Essay On Asian American Education

In relation to other racial groups in the United States, Asian-Americans are constructed as the model minority. The model minority myth (Takaki, 1999) has shaped how I perceive what opportunities I have in order to achieve the American Dream. This concept of the model minority creates an illusion that the American Dream is attainable through “hard work and private effort” as evident in Asian-American’s economic and educational successes

Asians are one of fastest growing minority groups in America today. During this century, various factors at home and abroad have caused people from Asia to immigrate to the United States for better or for worse. Due to these factors, Americans and American teachers, in particular, need to educate themselves and become aware of the Asian American students’ needs in terms of success and happiness. Before beginning my research, I felt I had an easy subject: studying Asian Americans in relation to their education in public schools. How simple! Everyone knows they are smart, hard working, driven to succeed in spite of their nerdish, geeky, non-athletic, broken-English stereotype. Of course they are

However, the incessant hovering and excessive involvement from Asian parents can add tremendous pressure and stress onto young Asians. In the Daily Collegian News, Penn State sophomore Trevor Hsu expresses, “It puts pressure on Asian [students] themselves to fit that stereotype…they can feel that they let themselves [and their families] down because they have not achieved the level of excellence that the stereotype has set.” (qtd. in Dailey). Because they feel guilty and shameful, many Asian students are reluctant to admit to their parents and teachers that they have difficulties with class works and assignments as much as their non-Asian classmates and consequently, they do not received the support they need to improve their performance.

“In one study of 50 Western American mothers and 48 Chinese immigrant mothers, almost 70% of the Western mothers said either that ‘stressing academic success is not good for children’ or that ‘parents need to foster the idea that learning is fun.’ By contrast, roughly 0% of the Chinese mothers felt the same way. Instead, the vast majority of the Chinese mothers said that they believe their children can be ‘the best’ students, that ‘academic achievement reflects successful parenting,’ and that if children did not excel at school then there was ‘a problem’ and parents ‘were not doing their job.’ … Chinese parents spend approximately ten times as long every day drilling academic activities with their children. By contrast, Western kids are

To be young and Asian in America is a special brand of torture. There is an unspoken dictum of silence that grips Asian youth, a denial of our place in popular culture. Asian youth walk in America not quite sure where we fit in-black children have a particular brotherhood, Hispanic children have a particular brotherhood, white children own everything else. We cannot lay claim to jazz or salsa or swing; we cannot say our ancestors fought for equality against an oppressive government or roamed the great hallways of power across the globe. We do not have a music, a common hero, a lexicon of slang. Asian youth experience personal diasporas every day.

The air would always be humid and stuffy while riding the bus to school, and the slightest bump in the road would result in tossing up the kids like salad. The backseat would provide carriage for all the popular and tough kids shouting out at pedestrians on the street or flipping off a middle finger to the bus driver that would shout for them to calm down. I despised those kids in the back. They were the same people that made my life a living hell, while growing up and attending an American school.

Asian Americans may also be discouraged to go into pre-collegiate teaching because they feel a sense of personal inadequacy. In the United States, school is seen as a social service mission, where teachers, who are primarily female, are tasked to teach students, especially those from working-class and immigrant backgrounds, middle-class values. Chinese tradition, in contrast, has different views on schooling. This tradition brings schooling to the local community with preexisting hierarchies. Teachers, who are primarily male, maintain this status quo by upholding strict intellectual standards determined by elite members of society. These teachers are revered as experts—scholars who screen local school children to see if they are capable of

Although Asian Americans comprise only about 5% of the U.S. population, this group is the fastest growing segment of American society. Despite such rapid expansion, Asian Americans are widely underrepresented throughout media, whether in television, cinema, or literature. Moreover, there are different stereotypes associated with Asian Americans. One of the most pervasive stereotypes details how Asian Americans are a “model minority”. In essence, this myth describes how anyone who is Asian American will become a successful individual able to achieve the “American dream”.

Statistics that support this model minority theory can be found in many areas, the first being education. Fifty percent of Asian Americans 25 and older hold a bachelor’s degree compared to twenty-nine percent of the white population. Many studies have used standardized tests and school records, such as SAT, GPA, and other measures to compare the academic performance of Asian American students with non-Asian American students. Several studies have indicated that the outstanding academic performance of Asian students might be attributed to their cultural and family values. Another area of model minority success is found in the professional workforce. Asian Americans as a group work in the same place of employment as whites. This alone suggests that they have succeeded. A high percent of Asians are found at the top of professional and managerial positions. This success in the workforce has also lead Asians to hold one of the highest income figures per family by race. On the other hand, the model minority label is also seen as a myth. This label suggests that Asian Americans conform to the norms of society, do well in school and careers, are hardworking and self-sufficient. It follows that Asian Americans are a model for all groups, especially other minority groups. However, a closer look uncovers

In the 1990s, there were more than 7 million Asian Americans in the United States of America. Bureau of the Census has published that there is a total of 3,726,400 Asians, which includes Pacific Isalnders, which is represented to about 1.6 percent of the population. Chinses Americans were the first Asian to be migrated in the United States.

The pain and the suffering, the oppression, and the exclusion all describe the history of Asia America. When they arrived to the United States, they become labeled as Asians. These Asians come from Japan, China, Korea, Laos, Thailand, and many other diverse countries in the Eastern hemisphere. These people wanted to escape from their impoverished lives as the West continued to infiltrate their motherland. They saw America as the promise land filled with opportunity to succeed in life. Yet due to the discrimination placed from society and continual unfair

“I don’t mind if I have to sit on the floor at school. All I want is an education,” said Malala Yousafzai, Pakistani activist for female education. In today's society, many people don’t realize how grateful they should be for the education they receive. Even the slightest education is much more than people were receiving just three centuries ago, and even more than people in countries besides the United States of America. In specifics, women and African Americans were once unable to pursue any form of education in the United States, along with many other ethnicities.

To some people this is not be viewed as a stereotype due to the fact it is not instantly perceived as “negative”; for those readers who delve in deeper, this stereotype outlines the educational daily hidden pressure of people from Chinese descent whom do not fit this “positive” stereotype. Every day, especially in American society, classmates look to their Asian counterparts to provide the answers to questions they do not know in every subject they take. Nonetheless, this ridiculous assumption hurts the Asian students that do not feel comfortable with their intellectual abilities. Placing Asian students as the “model student” excludes the students who actually have problems and need help that other classmates are reluctant to give the students simply because their classmates do not view helping their struggling Asian classmates as an actual necessity. By “poking” fun and bringing into light both Asian stereotypes, Yang enforces view that stereotypes are in use today.

Asians have migrated to and have lived in the Americas since the days of our founding fathers. The first to come from the Eastern Hemisphere were a small group of Filipinos in the early 18th century that settled in present day Louisiana. The first major influx of Asian Americans was Chinese Americans who came in the 1800’s to find financial opportunity during the California gold rush. They settled in the Golden State and eventually spread out all over the United States, creating the now-famous Chinatowns that millions of Americans visit every year. There is a continual migration of well educated South Asians and East Asians for job and education opportunities and their success has formed the basis for the “myth of the model minority” (MMM). This is the idea that all people who are Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) are successful both socioeconomically and educationally. This does have a logical basis rooted in statistics—AAPI students are reported to have higher grade point averages, math scores, and overall standardized tests scores on tests such as the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and the American College Testing Exam (ACT). Other studies often use a racialized rhetoric comparing Asian Americans to white Americans in terms of education and socioeconomic status while contrasting them to the so-called “lazy” and “incapable” Hispanic and African Americans.

Education among the Asian-American community differed by each sub-type, as they all had different views, methods, and expressions towards education. They include the following: ​