor and who remain stuck in rock bottom jobs. This is true of immigrants of all races. Some of them move up. Some of them don't.
I remember studying pretty hard in the summer as a child while many of my neighbor's kids my age went to play all summer or went to camp. When fall hits, the curriculum was almost too easy for me.
So how much has that helped you in life of today? Is it worth of it? If you enjoyed studying more than going camping, that is another story.
That doesn't mean that all those kids in those nations are math geniuses..
Math prodigy of some sort...obviously not every is.
What I did say was above a few levels. I will throw an example of my personal experience. I took AP calculus in my senior year in high school in nyc. Some of the recent immigrants in my class was in their junior year in high school in my class. 2-3 students as I recall was a sophomore! They breezed through it...math genius? Some could be but most seemed to be just more ahead
That doesn't mean that all those kids in those nations are math geniuses. When high school students in say China are about to graduate, they have to take examinations that determine whether or not they can go to an university or what level of university they can go to. Only a small number score high enough to go to a prestigious university. Those who score poorly (that's many people) have to either just get a job or go to vocational school. Those who score high enough to get into a bad college have to pay lots of money, and will graduate with uncertain job prospects. The few who score well enough to get into the top universities don't have to worry about funding, but that is not the majority of people.
People are using the hard working immigrant model person behavior as a political weapon, when the reality is NYC has plenty of immigrants who are poor and who remain stuck in rock bottom jobs. This is true of immigrants of all races. Some of them move up. Some of them don't.
True. The performance of asian kids in america is no good proxy of how overall asian kids perform back in asia. The immigrant status and the lack of social backup for these asian kids and probably all other kids of immigrant parents are big drives in motivating them to work extra hard to get established in this country. I know first hand that there are more lazy and failing kids back in asia proportion wise. The success of the asian kids is largely attributable to their higher level of motivation to begin with and the pressure to make it here in the US.
Of course, that is no excuse for black/hispanic kids as a group to lag behind by so much. I think the communities should work together to fill the gap for their own benefit.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
