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I would love to live in Asia and was close to moving to Singapore at one time for job opportunities. Asians with English fluency (and especially dual English and other language fluency) are in huge demand in both growing economies and established economic centers like HK and SG. Why not? They have the language and cultural fluency to be effective when dealing with both clients and internal staff at multi-national companies. Also, those who went to brand name schools here get a much bigger boost with that over there than here. So the ones I know personally who moved back to Asia did it because of great career opportunities. I wouldn't say these were permanent moves though.
Wanted to mention (again) that Asian females are actually considered for Affirmative Action. In regards to the bold, not many students period get scholarships.
Honestly it seems like the majority of your posts are ignorant to the fact that Asian Americans actually are considered a "minority" in regards to hiring in organizations that utilize Affirmative Action. Asian American females as well are also considered by colleges/universities based on being female in regards to admission.
You keep bringing up the Fisher case whereas she didn't even have good grades and over 90% of the people chosen over her to go to University of Texas were white students, not black/Hispanic.
Also in regards to Harvard, per one of your articles 21% of the students at Harvard are Asian and/or Asian American. They are only 6% of the population so they are nearly 4 times the population at Harvard than they are in the general public. They are overrepresented.
First-off my main interest here is how Asians perceive this policy (among other apparent "pushing factors" for emigration) more than the details on the policy itself-- and at least a lot of them very clearly do perceive a bias and handicap from affirmative action (which is why Asian-American plaintiffs are now filing complaints against Ivy League schools about this very bias)-- but in their defense, I've documented the data here very carefully with what's been published on the topic, particularly the Espenshade data at Princeton which is widely respected on all sides which I linked to above. It very clearly shows a massive penalty against Asian-American applicants of hundreds of SAT points (once again on the old SAT on the 1600 scale) and several GPA points. Here is another link to the original data, Espenshade and Chung's own paper at Princeton providing additional documentation of just how much Asian-Americans are tangibly penalized in admissions:
(the opportunity cost of admissions preference at elite unis)
I'm not an expert on this subject, I just go with the data that's out there on this (the anecdotes just back up what the data is saying), and like I myself said I'm personally on the fence about affirmative action so long as it's done reasonably without abuses. (I'm 100% in favor of affirmative action for native Americans for example because of the way they were treated here, and having worked in downtrodden inner cities I'm also for having it as a way to boost opportunities for underprivileged kids, just not the way it's abused in practice when it too often winds up giving advantage to privileged applicants who happen to have some association with an underrepresented group but are well off themselves.)
But I fail to see how you can say Asians-- Asian-American females and males both-- are somehow "favored" when one of the most important competitive screens they have to face-- college admissions and the scholarships that go with that-- are pretty clearly tilted against them. Along with med and law school admissions. As documented by professionals in the field, not just anecdotal cases (which for what it's worth are also quite numerous).
Here is another link for law school admissions, again a professional paper by a professional in the field, showing that Asians suffer a very heavy handicap in law school against them in admissions to the University of Wisconsin law school.
It's the first Table up in there, where they control for admissions probability based on ethnic background-- that is they look at students with equivalent scores and in vs. out of state status, and then see the probability of admission based on ethnic background. Like you can see from the table, the stats for Asians and whites are horrible, they suffer a heavy handicap that's probably even worse than the ones for med school and the one that Espenshade found for undergrad-- this isn't just a minor "boost", the data from that table clearly show a massive disadvantage for Asian applicants both in and out of state. And there's no evidence that being female helps at all for college admissions since colleges already have a majority of females and if anything are trying to recruit more male applicants to balance out the gender ratio. Yes Asians may be overrepresented relative to the population at some elite schools, but that alone doesn't tell us anything because it operates on assumption that it's "normal" for students at schools to be represented in direct proportion to their percentage in the population, and that deviations from that are abnormal. But the Espenshade and Wisconsin data show that's not the case, Asian-Americans are simply the highest school achievers by far as a group and colleges and grad schools are consciously handicapping against them. It's not some claim out of the blue, it's what the professionals who do this kind of work are very clearly pointing out in the data, and Asian-Americans both male and female are heavily penalized by this. (I only bring up the recent Supreme Court cases as a practical matter, to make clear that as far as SCOTUS and major courts are concerned, support for affirmative action has basically become settled and permanent law with even conservative judge appointees supporting it. Whatever a person's individual opinion about it, from a legal stand-point affirmative is here to stay, for good or bad or both.)
I'm not saying this applies in every single circumstance, like I myself said above I've personally seen hiring incentives for contracting firms and apparently business loans that extend preference to Arab-Americans and Muslim-Americans (a lot of whom are Asian-American), so clearly there are some places or categories where at least some Asian-Americans have that preference. But in many of the most common places where affirmative action is used, the data clearly shows it's working against Asian-Americans. Which is why many of them are filing formal complaints and lawsuits against universities, or heading out for better opportunities elsewhere.
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Originally Posted by residinghere2007
In the workplace Asians are given a preference in hiring. The "bamboo ceiling" is not about Affirmative Action, it is about discrimination in the workplace, similar to what is faced by black Americans.
Actually a lot of the articles I looked up after theunbrainwashed mentioned the term do make reference to affirmative action as well as to legacies, which is kind of like affirmative action for rich well connected kids. And they do have a very notable negative effect on Asian-Americans opportunities for education and work opportunities. Again the data by Espenshade and the others makes that pretty crystal clear. When you claim the ceiling is about discrimination in the workplace only you're basically just playing semantics, there's no set definition of the term and broadly, it's used by different authors to apply to all the kinds of obstacles that handicap and discriminate against Asian-Americans despite their stand-out performance. And yes, if as Espenshade and other documents, it's in effect penalizing them heavily in school admissions (whether due to traditional affirmative action or legacies) then yes, that sounds like a form of discrimination that would qualify for use of the term. Don't get me wrong, I agree with you that workplace discrimination and promotions are an issue to and may well also be among the pushing factors leading more Asian-Americans to seek opportunities elsewhere, that would just figure into the economic opportunities factor that's so important for such decisions in general. But it's useless to nit-pick the semantics of it when it's clear what's going on.
Quote:
Originally Posted by residinghere2007
It is weird IMO that you are trying to pit Asians against blacks based on Affirmative Action when AA, as stated benefits white women more in colleges/universities and in hiring than blacks and Asians.
You keep saying that, and yet the data keeps showing the opposite. The Espenshade and University of Wisconsin law school data clearly show that whites (including white women) and Asians clearly suffer a very heavy negative handicap in admissions at both undergrad and grad school levels, with men in general actually getting some preference for admission to many colleges since women are overrepresented (a lot of guys are just going to trade-schools these days). So the evidence says white women are absolutely not favored by affirmative action at least in many of the critical places where it's used and suffer an obvious penalty. I'm not saying this was always the case, i imagine in the early days of affirmative action it probably did do more of this, but less so now that women are so well represented on college campuses. But I'm just going with the evidence that the professionals are putting out, as things currently stand it doesn't appear to be the case so much anymore.
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Originally Posted by residinghere2007
In regards to your sister in law, you say she is now a doctor. How has her being Asian hurt her career in regards to Affirmative Action. From your brief description, it doesn't look like it has. On the red, nearly all doctors come out of medical school severely in debt. She should look into programs where she can work in a rural community or inner city neighborhood in order to get forgiveness for her debt. These programs are open to all doctors no matter ethnicity and doesn't have any AA requirements. Most doctors know about these programs.
I don't work in this field so I can only go with what people in the medical profession tell me, but it absolutely hurt her when she was applying to medical schools and she suffered that negative handicap which limited her chances at many of the schools that could have best prepared her for the specialty she was interested in. Apparently this makes a big difference when looking at training and career options after med-school, and Asian-Americans in general had to score much higher on MCAT and GPA compared to other groups to get admitted. Again the public data on that backs up what she is saying, here is an example table of the data
and full article
I don't know much about the group that posted this article up, but you can see from the caption they got the table straight from American Medical College association so it's legit data from a non-partisan source that looks at American medical students. And it backs up what my sister-in-law was saying. As for the lack of scholarships, it's true that a lot of medical students finish deep in debt, but it's not always the case, I know several other docs who did get scholarships when they went to med school and finished with very little debt, so if affirmative action is used in the scholarship determination, then absolutely it can make a huge difference in financial well being afterward. All the docs I know, not just my sister-in-law says the money isn't anywhere near what it used to be and when you factor in malpractice costs and all kinds of admin costs (which I don't understand in detail but they all bring it up), their actual take home pay is much less than all the common assumptions, certainly a lot less than what's on the surface and if anything pretty lousy given the insane hours they have to work. So that student debt really causes damage especially early on in the practice, it's apparently gaining interest and all sorts of fees (again not just from my sister-in-law, everyone with debt I've talked to says this). As for the debt forgiveness programs I myself have heard of these and brought this up before even though I'm vague on the details of how they work-- but apparently in practice they're harder to take advantage of than it looks at first. She at least is still inquiring about these so hopefully something will work out.
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You also don't know why anyone got into a particular school. Sorry but too many of your posts seem to come from an "us vs them" standpoint to where you are making assumptions that aren't true for the most part.
No assumptions needed, the data and evidence are out there in abundance and not only from Espensahde, I'm only going with what the evidence says. You say there's an "us vs them" issue here but isn't this exactly what affirmative action (and legacies for that matter) are in practice? The selection system is zero-sum, so if affirmative action sets up preferences that negatively handicap and hurt Asian-Americans as a group-- and the data from Espenshade and others clearly showx it does, and in a systematic way that goes beyond just individual cases-- then it's the policy itself that's set up in an "us vs them" fashion. Not a personal assumption, just a common-sense conclusion based on that data. For what it's worth, like I said I'm actually in favor of affirmative action for native Americans given the terrible history they've had since the first settlers came, and for ex. underprivileged kids in the slums who clearly are suffering from lack of privilege. And to the extent that African-Americans are facing that underprivilege due to the lingering effects of slavery and Jim Crow-- I totally get that argument and am fine with giving such students a leg up to help them get out of poverty and succeed. It's a difficult issue and I can see where careful affirmative action policies might be beneficial given US history. But not when the policy is clearly abused, like when it's used to give an admission boost to a rich immigrant kid from West Africa while penalizing an Asian immigrant kid who grew up in poverty in a family that came over with the clothes on their back. It just has to be done right.
But like I said, ultimately my own opinions on the policy are besides the point. The issue here is more how Asian-Americans perceive it, and it's clearly something that causes a lot of anger in the community. Thus the lawsuits and complaints against Ivy League schools, the uproar that happened when the Asian-American community in California rose up in protest against plans to re-introduce affirmative action in the state recently causing the officials to drop it. (For what it's worth affirmative action has come back in California anyway, for both schools and job hirings, it's just that it's done in a more subtle way that for ex. selects students or job applicants based on neighborhood or region without necessarily explicitly getting into race or ethnic background, but has the same effect. Sort of like Texas I guess.) And causing many Asian-Americans to leave and go elsewhere for opportunities, it seems. Obviously you're passionate about defending the policy, that's fine, like I said I'm on the fence about it myself and can see some cases when it would be justifiable to apply it. But I'm not the one you need to be making the case to, it's Asian-Americans who very clearly perceive a lot of harm done to them and their opportunities by the practice, and who have a lot of data to back them up.
Last edited by Corascant; 07-07-2016 at 06:35 PM..
And BTW just to be clear about this again, I don't think there's any doubt that legacy admissions and nepotism are grossly unfair and represent the very worst kind of preferences, and practically every Asian-American I've talked to loathes those as well. (With damn good reason, I do too.) The problem that comes up is when the clear unfairness of legacies and "developmental" admissions for the privileged are then used as a justification for affirmative action against Asian-Americans even when it's abused (examples above). Bottom-line is, there's solid professional evidence that both the legacies-nepotism practices and affirmative action (as it's too often abused) are very damaging overall to Asian-American opportunities as well as to middle class whites (or just whites who aren't already very rich and connected), so the meritocracy and striver types tend to despise them both. It's not like rejecting one implies accepting the other, the way a lot of the ridiculous political arguments are framed, both are harmful to the strivers who don't have a lot of connections or fit into certain demographic categories, on that the Espenshade evidence alone is pretty damning. This doesn't mean AA should be done away with entirely (though legacies probably should, I don't see how they're defensible to any fair-minded person), like I said given the country's history I think there's a fair argument for using it carefully in some cases. But when all these sorts of anti-meritocratic practices are so pervasive and taken as set policy, and used improperly without regard to actual disadvantage or underprivilege-- it isn't so surprising that a lot of talented Asian-Americans especially will naturally (and quite likely correctly) perceive better opportunity elsewhere, and go there to take advantage of it.
Thanks for that tip, from articles that came up on the search, sounds like that term really summarizes a lot of what I was hearing on the frustration of many Asian-Americans I talked to, and why so many have moved to Asian countries (even the ones born in the US). Especially with regards to the second point in the original post, the way Asians seem to get slammed on all sides not only by affirmative action but by legacies and nepotism too. (This is the problem when defenders of affirmative action cite "legacies" as a counter-argument, Asian-Americans-- as well as middle class whites without a privilege background-- are shafted by both of these, basically left out.) And they have to deal with that over and over again, at every level. After the affirmative action and legacies take their bite out of Asian-Americans' prospects in college applications (more than a 400 point SAT penalty according to Espenshade at Princeton, several GPA points), then Asians have to deal with the handicap against them again for med-school, law-school and grad-school applications. Then yet again for things like law internships and residency slots, then yet again for their kids and kids' scholarships, then again for job applications or promotions that disfavor them. I'm guessing the "bamboo ceiling' idea captures this frustration, that for Asians, doesn't matter how many times they overcome the barriers, at the next level the affirmative action-legacy-nepotism barrier just starts right up again. The attitude used to be "just keep your head down and work harder", but I think Asian-Americans soon wised up and realized that this attitude was only allowing the authorities to play them for being chumps (the squeakiest wheel is the one getting the grease when it comes to rigged political benefits after all). So with the vibrant opportunities in Asia now, totally makes sense that more and more would just walk away from they view (fairly IMHO) as a system rigged against them at every step. And with the Supreme Court's recent affirmative action decision (Fisher v U.Texas I think, 2016), one that's only going to become even more so, and permanently. That's the reason for the Asian-Americans' lawsuits against the Ivy League, but with even SCOTUS conservatives now supporting affirmative action and basically telling Asians to "f--- off", the suits aren't gonna go anywhere-- Fewer Asians Need Apply | City Journal Harvard Accused of Bias Against Asian-Americans - WSJ Is Harvard Showing Bias Against Asian-Americans? : NPR Ed : NPR
My half-brother married a Vietnamese-American woman who went to medical school, and she's very open about how infuriating and discriminatory this process is and how both affirmative action and legacies or nepotism hit her hard at every step. Her family were boat people who lost everything in the Vietnam War (several of her cousins back home were poisoned by Agent orange), they came to the United States with barely more than clothes on their back. She was born in the USA after her family moved, and they all worked menial jobs to survive, but she still did well enough to graduate in the top 10 students of her class, near-perfect SAT's, sports and leadership achievements on top of her many hours working jobs. Yet she got rejected by most of the top schools she applied to even as a lot of her often lazy classmates got in either thru legacies or affirmative action. What's worse is that she did ultimately get into some great schools, but she got very little in scholarship money (not much in the way of merit scholarships for most part and her family, who had been frugal and worked like crazy to save, actually got penalized for saving money and she her brother got almost nothing in financial aid).
What really irked her, is there was another student in her class who was the son of a very wealthy immigrant family from Togo (West Africa I think), his father was a multi-millionaire and the son was blowing off his classes, driving a Porsche he got on his 17th birthday and partying all the time and basically hiring tutors to do all the son's homework (and even then the student got so-so grades), poor SAT scores and little in the way of extracurriculars or leadership activities of any sort. Yet he got into nearly every school he applied and got full scholarships to many of the places even though his Dad's a millionaire, while this poor Vietnamese girl who worked her a-- off starting from poverty got nothing! It was obvious to her how corrupt the affirmative action system had become because it wasn't benefitting a descendant of slaves, it was benefitting a very privileged immigrant kid who happened to have the same racial/ethnic background of African-American slave descendants (heck, this kid's ancestors in Togo were probably tribal chieftains selling fellow Africans into slavery to the British traders), whereas her Vietnamese family that actually did suffer severe underprivilege got passed over and discriminated against. And then on top of that there were also several other kids who got in as legacy admissions, again lousy academically but their parents were bankers or rich divorce lawyers or like that (divorce and family courts-- talk about a predatory system in the US) and their kids were brought in as legacy admissions, or in the hopes their rich parents would become donors.
She overcame these hurdles too, graduated with top honors, top MCAT scores and once again a ton of achievements at a good university-- and then when applying to medical school, she once again had to deal with all the affirmative action and legacy craziness! (And for what it's worth, even California schools do practice some sort of affirmative action, even though it's technically illegal based on that 1996 referendum apparently there are all kinds of legal work-arounds for it, based on like choosing people from particular neighborhoods or something like that, I guess what Texas does.) Plus once again, no financial aid for her whatsoever while several other privileged kids got a boat-load of it. Even then it didn't stop, residency programs were also pushing to "increase their diversity" (meaning keep those overachieving Asians out) while also satisfying their old boy networks, and then even getting physician jobs and hospital opportunities she kept running to the same thing again and again and again. She's doing decently now but she's still up to her eyeballs in debt from college and medical school, so she and her husband have had to put off starting a family indefinitely. (For what it's worth she has talked about moving to Vietnam where there are apparently opportunities for US-trained doctors and pretty good pay for the cost of living, and my brother in law is supportive of at least considering the move. After all, when and if they finally do have kids, their children would be facing the same misery all over again, which has gotta be pretty dispiriting to be honest.) Again another reason I can totally see why Asian-Americans would see much greener pastures overseas (and clearly not just "grass is greener" presumptions but concrete evidence that they'll have a better lot there).
That's what the ceiling is I'm guessing, it just seems like the US is telling Asians in so many words, "we don't want you here, forget about all that meritocracy BS (here's that Ron Unz article again-- The Myth of American Meritocracy | The American Conservative
Or even worse, being hypocritical and telling them "don't be Asian-American, just be American", but then turning around and discriminating against them by both affirmative action and all the legacies and nepotism that aggressively cut off Asians from economic and social opportunity. These are real, tangible and ongoing costs to the community, and now with the Supreme Court decision it's only going to get much worse for Asians (and also, like many have said correctly, for middle class and generally "non-ultra rich" white kids are sort-of stuck in the same boat, I don't have hard numbers but seems like most of the Americans I know who've emigrated to Europe are from this "striving-upward" class so maybe there's a parallel with the Asian-Americans moving to Asia?). And like my Vietnamese sister-in-law was saying, the US system doesn't value meritocracy, it pays lip service to it but then turns around and shuns it in practice, which is especially frustrating for Asian-Americans who looked to America as a meritocratic ideal. I think that's why Ron Unz put up that article on the American meritocracy myth and why a lot of Asians cite it, it's like they feel they don't fit in anywhere within the US political food-fights or interest groups and just get squeezed by everyone. (One of the frustrated Asian-American parents I talked to citing the Ron Unz article basically said, the battle over American college admissions and job preferences is like a bitter ongoing feud between the old American WASP, Jewish and Catholic old-money elites with African-American, Latino and native American interest groups all joining the battle-- and Asian-American and middle class white kids just hoping to prevail by merit all caught in the crossfire.) The problem is I feel like affirmative action, if done right, might have some justification and do social good, but it seems like it's never actually done right and just winds up looking like the same corruption and preference system as legacies, that disproportionately harms Asians. That example of the rich immigrant kid from Togo getting all the college admissions and scholarships despite sub-par academic performance (along with all the legacy kids) getting so much in the place of a poor Vietnamese refugee girl-- yeah, that's seriously f---ed up. Asia is already starting to dominate the 21st century in technology and culture, so with this bamboo ceiling thing constantly thrown in Asian-Americans' faces, I can totally see why they leave.
Dude , come off it , you have heard of the term "bamboo curtain" before , you have come off it now.
You write probably the most lengthy posts I have ever seen on City Data ever . For real . Well written it must be added. References to Harvard etc. and you somehow have never heard of "bamboo curtain"
Hmmmmm.....is somebody acting a little bit disingenuous now ?
Dude , come off it , you have heard of the term "bamboo curtain" before , you have come off it now.
You write probably the most lengthy posts I have ever seen on City Data ever . For real . Well written it must be added. References to Harvard etc. and you somehow have never heard of "bamboo curtain"
Hmmmmm.....is somebody acting a little bit disingenuous now ?
Think about it .........Think about it
Why are you so shocked I haven't heard of "bamboo curtain' when you yourself don't even use a consistent term for it, is it bamboo curtain or bamboo ceiling? Or something else? Obviously it must not be such common knowledge when there's not even an accepted term or accepted definition in any form, so looks like you've answered your own question. People write in detail what they're experts in. I told you in the previous posts I work mostly in Europe when I'm abroad, not in Asia, and I'm not a sociologist though lately have had more of an interest in social science questions. Thus then the discussion here, which has been pretty informative on topic.
First-off my main interest here is how Asians perceive this policy (among other apparent "pushing factors" for emigration) more than the details on the policy itself-- and at least a lot of them very clearly do perceive a bias and handicap from affirmative action (which is why Asian-American plaintiffs are now filing complaints against Ivy League schools about this very bias)-- but in their defense, I've documented the data here very carefully with what's been published on the topic, particularly the Espenshade data at Princeton which is widely respected on all sides which I linked to above. It very clearly shows a massive penalty against Asian-American applicants of hundreds of SAT points (once again on the old SAT on the 1600 scale) and several GPA points. Here is another link to the original data, Espenshade and Chung's own paper at Princeton providing additional documentation of just how much Asian-Americans are tangibly penalized in admissions:
(the opportunity cost of admissions preference at elite unis)
I'm not an expert on this subject, I just go with the data that's out there on this (the anecdotes just back up what the data is saying), and like I myself said I'm personally on the fence about affirmative action so long as it's done reasonably without abuses. (I'm 100% in favor of affirmative action for native Americans for example because of the way they were treated here, and having worked in downtrodden inner cities I'm also for having it as a way to boost opportunities for underprivileged kids, just not the way it's abused in practice when it too often winds up giving advantage to privileged applicants who happen to have some association with an underrepresented group but are well off themselves.)
But I fail to see how you can say Asians-- Asian-American females and males both-- are somehow "favored" when one of the most important competitive screens they have to face-- college admissions and the scholarships that go with that-- are pretty clearly tilted against them. Along with med and law school admissions. As documented by professionals in the field, not just anecdotal cases (which for what it's worth are also quite numerous).
Here is another link for law school admissions, again a professional paper by a professional in the field, showing that Asians suffer a very heavy handicap in law school against them in admissions to the University of Wisconsin law school.
It's the first Table up in there, where they control for admissions probability based on ethnic background-- that is they look at students with equivalent scores and in vs. out of state status, and then see the probability of admission based on ethnic background. Like you can see from the table, the stats for Asians and whites are horrible, they suffer a heavy handicap that's probably even worse than the ones for med school and the one that Espenshade found for undergrad-- this isn't just a minor "boost", the data from that table clearly show a massive disadvantage for Asian applicants both in and out of state. And there's no evidence that being female helps at all for college admissions since colleges already have a majority of females and if anything are trying to recruit more male applicants to balance out the gender ratio. Yes Asians may be overrepresented relative to the population at some elite schools, but that alone doesn't tell us anything because it operates on assumption that it's "normal" for students at schools to be represented in direct proportion to their percentage in the population, and that deviations from that are abnormal. But the Espenshade and Wisconsin data show that's not the case, Asian-Americans are simply the highest school achievers by far as a group and colleges and grad schools are consciously handicapping against them. It's not some claim out of the blue, it's what the professionals who do this kind of work are very clearly pointing out in the data, and Asian-Americans both male and female are heavily penalized by this. (I only bring up the recent Supreme Court cases as a practical matter, to make clear that as far as SCOTUS and major courts are concerned, support for affirmative action has basically become settled and permanent law with even conservative judge appointees supporting it. Whatever a person's individual opinion about it, from a legal stand-point affirmative is here to stay, for good or bad or both.)
I'm not saying this applies in every single circumstance, like I myself said above I've personally seen hiring incentives for contracting firms and apparently business loans that extend preference to Arab-Americans and Muslim-Americans (a lot of whom are Asian-American), so clearly there are some places or categories where at least some Asian-Americans have that preference. But in many of the most common places where affirmative action is used, the data clearly shows it's working against Asian-Americans. Which is why many of them are filing formal complaints and lawsuits against universities, or heading out for better opportunities elsewhere.
Actually a lot of the articles I looked up after theunbrainwashed mentioned the term do make reference to affirmative action as well as to legacies, which is kind of like affirmative action for rich well connected kids. And they do have a very notable negative effect on Asian-Americans opportunities for education and work opportunities. Again the data by Espenshade and the others makes that pretty crystal clear. When you claim the ceiling is about discrimination in the workplace only you're basically just playing semantics, there's no set definition of the term and broadly, it's used by different authors to apply to all the kinds of obstacles that handicap and discriminate against Asian-Americans despite their stand-out performance. And yes, if as Espenshade and other documents, it's in effect penalizing them heavily in school admissions (whether due to traditional affirmative action or legacies) then yes, that sounds like a form of discrimination that would qualify for use of the term. Don't get me wrong, I agree with you that workplace discrimination and promotions are an issue to and may well also be among the pushing factors leading more Asian-Americans to seek opportunities elsewhere, that would just figure into the economic opportunities factor that's so important for such decisions in general. But it's useless to nit-pick the semantics of it when it's clear what's going on.
You keep saying that, and yet the data keeps showing the opposite. The Espenshade and University of Wisconsin law school data clearly show that whites (including white women) and Asians clearly suffer a very heavy negative handicap in admissions at both undergrad and grad school levels, with men in general actually getting some preference for admission to many colleges since women are overrepresented (a lot of guys are just going to trade-schools these days). So the evidence says white women are absolutely not favored by affirmative action at least in many of the critical places where it's used and suffer an obvious penalty. I'm not saying this was always the case, i imagine in the early days of affirmative action it probably did do more of this, but less so now that women are so well represented on college campuses. But I'm just going with the evidence that the professionals are putting out, as things currently stand it doesn't appear to be the case so much anymore.
I don't work in this field so I can only go with what people in the medical profession tell me, but it absolutely hurt her when she was applying to medical schools and she suffered that negative handicap which limited her chances at many of the schools that could have best prepared her for the specialty she was interested in. Apparently this makes a big difference when looking at training and career options after med-school, and Asian-Americans in general had to score much higher on MCAT and GPA compared to other groups to get admitted. Again the public data on that backs up what she is saying, here is an example table of the data
and full article
I don't know much about the group that posted this article up, but you can see from the caption they got the table straight from American Medical College association so it's legit data from a non-partisan source that looks at American medical students. And it backs up what my sister-in-law was saying. As for the lack of scholarships, it's true that a lot of medical students finish deep in debt, but it's not always the case, I know several other docs who did get scholarships when they went to med school and finished with very little debt, so if affirmative action is used in the scholarship determination, then absolutely it can make a huge difference in financial well being afterward. All the docs I know, not just my sister-in-law says the money isn't anywhere near what it used to be and when you factor in malpractice costs and all kinds of admin costs (which I don't understand in detail but they all bring it up), their actual take home pay is much less than all the common assumptions, certainly a lot less than what's on the surface and if anything pretty lousy given the insane hours they have to work. So that student debt really causes damage especially early on in the practice, it's apparently gaining interest and all sorts of fees (again not just from my sister-in-law, everyone with debt I've talked to says this). As for the debt forgiveness programs I myself have heard of these and brought this up before even though I'm vague on the details of how they work-- but apparently in practice they're harder to take advantage of than it looks at first. She at least is still inquiring about these so hopefully something will work out.
No assumptions needed, the data and evidence are out there in abundance and not only from Espensahde, I'm only going with what the evidence says. You say there's an "us vs them" issue here but isn't this exactly what affirmative action (and legacies for that matter) are in practice? The selection system is zero-sum, so if affirmative action sets up preferences that negatively handicap and hurt Asian-Americans as a group-- and the data from Espenshade and others clearly showx it does, and in a systematic way that goes beyond just individual cases-- then it's the policy itself that's set up in an "us vs them" fashion. Not a personal assumption, just a common-sense conclusion based on that data. For what it's worth, like I said I'm actually in favor of affirmative action for native Americans given the terrible history they've had since the first settlers came, and for ex. underprivileged kids in the slums who clearly are suffering from lack of privilege. And to the extent that African-Americans are facing that underprivilege due to the lingering effects of slavery and Jim Crow-- I totally get that argument and am fine with giving such students a leg up to help them get out of poverty and succeed. It's a difficult issue and I can see where careful affirmative action policies might be beneficial given US history. But not when the policy is clearly abused, like when it's used to give an admission boost to a rich immigrant kid from West Africa while penalizing an Asian immigrant kid who grew up in poverty in a family that came over with the clothes on their back. It just has to be done right.
But like I said, ultimately my own opinions on the policy are besides the point. The issue here is more how Asian-Americans perceive it, and it's clearly something that causes a lot of anger in the community. Thus the lawsuits and complaints against Ivy League schools, the uproar that happened when the Asian-American community in California rose up in protest against plans to re-introduce affirmative action in the state recently causing the officials to drop it. (For what it's worth affirmative action has come back in California anyway, for both schools and job hirings, it's just that it's done in a more subtle way that for ex. selects students or job applicants based on neighborhood or region without necessarily explicitly getting into race or ethnic background, but has the same effect. Sort of like Texas I guess.) And causing many Asian-Americans to leave and go elsewhere for opportunities, it seems. Obviously you're passionate about defending the policy, that's fine, like I said I'm on the fence about it myself and can see some cases when it would be justifiable to apply it. But I'm not the one you need to be making the case to, it's Asian-Americans who very clearly perceive a lot of harm done to them and their opportunities by the practice, and who have a lot of data to back them up.
Many of the things you are saying, as you mentioned, are based wholly on one study that was published in 2005.
Many of the links you posted are specifically anti-Affirmative Action organizations who I would not take as organizations that provide unbiased opinions or research.
In regards to the Epenshade document of which you posted, it's assertion at heart is that "if admission were based on test scores and GPA" that Asians would gain better in admission policies. However, colleges/universities do not only look at GPA or test scores so there is nothing conclusive to that study at all.
Also, you are not Asian, yet you are attempting to tell me and other readers how Asians view Affirmative Action. You are also ignoring the fact that Asians are very much over represented on all college campuses and very much so in Ivy leagues compared to other minority groups.
Also, people do not move overseas to Asia due to not getting in Princeton...your whole discussion of admission into Ivy League colleges does not provide any insight into your OP topic of "why are Asian Americans moving to Asia."
Of course they would move to Asia due to either wanting to connect with their familial traditions/language/culture or specifically for economic reasons.
Why would you even think that admission into college/university in America would have a hand in that?
I also find it odd that you have never heard of a "bamboo ceiling." It is commonly discussed in media in regards to discrimination against Asians.
You also keep failing to admit that Asians actually ARE beneficiaries of Affirmative Action. I can give it to you that you just didn't know that and I can accept that maybe Asian Americans don't know that either, but I have worked in the public sector and specifically with contracting/bids and I have known many Asian owned MBEs and they were WELL aware that they get a preference for state contracts and are included in contracting goals for federal contracts.
IMO you are acting like Asian Americans are stupid about knowing how they are discriminated against and are trying to push your own narrative off in regards to Affirmative Action and Asians and using it as an excuse for why they are moving abroad, when they don't move abroad at all until after they get out of college....
I personally think this thread was a guise just for you to make a post about the negative affect that Affirmative Action has on college/university admissions instead of what you are trying to make it out to be. You could have just started a thread about this subject, or even done a search on it as there have been at least 3-4 that I remember about Affirmative Action and Asians.
In summation, college/university admission is not a reason why Asian Americans move to Asia. Usually they move for economic reasons AFTER they graduate from college/university. In America Asian Americans are considered minorities and therefore are included in Affirmative Action programs in the workplace, same as other minorities, including white women, black Americans, Latino Americans, and Native American and females from all of those ethnicities.
Maybe more opportunities, marriage? just to name a few.
add: It is not like black and hispanic folks are taking Asian people's place in college because of affirmative action. I am not a big fan of AA, but gee, stop blaming others.
In 2012, the National Asian American Survey found that three in four Asian Americans support affirmative action. The 2016 Asian American Voter Survey similarly found substantial support when it asked respondents, “Do you favor or oppose affirmative action programs designed to help blacks, women, and other minorities get better access to higher education?” A majority of respondents—64 percent—said they think it’s a good thing, while just 25 percent said it’s a bad thing. Even when the question was framed in less positive terms—“Do you think the affirmative action program designed to increase the number of black and minority students on college campuses are a good thing or bad thing?”—most respondents still said they think it’s a good thing. Interestingly, opinions on both questions varied depending on the ethnicity, with most Chinese respondents opposing affirmative action and overwhelming majorities of Vietnamese and Filipinos, for example, supporting it.
It’s statistics such as these that organizations such as Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC) and scholars such as Karthick Ramakrishnan, a political-science professor at UC Riverside, highlight when suggesting that the Asian Americans who vociferously oppose affirmative action don’t reflect Asian Americans as a whole.
In 2012, the National Asian American Survey found that three in four Asian Americans support affirmative action. The 2016 Asian American Voter Survey similarly found substantial support when it asked respondents, “Do you favor or oppose affirmative action programs designed to help blacks, women, and other minorities get better access to higher education?” A majority of respondents—64 percent—said they think it’s a good thing, while just 25 percent said it’s a bad thing. Even when the question was framed in less positive terms—“Do you think the affirmative action program designed to increase the number of black and minority students on college campuses are a good thing or bad thing?”—most respondents still said they think it’s a good thing. Interestingly, opinions on both questions varied depending on the ethnicity, with most Chinese respondents opposing affirmative action and overwhelming majorities of Vietnamese and Filipinos, for example, supporting it.
It’s statistics such as these that organizations such as Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC) and scholars such as Karthick Ramakrishnan, a political-science professor at UC Riverside, highlight when suggesting that the Asian Americans who vociferously oppose affirmative action don’t reflect Asian Americans as a whole.
That is interesting, thanks for posting, that makes me wonder if there's some generational gap in terms of support for the policies, that could also be figuring in the migration movements-- older Asian-Americans much more supportive of affirmative action, younger Asian-Americans much more against affirmative action (which would consistent with the emigration to Asia which is overwhelmingly younger Asian-Americans). From the articles on the lawsuits against the Ivy League colleges for affirmative action, there are dozens of Asian-Americans organizations joining as plaintiffs, but looks like they're overwhelmingly younger organizations with younger Asian demographics, while the older and more established Asian-American organizations seem to be more in favor of the colleges' policies and making very pro-affirmative action legal briefs. Same with the big uproar in the Asian-American community that shut down California official's plans to re-introduce overt affirmative action a couple years ago, that was overwhelmingly driven by the younger Asian-Americans based on the news reports. (Like I said affirmative action has made a major comeback in California anyway, though usually with more subtle geography based approaches like in Texas.) Anecdotally I found this to be true too, it's mainly younger Asian-Americans and early career people who object so much to affirmative action, including the Vietnamese and Filipinos I know, and among the Asian-American emigres who went back to Asia, it was only the younger ones I talked to who even mentioned anything about affirmative action. I don't hear much of an issue out of the older generations.
National background is interesting too, in my experience a lot of Vietnamese and Filipino-Americans tend to be more against than for, though again it's mostly from talking to the younger generations, so I guess if there's a generation gap it's probably bigger for these groups. Another complication is, and I'll admit I don't understand this at all, seems like some Filipino-Americans even in my own family can register as Hispano/Latino and be eligible for affirmative action (I guess if they speak Spanish well enough or some factor like that), while others aren't, that also may explain some of the differences. Whereas ex. Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Afghan Asian-Americans seem to be a lot more in favor of affirmative action even among the younger members, this maybe because of recent rise of recruitment programs for Muslim-Americans but who knows, might be other cultural reasons too. Also noticed much lower rate of emigration from these groups, maybe understandable given the ongoing war and instability in places like Afghanistan compared to for ex. China, India or even Vietnam nowadays.
Last edited by Corascant; 07-09-2016 at 07:19 AM..
Plus could have something to do with different demographics (ex. visa categories) among the first-gen arrivals. If recall correctly, a lot of Chinese and Indian-American families came in during the 80's and 90's on J-1 visas as students or for skill recruitment in tech companies, so their kids now would generally be raised in a more professional, middle class environment w/ emphasis on meritocratic picture of American Dream. If that's seen to be frustrated here (for whatever the reason) this could serve as a pushing factor to seek opportunity elsewhere. While a lot of the Afghan and Vietnamese immigration and, I guess, from Bangladesh or Burma came in on refugee visas from the tragic conflicts there in the past few decades. (Poor Afghanistan can't seem to get a break from one war or another). So their whole perspective and social concerns might be very different from other Asian-Americans on these issues, especially in first-gen but also carrying over to second-gen too. Another reason why it's so hard to generalize about Asian-American communities, there's so much variation not only in national origin but also in the reasons for coming and the visas they came in on..
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