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Apr 30, 2009
In India, a Grass-Roots Shift
"Are you fed up with the same old faces in Indian elections? The same old choices between thugs or thieves?" Mona Shah, an eye surgeon-turned-politician, raised her bullhorn as she weaved and ducked among the slippery nooks and narrow alleys of a slum in this mega-city.
Apr 24, 2009
Model Minority - Myth or Reality ?
Interesting article in USA Today on how the changing admissions rules in California Univerisities causing angst among Asian-Americans that it will effect them negatively. Briefly the CA Univeristies were relaxing the rules around the SAT subject courses which were mandatory before, and to primarily encourage participation from other minorities such as African and Hispanic Americans.
This was second in recent times that I have seen and wondering about the myth vs reality of this controversial topic on "whether the elite US universities are some what Biased in their admissions policy against Asian Americans" ? So it was interesting to read public comments on web from general community on this topic.
Comment 1. "is this a left wing looney liberal policiy to punish those who are the smartest and work the hardest ?"
Comment 2. "Neither gender, race, or ethnic background should come into play when it comes to being accepted by a college. Take all this information off of the college applications and accept applicants based on their SAT score, High School GPA, and extra curriculum activities. This way no one party can complain about being discriminated against."
Comment 3. "There is an unhealthy cloud hanging over the asian population if education is the only avenue you should be concerned about while growing up and/or going to college. There is a thing called "living" that one needs to experience along the way of education. I think from my observation, alot of asian kids here in southern california don't get that cause they are being driven face first into their school work by their 1st generation parents! What do you think?"
Comment 4. "It's a myth that all Asians work hard because it's in our culture, but it's because the people who could afford to immigrate to America from Asia and India are already successful, so it's more likely that their kids would be successful. It's called the 'Myth of the Model Minority'. It is a self-selecting group of high achievers who emigrate from one place and come to America as a higher socio-economic group than the average of where they came from. There may be some special cases where the barrier to immigration here is different, but in general the self-selection trends to the higher strata individuals/families."
Comment 5. "Asian parents can give their children a more European name, which will help their kids in other aspects of their lives too."
Comment 6."So you study hard, do your homework, do plenty of community service and graduate at the top of your class BUT because of your ethnicity, you get denied a college education. When did common sense die?"
Comment 7."Hey! If we're lowering the standards on education to increase diversity, does this mean that major corporations (eg Microsoft, Cisco, Pfizer, etc) will lower their standards too? Is Lower education standard=more jobs being outsourced? Are we saying that Bill Gates is an idiot when he made the comment, "We need to strengthen our education system compared to other countries?"
It does feel like the much-acclaimed Oscar winning 2005 movie "Crash" (which by the way I loved watching !), and shows clash of cultures and races as we struggle with skewed prejudices associated.
Ofcourse while researching this, I did find interesting concept "Model Minority", which is most commonly used to label one ethnic minority achieving higher than another ethnic minority.
In the United States, the term has usually been associated with East Asian Americans and Indian Americans. Intend to explore this further... here are some related links if you are interested to follow along.
Link1 Link2 Link3 MIT Princeton Invesigration
Finally, these topics are as controversial as the subject of 'racism' and 'reservations a.k.a affirmative action' itself, and would love to hear your opinion too. Please feel free to send or post your comments... Adios
This was second in recent times that I have seen and wondering about the myth vs reality of this controversial topic on "whether the elite US universities are some what Biased in their admissions policy against Asian Americans" ? So it was interesting to read public comments on web from general community on this topic.
Comment 1. "is this a left wing looney liberal policiy to punish those who are the smartest and work the hardest ?"
Comment 2. "Neither gender, race, or ethnic background should come into play when it comes to being accepted by a college. Take all this information off of the college applications and accept applicants based on their SAT score, High School GPA, and extra curriculum activities. This way no one party can complain about being discriminated against."
Comment 3. "There is an unhealthy cloud hanging over the asian population if education is the only avenue you should be concerned about while growing up and/or going to college. There is a thing called "living" that one needs to experience along the way of education. I think from my observation, alot of asian kids here in southern california don't get that cause they are being driven face first into their school work by their 1st generation parents! What do you think?"
Comment 4. "It's a myth that all Asians work hard because it's in our culture, but it's because the people who could afford to immigrate to America from Asia and India are already successful, so it's more likely that their kids would be successful. It's called the 'Myth of the Model Minority'. It is a self-selecting group of high achievers who emigrate from one place and come to America as a higher socio-economic group than the average of where they came from. There may be some special cases where the barrier to immigration here is different, but in general the self-selection trends to the higher strata individuals/families."
Comment 5. "Asian parents can give their children a more European name, which will help their kids in other aspects of their lives too."
Comment 6."So you study hard, do your homework, do plenty of community service and graduate at the top of your class BUT because of your ethnicity, you get denied a college education. When did common sense die?"
Comment 7."Hey! If we're lowering the standards on education to increase diversity, does this mean that major corporations (eg Microsoft, Cisco, Pfizer, etc) will lower their standards too? Is Lower education standard=more jobs being outsourced? Are we saying that Bill Gates is an idiot when he made the comment, "We need to strengthen our education system compared to other countries?"
It does feel like the much-acclaimed Oscar winning 2005 movie "Crash" (which by the way I loved watching !), and shows clash of cultures and races as we struggle with skewed prejudices associated.
Ofcourse while researching this, I did find interesting concept "Model Minority", which is most commonly used to label one ethnic minority achieving higher than another ethnic minority. In the United States, the term has usually been associated with East Asian Americans and Indian Americans. Intend to explore this further... here are some related links if you are interested to follow along.
Link1 Link2 Link3 MIT Princeton Invesigration
Finally, these topics are as controversial as the subject of 'racism' and 'reservations a.k.a affirmative action' itself, and would love to hear your opinion too. Please feel free to send or post your comments... Adios
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