These are just few of the many Asian characters who reinforce the model minority label with their professions. With the stereotype being a constant in everyday media, it creates false perceptions of Asian Americans towards the public. These perceptions become internalized especially in Asian youth. They are burdened with the expectation to get straight A’s or strive for a high earning profession. But what happens when they don’t fall into the stereotype? It could affect their mental health by starting to feel insecure or inadequate. A study conducted by a team from The University of Maryland School of Public Health showed that the “pressure to live up to the model minority stereotype” was a source of stress that affected their mental health.…
Youth, rebellion, recklessness – three words that describe the teenage years of an angst-ridden American-Born-Chinese. Growing up, I had some sense of what was supposed to be important in life: politics, news, history, religion, family, math… it all sounded good—kind of like how communism sounded good—and that was exactly how I treated those subjects, with the utmost disobedience. Being born into a Discourse, as John Paul Gee puts, “…involve a set of values and viewpoints in terms of which one must speak and act” (Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics, 538). Being born into an Asian-American household, I was pressured heavily to achieve academic success. However, I didn’t care much to squeeze myself into this supposed Discourse of a perfect Asian. Nobody seemed to offer me a solid reason why I should apply myself in school, and so, I began to distrust the normal notions that good grades equal a good life. It would take me years to begin to realize just how stubborn I had been. I acquired, through being part of many discourses that, eventually, everything connects.…
When the people of Asian came to American for reasons such as a better life for their families, more income, and a better education they stood out because of their focus, hardworking efforts and high respect for their elders. One of the biggest stereotypes toward the Asian race is the success they have in an educational environment by achieving high test scores, academic awards and punctual about turning in all work assignments. Education for Asian children is a major reason why most immigrants come to American because in American it is easier to better education and a greater chance to succeed in life. Many adults in American was taken by surprise when they realize how respectful Asian children and adolescents had toward them. For many Asian…
“With no breaks for water or even the bathroom, until at last Lulu learned to play the piece.” Annie Murphy Paul, author of article Tiger Moms: Is Tough Parenting Really the Answer, describes the moment of one of her sources when she had her seven year old daughter practice for many hours until she could play a piano piece perfectly. This iconic source raised an uproar in American society was none other than Amy Chua, author of Battle Hymn of Tiger Mother (Paul, 1). Many people disagree on how Asian parents’ raise their children. Some might say that they are too harsh, they don’t know how to love, or they only care about the grades. This could seem true, but maybe there is more than meets the eye. The Asian community strives in academics and discipline. Some would call them the most successful people on the planet. Pertaining great empires, “These and other hyper-powers owed their success and status in part to acceptance of racial and religious minorities who had been excluded by other societies but whose skills and labor benefited their adopted homelands. (Lum, 2)” Local communities can actually learn from the discipline and diligence of the Asian culture’s teachings. My admiration for the Asian culture has always been strong, but the lack of confidence and creativity from my “stereotypical” Asian friends has always concerned me.…
2. Suzuki, L., & Aronson, J. (2005). Cultural malleability of the racial/ethnic hierarchy of intelligence. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law.…
5) Premise: White and Asian students score, on average, markedly higher than their black and Hispanic peers. This is true for fourth-grade tests, college entrance exams, and every other assessment on the books.…
'Jim Stigler was in an awkward position. Fascinated by the fact that Asian students routinely do better than American kids at elementary math, the UCLA psychologist wanted to test whether persistence might be the key factor. So he designed and administered an experiment in which he gave the same insolvable math problem to separate small groups of Japanese and American children. 2 Sure enough, most American kids attacked the problem, struggled briefly—then gave up. The Japanese kids, however, worked on and on and on. Eventually, Stigler stopped the experiment when it began to feel inhumane: If the Japanese kids were uninterrupted, they seemed willing to plow on indefinitely. 3 "The Japanese kids assumed that if they kept working, they'd eventually get it," Stigler recalls. "The Americans thought, 'Either you get it or you don't.'" 4 Stigler's work, detailed in his 1992 book The Learning Gap (Summit, Books/Simon & Schuster), shatters our stereotypical notion that Asian education relies on rote and drill. In fact, Japanese and Chinese elementary schoolteachers believe that their chief task is to stimulate thinking. They tell their students that anyone who thinks long enough about a problem can move toward its solution. 5 Stigler concludes that the Asian belief in hard work as the key to success is one reason why Asians outperform us academically. Americans are persuaded that success in school requires inborn…
In this same chapter she references a study where “50 Western American mothers and 48 Chinese immigrant mothers” were polled on the role of parents in children’s academic success; with “70% of Western mothers believed ‘stressing academic success is not good for the children’ or ‘parents need to foster the idea that learning is fun’” versus nearly “0% of the Chinese mothers felt the same way.” Although she states there are several studies that support this theory, I would not put too much credence in this particular study since the pool is too small and there are a lot of “Western American mothers” with different style of parenting. A “Western American mother” can be from as far west as Hawaii or from as northeast as Maine; then there is everyone in between. She also gives us a list of what a Chinese mother’s belief system entails: “(1) schoolwork always comes first; (2) an A-minus is a bad grade; (3) your children must be two years ahead of their classmates in math; (4) you must never compliment your children in public; (5) if your child ever disagrees with a teacher or coach, you must always take the side of the teacher or coach; (6) the only activities your children should be permitted to do are those in which they can eventually medal; and (7) that medal must be gold.” This list seems a little extreme to me, but I guess it just…
Marilyn Nguyen may sound like a hard working student who has devoted her life to helping people and becoming a good person, but when you put it into perspective she is actually the least successful of her extremely disciplined Asian counterparts. I went to investigate and…
Literary sources provide a starting point in understanding the idea of race and ethnicity being related to education and occupations. Once source chosen to analyze the relationship between race and education was a research article constructed by the Annie E. Casey Foundation titled “Unequal Opportunities in Education.” This article discusses the opportunities available to minority races opposed to the majority race. The article suggests that minority groups are given less opportunities to succeed in education than the majority group. As stated in the article the most critical factors to effectively promote student success include: quality teachers, smaller class sizes, access to high quality after-school programs, advanced curricula, and modern learning facilities. All of which minority groups are likely to be deprived of more than majority groups. It is also suggested in the article that systematic…
Sue, S. & Okazaki, S. (1990). Asian-American Educational Achievements: A phenomenon in search of an…
Another example of cultural differences could be the educational attitudes of Americans as opposed to those of many Asians. Many people in the United States are surprised and alarmed by the high test score and college admissions averages of Asian students in contrast to the falling averages of students of other ethnic backgrounds, including white. This discrepancy is directly related to cultural differences between American and many Asian nations. In…
Chinese parents order their kids to get A’s, but western parents only ask their children to try their best. Why are cultures so different in their approach toward their child’s success? In several essays, the authors explore these differentness in western cultural parenting vs eastern cultural parenting. When it comes to parenting, different cultures have their way of raising their children, when it comes to music, academics, and extracurricular activities. In the essay “why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” by Amy Chua. She talks about how she raises her two daughters to be the best at everything they do. She says that Chinese children are more successful in life then the western children, she even thinks when it comes to Chinese children there better at doing school work like math, sciences, and health. This is because Chinese people are better at parenting and raising their children to be successful “from what” Amy Chua says. She begins talking about what her daughters can and can’t do, one activity was playing music, she begins talking and this is what she states. “Can’t play any instrument other than the piano or violin” (Cha53). Wow is what most people might say because it takes time to play these two instruments and you must focus more when learning how to play them. Well there was an author who disagreed with Amy Chua and he was kind of outraged by her statements, so in contrast to what Amy Chua states David Brooks who wrote “Amy Chua is a Whip”. States “practicing a piece of music for four hours requires focused attention” (58). Brooks was basically say that no one can focus that long without taking a brake because the brain only can take but so much information in at a time.…
We live in a competitive and capitalist world in which educational attainment increases the probability of obtaining wellpaying employment, ultimately leading to a higher standard of living. Students who demonstrate high academic achievement, measured by their grade point average (GPA), are more likely to graduate from college and those who graduate from college are more likely to achieve their career goal. According to Gordon-Rouse and Austin (2002), high school student participants who had a GPA greater than 2.75 were considered to be high achievers and typically demonstrated higher motivation in their education than those with lower GPAs. Rouse and Austin also suggested that those with a high GPA were more likely to prepare themselves for college and therefore have higher expectations to succeed academically. However, not all students perform well in college: the academic achievement of a student is impacted by many factors, including their ethnicity and the influence of parental involvement during their primary education. Many studies have compared students of different ethnic backgrounds and…
What were the cultural lessons linked to success and failure for children in U.S. versus East Asian cultures?…