Author Topic: Secret to Asian American success was not education  (Read 11960 times)

wepner

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Secret to Asian American success was not education
« on: November 23, 2016, 10:33:15 AM »
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/19/the-real-secret-to-asian-american-success-was-not-education/#comments

According to this article (as I understand it) their success is because white people started to be less racist against Asian people.

The article talks about how in the 1940s all minorities made less than white people with the same education but now Asian people make basically as much as white people of the same education level while other minorities don't. That's kinda interesting but I'm not exactly sure what it proves. Why did white people decide to be less racist towards Asians but not towards blacks or hispanics? Maybe the causation was switched?

Seems like this article is taking away the credit Asian Americans deserve for working hard and being successful and it also seems like its saying that other minorities can't be successful on their own merits either.

I get that racism is a real problem and that racism is a factor in how successful people could be. I don't think there were many successful Japanese in the 1940s when they were all sent to internment camps. I also get that Asian Americans are used as a way to ignore other minorities' complaints, but this article takes away a lot of individual responsibility and it doesn't really offer any solution.

Chris22

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #1 on: November 23, 2016, 10:43:14 AM »
My no-provable-facts opinion is that Asians are successful because their culture still pushes education and high-performance heavily, more than most.  It's even a frigging meme.  The culture generally expects and demands success in school that will translate to success in the real world.







(I mean these with all respect, I respect the truth behind these memes)

randommadness

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #2 on: November 23, 2016, 10:47:20 AM »
Those memes are awesome

golden1

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #3 on: November 23, 2016, 10:54:53 AM »
I can't remember where, but I remember reading about how the secret to Asian success is partially derived from how difficult and labor intensive it was to grow rice compared to other crops. 

Paul der Krake

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #4 on: November 23, 2016, 10:55:07 AM »
Asian immigration is a success story everywhere they go, not just north America. They are second only to the jews, the other ethnic/cultural group that is overrepresented in virtually every measure of success bar athleticism.

Whatever they are doing, it's working.

golden1

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #5 on: November 23, 2016, 11:07:34 AM »
What you NEVER hear about is the mental health fallout from these cultures.  Success often comes at a price, and those who fail to meet the very circumscribed model of Asian success get no social or family support.

I'm just saying, there is always a downside. 

Chris22

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #6 on: November 23, 2016, 11:24:45 AM »
What you NEVER hear about is the mental health fallout from these cultures.  Success often comes at a price, and those who fail to meet the very circumscribed model of Asian success get no social or family support.

I'm just saying, there is always a downside.

I'm sure that's true, but it's also not like we have no mental health issues across other races.  They may need some tweaks, but I'd say Asians are getting it more right than wrong here.

GuitarStv

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #7 on: November 23, 2016, 11:31:13 AM »
When we're talking about "asians" here, are we talking about Chinese, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Korean, Malaysian, Filipino, Japanese, Thai, Indian, . . . ?  You know that they're all quite different cultures and people, right?

golden1

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #8 on: November 23, 2016, 11:55:50 AM »
Agreed GuitarStv.  We have a very large Indian population in our town, and that is a completely different vibe than a traditional chinese family (it feels more child friendly), but the one thing they do seem to have in common is a strong emphasis on education and work ethic, combined with subverting your ego for the good of the family group. 

Chris22

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #9 on: November 23, 2016, 11:57:15 AM »
When we're talking about "asians" here, are we talking about Chinese, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Korean, Malaysian, Filipino, Japanese, Thai, Indian, . . . ?  You know that they're all quite different cultures and people, right?

I have a fair bit of experience with Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Indian, and I think what I've said so far applies to all of them. 

wepner

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #10 on: November 23, 2016, 12:00:41 PM »
Anyone want to discuss the article at all?

tarheeldan

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #11 on: November 23, 2016, 12:07:11 PM »
I have nothing intelligent to contribute to the discussion, only to say that I'm half "fancy Asian", think the memes are hilarious, and suggest watching Ali Wong's "Baby Cobra" on Netflix.

tonysemail

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #12 on: November 23, 2016, 12:13:20 PM »
What you NEVER hear about is the mental health fallout from these cultures.  Success often comes at a price, and those who fail to meet the very circumscribed model of Asian success get no social or family support.

I'm just saying, there is always a downside.

to that point, I attended a parenting seminar where the speaker was a clinical psychologist.
Her "average" patient was an 30-40 year old asian-american man who has everything, but feels unsuccessful and depressed about living an empty life.
Her main point is that there's long lasting harm in teaching kids that grades are the only thing that matters.
because one day, grades won't matter and then you're stuck unwinding 20 years of baggage.

I read this article too and it's pretty interesting.
But I agree it's flawed.
My main complaint is that the graph doesn't show the ethnicity vs educational attainment.
The asian graph is weighted much more heavily towards bachelor's degree and above.
I'd think this makes a bigger difference than the gap shown due to racism.

Also, one anecdote from my life is that immigrants have a huge bias towards starting their own businesses.
even businesses that barely break even are a big source of pride that become one's life work.
and that's a big help when there is systemic racism, regardless of what continent you immigrated from.
one supporting comment below the article says that nigerian immigrants do quite well.

TheOldestYoungMan

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #13 on: November 23, 2016, 01:22:10 PM »
I think the article presents some good data and is well written.  I think the authors went into it without a previous agenda.  I can't disagree with their conclusion, but mostly that's just because it can't really be disagreed with.

Premise the first:  Recent immigrants are in a bad economic situation because Americans are racist (not because, you know, you don't know anyone, don't know the language, don't have any savings or property, nope, just that white people suck).

Premise the second:  After generations of working hard and demanding excellence culturally many Asians have pulled themselves up by the proverbial bootstraps.

Premise the third:  Other groups have taken similar steps but had worse outcomes.

Conclusion:  White people must have stopped being racist toward that one group.

It's an interesting idea.  I don't suppose it is possible that as more and more educated and talented people contributed and performed well respect rose in accordance with efforts, in particular attitudes that encourage performance and denigrate failures as personal failings rather than inventing excuses based on societal shortcomings.  That's not a factor surely.

If only white people would stop being racist!  Damn us white people.

I'm increasingly concerned that there might be other factors systemically affecting the outcomes of certain people besides the racism of white people, and we're just blind to see it because the only ones conducting the research are convinced white people are racist.  I propose an experiment, all white people everywhere, lets not be racist for the next 100 years and see what happens.  You heard it here first folks!

Anecdotally, racism against Asians tends to be a lot less subtle and easier to call out.  I haven't ever accidentally made a joke about Asians due to a deep cultural blind spot, it was always overt and intended to be funny.  If I offended an Asian it was generally on purpose, not because I didn't understand a centuries old culture that had developed to help people deal with horrific violence on a daily basis.

All seriousness aside, those people suck at driving amiright?  There's a woman works in my building I've seen hit cars on her way out of the parking lot and just keep driving.  We created an "employee of the month" spot right near the parking lot exit and she's been employee of the month ever since.  My neighbor hit my car in my driveway, a solid 30' away from his driveway.  The first thing they said to me when I moved in was "ohhh, you looka like nice man, this good nayborhood, no black peepull awhahahahaha" which sorta made me have a blushing moment of...yea, that's great, nice to meet you, and then run inside so they don't see me laughing so hard.  Like that weird conversation with the grandparent you didn't realize was racist?

And that's how I learned that Asians are super racist.  I guess.  Just like white people.

freeedom

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #14 on: November 23, 2016, 02:23:47 PM »
The two coincide... economic success and lower perceived "threat" results in less racism.

Freedomin5

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #15 on: November 23, 2016, 04:28:27 PM »
Quote
Asian Americans — some of them at least — have made tremendous progress in the United States. But the greatest thing that ever happened to them wasn't that they studied hard, or that they benefited from tiger moms or Confucian values. It's that other Americans started treating them with a little more respect.

I don't think it's linear. Asian Americans studied hard, kept their heads down, didn't rock the boat, tried to fit into the community, etc. (Which are all typical Asian values). As a result, they weren't perceived as a threat or a drain on society, but as contributors to society. Therefore, people's perceptions of them started to change, which equates to less racism. Which removed some of the glass ceiling. Which allowed more result to show for their hard work.

There's a reason why Americans started treating them with more respect. All of the components needed to be in place for a positive stereotype of Asians to develop in the N. America which then reduced racism (negative stereotypes about a culture).

Abe

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #16 on: November 23, 2016, 06:46:25 PM »
this is such a homogenous group with such varied history that the analysis here is essentially meaningless. Are they talking about Americans who are the 3rd generation born and ancestors were from China? Vietnamese refugees from the 1960s? Indian engineers and physicians coming in the 1980s?

It's like an article saying "Secret to European American success was not working hard".


TheOldestYoungMan

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #17 on: November 23, 2016, 07:00:56 PM »
Aye Abe, I think there's a bit in there in the middle where they talk about focusing on the immigrants and descendants of those immigrants who were here before 1940?  Or at least, throwing out data from skilled white-collar types that arrived in the 60's?  But I might not be understanding that correctly.

I was given to understand that there were certain groups of Asians, particularly one kind that settled almost exclusively near Chicago, that has had stellar-baller-crazy outcomes and are rockin' out with their balls out, and some others in certain areas that did less well.

But that's like, dredged up facts from reading I did a very long time ago that may have actually been a bad movie plot or a dream...

Right away from reading it the failure to split the groups by country of origin sort of reduced the quality of the research from my perspective.  White people may be racist, but we're racist against each race in very specific and unique ways.  The Vietnamese experience is going to be very different from the Mongol experience.  Don't even get me started on the Mandarin chinese.  Cantons are OK.  I guess.  If you can't be white I mean.

Abe

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #18 on: November 23, 2016, 07:20:38 PM »
Aye Abe, I think there's a bit in there in the middle where they talk about focusing on the immigrants and descendants of those immigrants who were here before 1940?  Or at least, throwing out data from skilled white-collar types that arrived in the 60's?  But I might not be understanding that correctly.

I was given to understand that there were certain groups of Asians, particularly one kind that settled almost exclusively near Chicago, that has had stellar-baller-crazy outcomes and are rockin' out with their balls out, and some others in certain areas that did less well.

But that's like, dredged up facts from reading I did a very long time ago that may have actually been a bad movie plot or a dream...

Right away from reading it the failure to split the groups by country of origin sort of reduced the quality of the research from my perspective.  White people may be racist, but we're racist against each race in very specific and unique ways.  The Vietnamese experience is going to be very different from the Mongol experience.  Don't even get me started on the Mandarin chinese.  Cantons are OK.  I guess.  If you can't be white I mean.

I see that part of the article...still a really broad brush being used. In that case they are basically talking about a very small group of Japanese (post-internment) and Chinese (post anti-Chinese immigration laws) families. That is essentially meaningless to about 95% of Asians here in the US.

I'm quite familiar with the peculiarities of white (and Asian) racism. I'm assuming your last paragraph is sarcasm, but where I'm from that it could be taken at face value as just plain "I don't like you and here's why".


CarrieWillard

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #19 on: November 24, 2016, 11:41:47 AM »
Ok I'll bite.

The elephant in the room that nobody wants to acknowledge because it's impolite to suggest that people are different and have different strengths, talents and abilities is this:

IQ

There. I said it.

Why are Jews successful despite being hated and persecuted everywhere they've lived?
IQ.

Racism didn't keep them down. They achieved despite it.

Ditto for Asians.

I'm not saying IQ is everything, nor is it the ultimate measure of a person. Kindness is more important, IMO, and high IQ is also associated with more neuroticism.

However, it's pretty constant: high IQ is associated with higher achievement and lower criminality.

SwordGuy

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #20 on: November 24, 2016, 12:01:05 PM »
Ok I'll bite.

The elephant in the room that nobody wants to acknowledge because it's impolite to suggest that people are different and have different strengths, talents and abilities is this:

IQ

There. I said it.

Why are Jews successful despite being hated and persecuted everywhere they've lived?
IQ.

Racism didn't keep them down. They achieved despite it.

Ditto for Asians.

I'm not saying IQ is everything, nor is it the ultimate measure of a person. Kindness is more important, IMO, and high IQ is also associated with more neuroticism.

However, it's pretty constant: high IQ is associated with higher achievement and lower criminality.

The Jewish educational and religious system encourages strong critical thinking and negotiating skills.   That and hard work.

They aren't smarter because they are born that way, they are smarter because they are taught that way.


GuitarStv

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #21 on: November 24, 2016, 12:54:25 PM »
Why are Jews successful despite being hated and persecuted everywhere they've lived?
IQ.

Ditto for Asians.

racist - a person who believes that a particular race is superior to another

I get that you mean well with this post, but it is the definition of racist.  Asian people aren't born with naturally better IQ than black or white folks.  Neither are Jews.  You can argue that culturally there is a greater inclination towards emphasizing education . . . but it really sounds bad the way you worded it above.  :P

CarrieWillard

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #22 on: November 24, 2016, 01:06:52 PM »
Why are Jews successful despite being hated and persecuted everywhere they've lived?
IQ.

Ditto for Asians.

racist - a person who believes that a particular race is superior to another

I get that you mean well with this post, but it is the definition of racist.  Asian people aren't born with naturally better IQ than black or white folks.  Neither are Jews.  You can argue that culturally there is a greater inclination towards emphasizing education . . . but it really sounds bad the way you worded it above.  :P

Nope, stating that fact that Jews and Asians have high IQs is not racist, it's a fact backed by decades of research.

And I didn't say one race was SUPERIOR to another. I stated that IQ is not the measure of a person, but it does measure one's ability to learn, and is also associated with high time preference (ability to delay gratification, long-term thinking and planning), also associated with success.

Please don't put words in my mouth. IQ is a fact just like height, weight, etc are facts. Marion Cotillard is prettier than me, fact, but that doesn't make her a superior person. I'm assuming, since I've never met her, but you get the point.
« Last Edit: November 24, 2016, 01:09:46 PM by CarrieWillard »

CarrieWillard

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #23 on: November 24, 2016, 01:10:50 PM »
Why are Jews successful despite being hated and persecuted everywhere they've lived?
IQ.

Ditto for Asians.

racist - a person who believes that a particular race is superior to another

I get that you mean well with this post, but it is the definition of racist.  Asian people aren't born with naturally better IQ than black or white folks.  Neither are Jews.  You can argue that culturally there is a greater inclination towards emphasizing education . . . but it really sounds bad the way you worded it above.  :P

This begs the question, WHY do some cultures value and emphasize education?

marty998

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #24 on: November 24, 2016, 01:32:28 PM »
Throwing it out there, but I wonder how much of the breaking down barriers is also due to the cult of celebrity. I would suggest the likes of Jackie Chan did more than most to help change the perceptions and ingrained stereotypes of Asians living in western society.

Why are Jews successful despite being hated and persecuted everywhere they've lived?
IQ.

Ditto for Asians.

racist - a person who believes that a particular race is superior to another

I get that you mean well with this post, but it is the definition of racist.  Asian people aren't born with naturally better IQ than black or white folks.  Neither are Jews.  You can argue that culturally there is a greater inclination towards emphasizing education . . . but it really sounds bad the way you worded it above.  :P

Nope, stating that fact that Jews and Asians have high IQs is not racist, it's a fact backed by decades of research.

And I didn't say one race was SUPERIOR to another. I stated that IQ is not the measure of a person, but it does measure one's ability to learn, and is also associated with high time preference (ability to delay gratification, long-term thinking and planning), also associated with success.

Please don't put words in my mouth. IQ is a fact just like height, weight, etc are facts. Marion Cotillard is prettier than me, fact, but that doesn't make her a superior person. I'm assuming, since I've never met her, but you get the point.

Darwinian theory that highly educated, professional, or entreprenuerial parents are more likely to to enforce an expectation on their children to turn out highly educated, professional or entreprenuerial, and importantly, are likely to role model that expected behaviour?

GuitarStv

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #25 on: November 24, 2016, 07:10:47 PM »
Why are Jews successful despite being hated and persecuted everywhere they've lived?
IQ.

Ditto for Asians.

racist - a person who believes that a particular race is superior to another

I get that you mean well with this post, but it is the definition of racist.  Asian people aren't born with naturally better IQ than black or white folks.  Neither are Jews.  You can argue that culturally there is a greater inclination towards emphasizing education . . . but it really sounds bad the way you worded it above.  :P

Nope, stating that fact that Jews and Asians have high IQs is not racist, it's a fact backed by decades of research.

And I didn't say one race was SUPERIOR to another. I stated that IQ is not the measure of a person, but it does measure one's ability to learn, and is also associated with high time preference (ability to delay gratification, long-term thinking and planning), also associated with success.

Please don't put words in my mouth. IQ is a fact just like height, weight, etc are facts. Marion Cotillard is prettier than me, fact, but that doesn't make her a superior person. I'm assuming, since I've never met her, but you get the point.

Do you believe that Jews and Asians get superior IQ scores than other groups because of their race?  If so, then that's the definition of racism.  If you're trying to argue that educational/cultural practices are the determinant of IQ, and that Jewish/Asian culture tends to emphasize these more then there's a lot that we can discuss on those lines.  From my point of view, it's not really clear that you were saying the latter in the post I originally responded to though . . . hence my response.



This begs the question, WHY do some cultures value and emphasize education?

Probably the same reason that some cultures believe in a glowing man in the sky while others believe in dozens of them.  Dumb luck, historical oddity, and social Darwinism?

katsiki

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #26 on: November 24, 2016, 07:33:45 PM »
I have nothing intelligent to contribute to the discussion, only to say that I'm half "fancy Asian", think the memes are hilarious, and suggest watching Ali Wong's "Baby Cobra" on Netflix.

I am curious what a "fancy asian" is.  Is that a term or meme?!

Letj

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #27 on: November 24, 2016, 07:58:28 PM »
Asian immigration is a success story everywhere they go, not just north America. They are second only to the jews, the other ethnic/cultural group that is overrepresented in virtually every measure of success bar athleticism.

Whatever they are doing, it's working.

I know for sure having lived in outside of the US where there are Asian immigrants that their skin color is the biggest factor in their acceptance and therefore prosperity. Most immigrants are very hard working including many immigrants for Africa but do not have the success Asians have (read light skin Asians). Discrimination and racism are through the roof in most Asian countries and you are ranked and stacked based on skin color. Chinese walk around on beaches fully cloth from head to toe because being dark in China, Vietnam, Philippines, any Asian country is very much abhorred. If you look at Singapore or Malaysia, for example, the darker skin Asians or the Malay do not have the same opportunities as the lighter skin Asians. Also look at the United States; what Asian skin color is the example of success? certainly not the darker ones of which there are many.

limeandpepper

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #28 on: November 24, 2016, 08:05:12 PM »
the Malay do not have the same opportunities as the lighter skin Asians.

HAHAHHAHAHAHAHA.

Read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumiputera_(Malaysia)

Quote
For instance, all Bumiputra, regardless of their financial standing, are entitled 7 percent discount on houses or property, including luxurious units; whilst a low-income non-Bumiputra receives no such financial assistance. Other preferential policies include quotas for the following: admission to government educational institutions, qualification for public scholarships, marking of universities exam papers, special bumiputras-only classes prior to university's end of term exams, for positions in government, and ownership of businesses.

Please don't talk to me about how Malays are discriminated against in Malaysia, thanks.

yakamashii

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #29 on: November 24, 2016, 08:28:14 PM »
I have nothing intelligent to contribute to the discussion, only to say that I'm half "fancy Asian", think the memes are hilarious, and suggest watching Ali Wong's "Baby Cobra" on Netflix.

I am curious what a "fancy asian" is.  Is that a term or meme?!

Ali Wong and her husband have parents with four different Asian ancestries (Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese and Filipino if I'm not mistaken), and she joked that the combos work out such each of them is half "Fancy Asian" (East Asian) and half "Jungle Asian" (Southeast/rest of Asia-Asian).

mxt0133

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #30 on: November 25, 2016, 12:14:42 AM »
Ok I'll bite.

The elephant in the room that nobody wants to acknowledge because it's impolite to suggest that people are different and have different strengths, talents and abilities is this:

IQ

There. I said it.

Why are Jews successful despite being hated and persecuted everywhere they've lived?
IQ.

Racism didn't keep them down. They achieved despite it.

Ditto for Asians.

I'm not saying IQ is everything, nor is it the ultimate measure of a person. Kindness is more important, IMO, and high IQ is also associated with more neuroticism.

However, it's pretty constant: high IQ is associated with higher achievement and lower criminality.

Do you happen to have a reference to this?  What is the sample size?  Were the statistic for the given group representative of the entire population, meaning Asians or Jews all over the world or just in the US?

Asian's that come to the US are a self-selecting group.  During the 1970-80's immigration was opened up for skilled individuals, those with college degrees and above.  This is a big factor on the whole Asian's are hardworking and intelligent stereotype.  But if you sample Asians in their home country the majority of them do not have high levels of education.

The book "Asian American Achievement Paradox"* covers the topic of why Asians are very successful in America compared to other immigrant populations.

One of the paradox addressed are why Asians as a group in the US attains higher level of education in the US vs Mexicans in the US.  However Asians in their home country have lower levels of education overall compared to people that live in Mexico.  One explanation is that Asians that migrate to the US do so because they fill skilled work jobs and have higher educational levels coming in vs those that come from Mexico that fill unskilled work.

Here is another good article that backs up what the book covers.
http://blogs.voanews.com/all-about-america/2016/04/11/why-asian-americans-are-the-most-educated-group-in-america/

*https://www.amazon.com/Asian-American-Achievement-Paradox/dp/0871545470/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1480057192&sr=8-1&keywords=asian+american+paradox

EDIT: Typos and new link
« Last Edit: November 25, 2016, 12:19:48 AM by mxt0133 »

CarrieWillard

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #31 on: November 25, 2016, 07:13:54 AM »
Why are Jews successful despite being hated and persecuted everywhere they've lived?
IQ.

Ditto for Asians.

racist - a person who believes that a particular race is superior to another

I get that you mean well with this post, but it is the definition of racist.  Asian people aren't born with naturally better IQ than black or white folks.  Neither are Jews.  You can argue that culturally there is a greater inclination towards emphasizing education . . . but it really sounds bad the way you worded it above.  :P

Nope, stating that fact that Jews and Asians have high IQs is not racist, it's a fact backed by decades of research.

And I didn't say one race was SUPERIOR to another. I stated that IQ is not the measure of a person, but it does measure one's ability to learn, and is also associated with high time preference (ability to delay gratification, long-term thinking and planning), also associated with success.

Please don't put words in my mouth. IQ is a fact just like height, weight, etc are facts. Marion Cotillard is prettier than me, fact, but that doesn't make her a superior person. I'm assuming, since I've never met her, but you get the point.

Do you believe that Jews and Asians get superior IQ scores than other groups because of their race?  If so, then that's the definition of racism.  If you're trying to argue that educational/cultural practices are the determinant of IQ, and that Jewish/Asian culture tends to emphasize these more then there's a lot that we can discuss on those lines.  From my point of view, it's not really clear that you were saying the latter in the post I originally responded to though . . . hence my response.



This begs the question, WHY do some cultures value and emphasize education?

Probably the same reason that some cultures believe in a glowing man in the sky while others believe in dozens of them.  Dumb luck, historical oddity, and social Darwinism?

Do Jews and Asians have higher IQs because of their race? Not exactly, they have higher IQs because of genetics. And if they had higher IQs because of their race, how is that somehow evil to acknowledge? Doesn't their race/genetics give Asians straight black hair and a skin fold of the upper eyelid that covers the inner angle of the eye?

My race gives me paler skin. Since I'm about 1/16th black, I have curly, coarse hair. Since I'm 1/8th Italian, I can tan instead of burn. Is this offensive to say? Not to me. It's just genetics.

Who said anything about one feature being better than another? I have 7 kids, they're all very different and it's quite clear that they were born that way. Their personalities, looks, talents, skills, abilities are a result of genes, not my parenting.

In the nature versus nurture question, science is pretty clear that nature is the stronger.
« Last Edit: November 25, 2016, 07:17:09 AM by CarrieWillard »

GoConfidently

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #32 on: November 25, 2016, 07:36:59 AM »
Why are Jews successful despite being hated and persecuted everywhere they've lived?
IQ.

Ditto for Asians.

racist - a person who believes that a particular race is superior to another

I get that you mean well with this post, but it is the definition of racist.  Asian people aren't born with naturally better IQ than black or white folks.  Neither are Jews.  You can argue that culturally there is a greater inclination towards emphasizing education . . . but it really sounds bad the way you worded it above.  :P

Nope, stating that fact that Jews and Asians have high IQs is not racist, it's a fact backed by decades of research.

And I didn't say one race was SUPERIOR to another. I stated that IQ is not the measure of a person, but it does measure one's ability to learn, and is also associated with high time preference (ability to delay gratification, long-term thinking and planning), also associated with success.

Please don't put words in my mouth. IQ is a fact just like height, weight, etc are facts. Marion Cotillard is prettier than me, fact, but that doesn't make her a superior person. I'm assuming, since I've never met her, but you get the point.

Do you believe that Jews and Asians get superior IQ scores than other groups because of their race?  If so, then that's the definition of racism.  If you're trying to argue that educational/cultural practices are the determinant of IQ, and that Jewish/Asian culture tends to emphasize these more then there's a lot that we can discuss on those lines.  From my point of view, it's not really clear that you were saying the latter in the post I originally responded to though . . . hence my response.



This begs the question, WHY do some cultures value and emphasize education?

Probably the same reason that some cultures believe in a glowing man in the sky while others believe in dozens of them.  Dumb luck, historical oddity, and social Darwinism?

Do Jews and Asians have higher IQs because of their race? Not exactly, they have higher IQs because of genetics. And if they had higher IQs because of their race, how is that somehow evil to acknowledge? Doesn't their race/genetics give Asians straight black hair and a skin fold of the upper eyelid that covers the inner angle of the eye?

My race gives me paler skin. Since I'm about 1/16th black, I have curly, coarse hair. Since I'm 1/8th Italian, I can tan instead of burn. Is this offensive to say? Not to me. It's just genetics.

Who said anything about one feature being better than another? I have 7 kids, they're all very different and it's quite clear that they were born that way. Their personalities, looks, talents, skills, abilities are a result of genes, not my parenting.

In the nature versus nurture question, science is pretty clear that nature is the stronger.

Your whole argument is based on a premise that is false, outdated, and frankly dangerous. You can not correlate race and IQ. Our whole concept of IQ is messed up and narrow and based on outdated science. Adding race into the mix just makes it racist to boot.

"Studies over the past 50 years based on IQ tests have suggested that there could be inherent differences in intelligence between racial groups, social classes and between men and women, but these conclusions are undermined by the latest findings, Dr Highfield said.

“We already know that, from a scientific point of view, the notion of race is meaningless. Genetic differences do not map on to traditional measurements of skin colour, hair type, body proportions and skull measurements. Now we have shown that IQ is meaningless too,” Dr Highfield said."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/iq-tests-are-fundamentally-flawed-and-using-them-alone-to-measure-intelligence-is-a-fallacy-study-8425911.html

GuitarStv

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #33 on: November 25, 2016, 08:05:24 AM »
Why are Jews successful despite being hated and persecuted everywhere they've lived?
IQ.

Ditto for Asians.

racist - a person who believes that a particular race is superior to another

I get that you mean well with this post, but it is the definition of racist.  Asian people aren't born with naturally better IQ than black or white folks.  Neither are Jews.  You can argue that culturally there is a greater inclination towards emphasizing education . . . but it really sounds bad the way you worded it above.  :P

Nope, stating that fact that Jews and Asians have high IQs is not racist, it's a fact backed by decades of research.

And I didn't say one race was SUPERIOR to another. I stated that IQ is not the measure of a person, but it does measure one's ability to learn, and is also associated with high time preference (ability to delay gratification, long-term thinking and planning), also associated with success.

Please don't put words in my mouth. IQ is a fact just like height, weight, etc are facts. Marion Cotillard is prettier than me, fact, but that doesn't make her a superior person. I'm assuming, since I've never met her, but you get the point.

Do you believe that Jews and Asians get superior IQ scores than other groups because of their race?  If so, then that's the definition of racism.  If you're trying to argue that educational/cultural practices are the determinant of IQ, and that Jewish/Asian culture tends to emphasize these more then there's a lot that we can discuss on those lines.  From my point of view, it's not really clear that you were saying the latter in the post I originally responded to though . . . hence my response.



This begs the question, WHY do some cultures value and emphasize education?

Probably the same reason that some cultures believe in a glowing man in the sky while others believe in dozens of them.  Dumb luck, historical oddity, and social Darwinism?

Do Jews and Asians have higher IQs because of their race? Not exactly, they have higher IQs because of genetics. And if they had higher IQs because of their race, how is that somehow evil to acknowledge? Doesn't their race/genetics give Asians straight black hair and a skin fold of the upper eyelid that covers the inner angle of the eye?

My race gives me paler skin. Since I'm about 1/16th black, I have curly, coarse hair. Since I'm 1/8th Italian, I can tan instead of burn. Is this offensive to say? Not to me. It's just genetics.

Who said anything about one feature being better than another? I have 7 kids, they're all very different and it's quite clear that they were born that way. Their personalities, looks, talents, skills, abilities are a result of genes, not my parenting.

In the nature versus nurture question, science is pretty clear that nature is the stronger.

You believe that Jews and Asians are genetically predisposed to have higher IQ.  OK.  Can you provide any studies or scientific evidence to support these claims?  Given that they're the same arguments put forth to justify eugenics, I'm sure that you understand the need for strong evidence to back up this type of claim.



Who said anything about one feature being better than another?

You did, when you said that the success of Asians and Jews was directly linked to their IQ.  Success is by definition better than failure or mediocrity, which are the alternatives.



In the nature versus nurture question, science is pretty clear that nature is the stronger.

None of the arguments that I've read about the benefits of genetic gifts vs environment on development and intelligence have conclusively shown this.  Can you provide some of the science you're referring to?

wenchsenior

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #34 on: November 25, 2016, 08:06:32 AM »
I think people confuse the inherent range of IQs present in groups of people in the very broadest sense with the potential effects of assortative mating, which is one of the things that causes the appearance of new traits, disappearance of traits, and is one of the drivers of speciation in animals. People are just animals, after all, and selective breeding affects us just as much as any. In the case of modern American society, we self-select for IQ (among other traits) when mating.

One of the things that causes high IQs to be concentrated over time in certain groups is assortative mating, which tends to reinforce itself under certain conditions (such as those that exist in the U.S.). One thing that happens now is that our educational and work opportunities tend to fall disproportionately to those of above average IQ (and, to some degree wealth, which is often but not always correlated with higher than average IQ), the people that have those opportunities naturally seek out and mate with each other (and they tend to grow up, go to school, and then work in somewhat siloed communities consisting of people similar to them), thus resulting in their kids having better than average chances of having higher than average IQs. 

Now that particular phenom isn't so much associated with race or cultural identity initially, but if you add in the history of immigration, you might find that some races, cultures, or subgroups were more or less likely to immigrate to the U.S. at different times of our history. Right now, a lot of immigrants come over for college or on work visas for high tech industry. Those immigrants are more likely to be of higher than average intelligence, and while in the U.S. would probably be likely to meet, and preferentially pair with, people most like them (other Asians working in college or tech). And within a couple generations, you end up have a subgroup with intelligence that is higher than the average American pool.

GuitarStv

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #35 on: November 25, 2016, 08:18:54 AM »
There are also an awful lot of issues with using IQ as a measurement of intelligence at all.  ( https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/what-do-iq-tests-test-interview-with-psychologist-w-joel-schneider/, http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/Bias-in-Mental-Testing-since-Bias-in-Mental-Testing.pdf)


There's also the issue of whether it's really valid to use 'race' as a term, (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/tran.2000.9.2.19/abstract;jsessionid=2AB13546F689F12CB0B1985EC4D8059E.f01t04) and the consequent problems with attempting to base science on folk taxonomy rather than scientific (https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/97be/61fff58f878e8d35ea7a4cadc9d1f3240254.pdf).

SwordGuy

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #36 on: November 25, 2016, 08:28:26 AM »
So the Chinese who came over to be railroad workers were the cream of the Chinese intelligentsia???   I don't think so.

IQ testing has a number of serious flaws.  Chief among them is the fact that those who actively study and read a lot, particularly with an eye to learning material as opposed to escapism reading, will do much, much better on the test.   

Just follow the comments on any internet site if you don't believe me that a huge swath of the American public has very weak reading comprehension skills.

Another flaw is that the social content of the questions may be unfamiliar to some groups of people.   There have been a number of IQ style tests done that use different ethnic cultures as the basis for the test instead of the white middle class culture.  The Chitling IQ test was the first that I'm aware of.


wenchsenior

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #37 on: November 25, 2016, 08:33:55 AM »
So the Chinese who came over to be railroad workers were the cream of the Chinese intelligentsia???   I don't think so.

IQ testing has a number of serious flaws.  Chief among them is the fact that those who actively study and read a lot, particularly with an eye to learning material as opposed to escapism reading, will do much, much better on the test.   

Just follow the comments on any internet site if you don't believe me that a huge swath of the American public has very weak reading comprehension skills.

Another flaw is that the social content of the questions may be unfamiliar to some groups of people.   There have been a number of IQ style tests done that use different ethnic cultures as the basis for the test instead of the white middle class culture.  The Chitling IQ test was the first that I'm aware of.


Just to clarify, I did not say that. I said that at different times in different places (including the U.S.) there is likely to be self selection for different traits among immigrants, depending on what and where opportunities are in the destinations and what/where potential pressures are in the countries of origin. At this particular time in the U.S., a lot of immigrants are self selected (and selected FOR by opportunities and employers in the U.S.) for traits associated with higher intelligence.

S.S.

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #38 on: November 26, 2016, 06:16:35 PM »
I already know I will regret entering into this discussion as I type this, but I will bite.

2nd gen Korean here.  Parents immigrated to the U.S. from South Korea roughly 30 years ago.  Father, who I believe was college-educated prior to coming here, of course had to start all over upon arrival.  Mother worked shitty waitressing jobs to support him while he studied.  Today he and my mom are set to retire soon after many years of running his (successful?) dental practice. 

Few thoughts from where I stand:

1. Consider the source.  It's the Washington Post.  Everyone has an agenda and a bias.  YMMV with this article but coming to the conclusion that Asians only began to seriously succeed in the States because Whites started being less mean to us is just silly and pretty patronizing IMHO.

2. To me, the IQ debate is pointless.  Maybe Jews and Asians have a better natural aptitude for academics than, say, Blacks and Hispanics, maybe they don't.  Maybe (IQ) tests are severely flawed.  Maybe they aren't.  If there is a difference on a genetic level between various races and ethnicities regarding intelligence, I'd bet my life savings it's so slight that this alone does not translate into any real advantage.  That being said, what DOES seem to matter is

(a) An intact family.  Mom and Dad staying together and raising their children TOGETHER.  What is the percentage of children born to unwed parents in Asian or Jewish families?  Thinking it's puh-ritty low.

(b) Mom and Dad understanding that a good education is the key to future success.  To add to a previous poster's point- the suicide rate among Asians is disturbingly high.  Japanese men (in Japan) especially seem to be tragically susceptible to becoming a statistic.  That's a consequence of a culture that pushes children to be ultra-successful, while defining "success" in very superficial and narrow terms.

3. Goddamn am I lucky to have been born here instead of Korea.  I had the advantage of parents who instilled in me the value of learning and education, but I was also introduced to families (read middle-class White families) who not only wanted to see their kids succeed in the traditional sense, but also cared if they were HAPPY.  You need that balance or you might find yourself jumping off a skyscraper to your death just because some business deal didn't go the way you wanted.

The way I see it, anybody can raise "Asian" kids.  We are all the same on the inside no matter the color of our skin or the shape of our eyes.  Just marry her if you knock her up and make sure your kids thoroughly understand the later advantages of doing well in school.

Kriegsspiel

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #39 on: November 26, 2016, 06:32:04 PM »
Ok I'll bite.

The elephant in the room that nobody wants to acknowledge because it's impolite to suggest that people are different and have different strengths, talents and abilities is this:

IQ

There. I said it.

Why are Jews successful despite being hated and persecuted everywhere they've lived?
IQ.

Racism didn't keep them down. They achieved despite it.

Ditto for Asians.

I'm not saying IQ is everything, nor is it the ultimate measure of a person. Kindness is more important, IMO, and high IQ is also associated with more neuroticism.

However, it's pretty constant: high IQ is associated with higher achievement and lower criminality.

Do you happen to have a reference to this?  What is the sample size?  Were the statistic for the given group representative of the entire population, meaning Asians or Jews all over the world or just in the US?


You believe that Jews and Asians are genetically predisposed to have higher IQ.  OK.  Can you provide any studies or scientific evidence to support these claims?  Given that they're the same arguments put forth to justify eugenics, I'm sure that you understand the need for strong evidence to back up this type of claim.

It's been a while, but I remember the authors of The 10,000 Year Explosion spent a lot of pages talking about how Ashkenazi Jews specifically have higher IQs than other populations. I don't remember if they had listed their references though.

Letj

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #40 on: November 26, 2016, 07:52:50 PM »
Ok I'll bite.

The elephant in the room that nobody wants to acknowledge because it's impolite to suggest that people are different and have different strengths, talents and abilities is this:

IQ

There. I said it.

Why are Jews successful despite being hated and persecuted everywhere they've lived?
IQ.

Racism didn't keep them down. They achieved despite it.

Ditto for Asians.

I'm not saying IQ is everything, nor is it the ultimate measure of a person. Kindness is more important, IMO, and high IQ is also associated with more neuroticism.

However, it's pretty constant: high IQ is associated with higher achievement and lower criminality.

Do you happen to have a reference to this?  What is the sample size?  Were the statistic for the given group representative of the entire population, meaning Asians or Jews all over the world or just in the US?

Asian's that come to the US are a self-selecting group.  During the 1970-80's immigration was opened up for skilled individuals, those with college degrees and above.  This is a big factor on the whole Asian's are hardworking and intelligent stereotype.  But if you sample Asians in their home country the majority of them do not have high levels of education.

The book "Asian American Achievement Paradox"* covers the topic of why Asians are very successful in America compared to other immigrant populations.

One of the paradox addressed are why Asians as a group in the US attains higher level of education in the US vs Mexicans in the US.  However Asians in their home country have lower levels of education overall compared to people that live in Mexico.  One explanation is that Asians that migrate to the US do so because they fill skilled work jobs and have higher educational levels coming in vs those that come from Mexico that fill unskilled work.

Here is another good article that backs up what the book covers.
http://blogs.voanews.com/all-about-america/2016/04/11/why-asian-americans-are-the-most-educated-group-in-america/

*https://www.amazon.com/Asian-American-Achievement-Paradox/dp/0871545470/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1480057192&sr=8-1&keywords=asian+american+paradox

EDIT: Typos and new link

One of the reasons why Americans tend to think Asians are so intelligent and hardworking is precisely because they do not get the full story of what living in Asia is like. Not only do the vast majority of Asians have little education, a sizeable chunk is completely illiterate. The poverty in some parts of Asia is just as sickening as what you see in Africa. For China in particular, most people are uneducated, dirt poor and live in the countryside. If you look at Asia as a whole and not just the self selecting group in America you would get a more complete view of Asians. They are no different from everybody else. Nigerians are one of the most successful immigrant group in the US and are the holders of the most Phds as a group but do you here anybody saying Nigerians are hardworking and are model citizens? I wonder why.

Paul der Krake

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #41 on: November 26, 2016, 08:07:10 PM »
One of the reasons why Americans tend to think Asians are so intelligent and hardworking is precisely because they do not get the full story of what living in Asia is like. Not only do the vast majority of Asians have little education, a sizeable chunk is completely illiterate. The poverty in some parts of Asia is just as sickening as what you see in Africa. For China in particular, most people are uneducated, dirt poor and live in the countryside. If you look at Asia as a whole and not just the self selecting group in America you would get a more complete view of Asians. They are no different from everybody else. Nigerians are one of the most successful immigrant group in the US and are the holders of the most Phds as a group but do you here anybody saying Nigerians are hardworking and are model citizens? I wonder why.
Nigerian immigrants look like African-Americans. Canadian and German immigrants look like white Americans and nobody thinks of them as immigrants. We just think of them as being from Canada and Germany. The term "immigrant" as is used today is pretty much reserved for people who would be significantly worse if they had stayed in their country of origin. Whether that's true or not is highly debatable- Japan and Korea are first world countries and economic powerhouses, but intuitively they get lumped with India and China.

Poundwise

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #42 on: November 26, 2016, 10:11:01 PM »
I don't know... my parents experienced plenty of racism when they came to this country in the 50s in the Northeast.  Nobody in a nice neighborhood would rent an apartment to them so they had to live in the slums. They really sweated to get us kids to study hard, and I well remember looking out the window on summer days, wishing I could go out and play like the other (non Asian) kids. And I remember kids and adults sneering "chink" at us, pulling their eye skin at me, and prank calling us with "chingy chongy" noises. Those people probably didn't cut us any favors, though I suppose we were lucky they didn't think we were dangerous and call the police on us. I always had a lot of sympathy for people with darker skin because they had it worse. I used to read about the civil rights movement and think, "Yeah!"

My dad made it because he worked day and night. And all we kids worked for him, for free.

 Now I'm raising my own kids.  I don't push them half as hard as my parents pushed me, but still I can't stand laziness and self-entitlement so poor grades are not an option. I don't think they're unusually smart, but we try to make the best with what we have. If something is worth doing, it's worth doing well. However I don't feel confident that they will be tremendous "successes", though they may end up being happy and that's good enough.

My husband is not Asian, but he's second generation like me.  He's been very successful, too (actually rather more than me) but he doesn't stick out because his parents are from Europe.  They worked crazy hard, too.

Nah, I don't buy it.  People were racist towards Asians even unto the 1980s from my experience. The author of the study didn't seem to control enough for generation since immigration... a native born child of immigrants is not the same as a native born fourth generation American.
 


Leisured

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #43 on: November 27, 2016, 05:29:35 AM »

I am Australian, another immigrant country, and I think that Americans on this forum have forgotten their history. Wenchsenior mentioned the idea of self-selection, and this applied to European immigrants any time from about 1700 to early twentieth century. I presume nearly all American contributors to this forum were born in America.

In Australia, we have had waves of immigrants, mostly Anglo Saxon throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Italians and Greeks after WW2, Vietnamese after the Vietnam War, and recently and controversially, Muslim immigrants from dysfunctional Middle East nations. Not to mention Australian Aborigines about 50K years ago.

The experience of immigrants is that they work hard and live frugally. They also understand investment, and have no objection to buying investments, usually real estate.

I get the impression that our immigrants regard education as something that you need to do and need to do well. They select career paths such as medicine or law that pay well.


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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #44 on: November 27, 2016, 10:06:10 AM »
I think if you change the time period and place and replace "Asian" with whatever cultural group makes up the majority of immigrants in that situation, you get a similar outcome:

1. First generation deals with incredibly strong prejudice, sometimes clear and overt but sometimes disguised as "they're not trying hard enough to assimilate" or "they're stealing our jobs". But they've come from a situation of poverty or extremely limited opportunity, so they work like crazy and push their children to take advantage of the new country's opportunity (in practice, this usually means education). In Canada right now, this would be mostly folks from the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa and China.

2. Second generation often feels pressured when they compare themselves to native-born peers, but often kick ass in school and build interesting hybrid friendship groups and identities. They face prejudice, but it's lowered because they have no "foreign" accent and they understand the new country's social norms. This is my generation, and in Canada right now I guess would be mostly people with ethnic roots in the subcontinent or Caribbean, descendants of the Vietnamese boat people, etc.

3. Third generations are fairly thorough assimilated to the new culture. They hang on tight to (often mostly symbolic) aspects of their grandparents' culture (food, festivals, folkdance!), but often don't speak the language. By this point the host society has pretty well gotten used to them, so most remaining prejudice comes from people most of us would uncontroversially describe as "racist assholes". In Canada: Italians, Greeks, Poles, early-arriving brown folks (because Canada's immigration policies became much less racist around 1960).

4. Fourth and subsequent generations are assimilated. In Canada, this is made easier by the fact that most of those folks are phenotypically "white", but even that description comes in part from changing ideas of who's inside whiteness. See the book "How the Irish Became White". In Canada: eastern European Jews, Germans, Irish, Ukrainians. At this point, people end up distributed across the spectrum wrt success, based almost entirely on skills, ability, effort, etc... as a Black friend of mine says, "if you're white and your people have been here for six generations, and you're not rich, somebody's fucked up."

I realize I'm replacing ethnic stereotyping with generational and historical stereotyping or simplification here, but I still think something like this holds pretty well. The process seems remarkably clear in Australia, where the country's need for (and unfamiliarity with) immigrants in past generations has led to really overt government efforts to introduce old-school to new "exotic" foreigners, which started with... the Finns!

RetiredAt63

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #45 on: November 28, 2016, 06:42:07 AM »
What Gerard said.  Also Canadian immigration and cultural acceptance was much more focused on religion and language than skin colour (because until the underground railway most immigrants were European).  So Roman Catholic Irish orphans off the plague ships were adopted by French-Canadian families because they were Catholic (hence Claude Ryan could be seen as pur laine) instead of English Protestant ones.  Then Greek Orthodox! And Jewish! And now Muslim!  Canadian history is full of expanding numbers of religious groups.  The dynamic is different than that of the US because we started with large numbers of people with 2 different religions (Roman Catholic and Protestant) instead of mostly one group (Protestant).  I still remember wondering why there was so much fuss in the US because JFK was Roman Catholic.  It was not a big deal here, many of our PMs have been Roman Catholic, but it was there.

Who comes also depends on the nature of the country.  When most Canadians were farmers, our immigrants were farmers.  Now most of our immigrants (as opposed to refugees) are well educated and settle in cities.

RangerOne

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #46 on: November 28, 2016, 07:05:41 PM »
People are still plenty racist towards Asians in a casual sense. Even in San Diego I'll here the occasional aside, well we would send our kid there but there are so many Asians. Or all those good public schools are filled with Asians so we use private. I hear this stuff from random well off Caucasian acquaintances often especially ones living in more affluent areas with more white christian dominated communities. Casual complaining about how overrun colleges are with hyper competitive Asians can also be rampant especially at schools like UCSD. Some of my friends were guilty of it. I am not white my self, more of a half bread English Hispanic mix, but most have no qualms about sharing those sentiments.

I lend no merit to the assertion that race plays any important role in success. Family values and emphasis on schooling plays heavily into success though.

If you have a culture or demographic where the families place very high value on college and profitable professions and follow through on pushing their kids that direction well low and behold you will have demographic groups that succeed more than others.

Emphasizing math, science, engineering and medicine is almost a guaranteed recipe for moderate to high amounts success in the US. With these degrees you are pretty much guaranteed a job no matter what college you go to. You can pay for it all with loans knowing your job will help you pay it back. Demand is so high for engineering and medicine it is almost impossible to fail. I knew kids that got shit scores on the MCAT that went on to bottom tier med schools and are still on track to become doctors. Even with crushing debt 10 year forgiveness and a close to 200k salary close the gap eventually. And unlike lawyers if you survive med-school you basically go straight into job placement. Engineers make loads of money off generally cheap degrees and most hard sciences fall somewhere on the spectrum of an engineering job.

It would be interesting to look at a study of family structure at home, single parent versus dual parent household, and what educational and professional values were emphasized and to what extent. When I look at different social groups especially friends from different Asian communities I see a lot of parents guilt tripping their offspring continually if they chose to not go into one of these professions. I have seen kids fight like hell to not deal with med school until finally cave and give it a try.

If you don't push these kind of things you are going to end up with whatever kids are naturally are inclined to do which often involves squandering their future or money. American culture in a vacuum tends to emphasis bullshit, fun and consumption so you have to double down to push kids past the distractions.

TheOldestYoungMan

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #47 on: November 29, 2016, 07:07:22 PM »
Holy Shit!

IQ is not a thing you are born with.

Holy Fucking Shit!

Your IQ will change related to a whole host of factors, not least of which is that the questions and tasks on the IQ test are not varied (or at least, not as of 2000 when I last researched it, and therefore not in any research that would have any statistical significance over any kind of timeframe like we're discussing) based on where you come from.  The smartest person in the world who just by accident of birth was born outside of a euro-centric or western culture will score vastly lower than someone from those cultures.

For instance, one common question has to do with being able to identify a renaissance era musician by name.  Someone who grew up without any access to the culture that would provide that information (like a good school or cable tv access) doesn't stand a chance, even if they're an expert in 9th century Indian culture.  Even if they are themselves a world renowned musician.

IQ measures a persons inquisitiveness against a metric of knowledge gained by a similarly inquisitive person, adjusted for age.  But as it was developed by...you know...white people, it can't be used to evaluate people outside that socioeconomic group because THERE IS NO BASELINE!

A person born into privilege who undergoes some trauma at age 20 that keeps them from learning much for a year isn't any stupider but will score lower on IQ tests.  Likewise, as you get older, you naturally score higher on an IQ test just because.

People who watched animaniacs will score higher on an IQ test than people who didn't.  Because the answers are built into the show, intentionally or coincidentally.

If you took German in high school you'll score 15 points higher than anyone else, because the test was originally developed by a german and most version have holdovers relative to german culture that you are just not going to be exposed to without studying the language (i mean, maybe).

The IQ measure, fundamentally, is probably the example of institutional racism you've been looking for.  Entrenched academia measured something about each other, obscure trivia about ancient European culture for example, and then foisted that on an unsuspecting public as a way of identifying if a person is a bit dim.  Likewise with geometric puzzles and sorting puzzles that have worked their way into the fabric of growing up in the west.  Kids toys that advertise increasing your kids IQ scores work, BECAUSE IT IS LITERALLY TEST PREP!  Comparing results to people that didn't grow up with that shit is like faulting someone for not using advanced strategies like guessing randomly in the last ten seconds on the rest of the questions on a multiple choice test when it was the first time they ever took a test in that format.

This has been a known problem with it as a metric for a long time, entire studies have been conducted on the lasting damage done by the misuse of this metric by overzealous social engineers convinced this gave them some basis for their horribly discriminatory policies based on perceived differences in mental acuity.

So yea, asians whose parents forced them to memorize the history book from their white school and paid for music lessons are going to score better on IQ tests than kids whose parents didn't because there actually isn't much inherent value from those acts (aside from history being interesting and music being fun).

IQ measures how well you've absorbed the context of white culture.

If you don't believe it, go have yourself fucking tested and think about the questions they are asking you.  Evaluate the test yourself.  The last time you were tested you were probably a kid.  Think about how you'd do if you hadn't grown up with western television and books.  Go ask the smartest non-western immigrant you know some of the questions you're suspicious about and watch as they have no clue.  And you only know because it was on an episode of G.I.Joe when you were nine.

If you still doubt it, go and study the topics you were asked about and take it again, watch your score go up 70 points.

Kids who grow up in houses where all the windows in the house are horizontal instead of vertical will score 20 points lower on some versions of the test, unless the person administering it notices the discrepancy, asks about it, and corrects the results.

Ah ha! So not only is it not great to begin with, but it relies on the administrator to adjust the values based on the subject!  Yea, this is good science we should base our theories on.

Holy Shit Guys!

Source:  I took an IQ test for a graduate student, scored 155 or so, clearly off the far end of genius scale (and clearly far smarter than apparently seemed to the student) and so did all of my friends.  He sat us all down and started rooting around for the source of our ability to do the tasks so quickly and accurately, and how we knew the answers to all the questions, and it was literally as simple as we all watched animaniacs and spent an inordinate amount of time as kids playing with legos.  He wrote his thesis on it.

He gave us about 2 dozen different versions of the test, designed for both kids and adults, and we scored in the genius range on all but 2.

I looked for the thesis to link it but I was 16 at the time and can't remember what his name or institution was.

Holy shit!

Letj

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #48 on: November 29, 2016, 09:33:33 PM »
Holy Shit!

IQ is not a thing you are born with.

Holy Fucking Shit!

Your IQ will change related to a whole host of factors, not least of which is that the questions and tasks on the IQ test are not varied (or at least, not as of 2000 when I last researched it, and therefore not in any research that would have any statistical significance over any kind of timeframe like we're discussing) based on where you come from.  The smartest person in the world who just by accident of birth was born outside of a euro-centric or western culture will score vastly lower than someone from those cultures.

For instance, one common question has to do with being able to identify a renaissance era musician by name.  Someone who grew up without any access to the culture that would provide that information (like a good school or cable tv access) doesn't stand a chance, even if they're an expert in 9th century Indian culture.  Even if they are themselves a world renowned musician.

IQ measures a persons inquisitiveness against a metric of knowledge gained by a similarly inquisitive person, adjusted for age.  But as it was developed by...you know...white people, it can't be used to evaluate people outside that socioeconomic group because THERE IS NO BASELINE!

A person born into privilege who undergoes some trauma at age 20 that keeps them from learning much for a year isn't any stupider but will score lower on IQ tests.  Likewise, as you get older, you naturally score higher on an IQ test just because.

People who watched animaniacs will score higher on an IQ test than people who didn't.  Because the answers are built into the show, intentionally or coincidentally.

If you took German in high school you'll score 15 points higher than anyone else, because the test was originally developed by a german and most version have holdovers relative to german culture that you are just not going to be exposed to without studying the language (i mean, maybe).

The IQ measure, fundamentally, is probably the example of institutional racism you've been looking for.  Entrenched academia measured something about each other, obscure trivia about ancient European culture for example, and then foisted that on an unsuspecting public as a way of identifying if a person is a bit dim.  Likewise with geometric puzzles and sorting puzzles that have worked their way into the fabric of growing up in the west.  Kids toys that advertise increasing your kids IQ scores work, BECAUSE IT IS LITERALLY TEST PREP!  Comparing results to people that didn't grow up with that shit is like faulting someone for not using advanced strategies like guessing randomly in the last ten seconds on the rest of the questions on a multiple choice test when it was the first time they ever took a test in that format.

This has been a known problem with it as a metric for a long time, entire studies have been conducted on the lasting damage done by the misuse of this metric by overzealous social engineers convinced this gave them some basis for their horribly discriminatory policies based on perceived differences in mental acuity.

So yea, asians whose parents forced them to memorize the history book from their white school and paid for music lessons are going to score better on IQ tests than kids whose parents didn't because there actually isn't much inherent value from those acts (aside from history being interesting and music being fun).

IQ measures how well you've absorbed the context of white culture.

If you don't believe it, go have yourself fucking tested and think about the questions they are asking you.  Evaluate the test yourself.  The last time you were tested you were probably a kid.  Think about how you'd do if you hadn't grown up with western television and books.  Go ask the smartest non-western immigrant you know some of the questions you're suspicious about and watch as they have no clue.  And you only know because it was on an episode of G.I.Joe when you were nine.

If you still doubt it, go and study the topics you were asked about and take it again, watch your score go up 70 points.

Kids who grow up in houses where all the windows in the house are horizontal instead of vertical will score 20 points lower on some versions of the test, unless the person administering it notices the discrepancy, asks about it, and corrects the results.

Ah ha! So not only is it not great to begin with, but it relies on the administrator to adjust the values based on the subject!  Yea, this is good science we should base our theories on.

Holy Shit Guys!

Source:  I took an IQ test for a graduate student, scored 155 or so, clearly off the far end of genius scale (and clearly far smarter than apparently seemed to the student) and so did all of my friends.  He sat us all down and started rooting around for the source of our ability to do the tasks so quickly and accurately, and how we knew the answers to all the questions, and it was literally as simple as we all watched animaniacs and spent an inordinate amount of time as kids playing with legos.  He wrote his thesis on it.

He gave us about 2 dozen different versions of the test, designed for both kids and adults, and we scored in the genius range on all but 2.

I looked for the thesis to link it but I was 16 at the time and can't remember what his name or institution was.

Holy shit!
You are absolutely 100% right. This exactly explains while some of the brightest mind outside of American culture scores terrible on the SATs. Ask foreign students educated abroad.

Papa Mustache

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Re: Secret to Asian American success was not education
« Reply #49 on: December 07, 2016, 01:48:52 PM »
I've got to know - why are the two different window designs going to make any difference?