Pittsburgh’s new immigrants: Local students symbolize Asian success story

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ^ | June 8, 2014 | Mark Roth

[2ndDivisionVet]

Last month, Rishi and Suvir Mirchandani traveled to sunny Los Angeles.

The Fox Chapel Area High School students weren't taking a vacation. They were there to compete in one of the world's most rigorous science competitions, the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.

Rishi, 17, a junior, ended up with a third-place award in the mathematics section of the fair for his work on the most efficient way for traffic to travel along a network of roadways. Younger brother Suvir, 15, got the $1,500 Web innovator award from GoDaddy for his project to allow paralyzed people to interact with a computer screen using just their eye gaze.

They're the sons of Prakash Mirchandani, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh's Katz Graduate School of Business, and Shabnam Mirchandani, a former literature professor. Both parents grew up in India, and the talented teens are just one more example of a notable trend.

In elite science contests all over the nation, children who are immigrants or the children of immigrants, as Rishi and Suvir are, are grabbing a disproportionate share of the top awards. Many are from families that come from East Asia and South Asia, the two regions that have dominated Pittsburgh's immigration over the past 40 years.

At the Intel Science Talent Search competition in Washington, D.C., in March, at least 27 of the 40 finalists had Asian surnames. And in last month's Scripps National Spelling Bee, two Indian-American boys, Sriram Hathwar and Ansun Sujoe, were declared co-winners, marking the seventh year in a row that an Indian-American had captured the spelling title....

[Cowboy Bob]

Interesting that American newspapers are now referring to Indians as “Asians.” Typically in the US, Asians mean Chinese, Japanese or Koreans.

The British refer to Indians, Pakistanis and Afghans as Asians.

[2ndDivisionVet]

We’re adopting their stylebook, little by little, it would seem.

[Little Pig]

It’s easier to ignore them this way. They get lumped in with the other “asians” for academic purposes, because “asians” are generally not counted as “minority” students when things like academic achievement are scored. It breaks the narrative that minority students struggle in the “white-oriented” school system, since they tend to do even better than caucasian students, and averaging them in would push the “minority” numbers up too much.

[Jeff Chandler]

Blacks and Hispanics are not pleased.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Interesting that American newspapers are now referring to Indians as “Asians.” Typically in the US, Asians mean Chinese, Japanese or Koreans.

Well, Asians has only meant Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese, etc. since the word "Oriental" became politically incorrect - the exact same definition was grafted onto the word "Asian" in the US. That's the thing with political correctness - liberals insist on banning certain words because "words hurt", but the logic or reason for that word can't be banned and is simply transferred to some other word. Hence, the trail from "Negro" to "black" to "African-American" - the last, being the most recent politically correct choice, is even wrongly applied to non-Americans like Nelson Mandela or Usain Bolt.

Of course the Indians are Asians - there's no reason the word should be made to serve political correctness by redefining it to mean only the folks who used to be called "Oriental".

[blam]

Wait a minute....just one minute!

Are these people of color?

(ahem) I didn't think they had a chance, eh?

[wetgundog]

“African-American” - the last, being the most recent politically correct choice, is even wrongly applied to non-Americans like Nelson Mandela or Usain Bolt.”

Please don’t forget our Turd on Chief, a Kenyan-born, bi-racial, on the down-low Muslim pool of scum.

signed - one racist, American of Chinese descent.

[kearnyirish2]

“Blacks and Hispanics are not pleased.”

Just as Hispanic immigrants are imported to replace black American workers, these Asians are being imported to replace whites.

Creepy...soon we’ll have Diwali beer commercials like the Cinco de Mayo ones (pretending that both are as American as apple pie).

[DFG]

BOOKMARK

[Vigilanteman]

Indians are not exactly new immigrants to the Pittsburgh area. Nearby Monroeville has the largest Hindu Temple in the world outside of India.

Carnegie Mellon has one of the most respected IT programs and neighboring University of Pittsburgh has one of the most respected medical schools in the country.

All of the aforementioned, including the Indians, played a prominent role in Pittsburgh's transformation from the City of Steel to the City of Universities and Hospitals which begin back in the 1960s.

[BikerJoe]

We’re adopting their stylebook, little by little, it would seem.

Been that way for a while. When did the TV reporters start saying "A child WENT missing..." instead of "A child IS missing...."?