Posted on 07/17/2008 4:52:08 PM PDT by forkinsocket
The eight students walked into a room at Lincoln High School prepared to discuss an issue many people, including some of their teachers, considered taboo.
They were blunt. Carlos Garcia, 17, an A student with a knack for math, said, "My friends, most of them say, 'You're more Asian than Hispanic.' "
"I think Carlos is Asian at heart," said Julie Loc, 17, causing Carlos to laugh good-naturedly. Asian students who get middling grades often get another response, she said.
"They say, 'Are you really Asian?' " Julie said.
"It's sad but true," said Eliseo Garcia, a 17-year-old with long rocker hair, an easy manner and good grades. "I had an Asian friend, but he didn't necessarily get that great a grades. We used to say, 'He's Mexican at heart.' "
What accounts for such self-deprecating humor? Or the uneven academic performance that prompts it?
The state's top education official, Supt. Jack O'Connell, called for that kind of discussion last fall when he decried the "racial achievement gap" separating Asian and non-Latino white students from Latinos and blacks.
At The Times' request, the Eastside students gathered to talk about this touchy subject.
Lincoln Heights is mostly a working-class Mexican American area, but it's also a first stop for Asian immigrants, many of them ethnic Chinese who fled Vietnam.
With about 2,500 students, Lincoln High draws from parts of Boyle Heights, El Sereno and Chinatown.
Both the neighborhood and student body are about 15% Asian. And yet Asians make up 50% of students taking Advanced Placement classes. Staffers can't remember the last time a Latino was valedictorian.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
—High expectations, but let them know it’s OK to occasionally fail.
—Show lots of love and attention to what they do
—See to it that they do their lessons on time and often before video games
—Encourage creativity
—As parents, your interest should be secondary to theirs
Asian culture promotes academic activity and to some extent Hispanic culture does the opposite. Has anyone else, for example, read Richard Rodreguez’s book, “Hunger of Memory”? He talks about how much flack he used to get from friends and family over his scholarly activity.
With a hugh population of Mexicans and Asians here in San Diego -
First, Asians learn English. Education is a major factor in Asian lives, etc.
Large percent of Mexicans here pride themselves not speaking English for some generations.
They have highest rate of dropout before grad. from high school.
When Sigon fell, over 100,000 Vietnamese came to San Diego, learned English and many from those who came over and huge number of their children grad from Universities.
Large number of Drs. and other professionals.
Why, so that “The Man” can pit one minority group against another by pointing it out.
"...But if you choose to fight the evidence, here's what you're up against. Among white Americans, the average IQ, as of a decade or so ago, was 103. Among Asian-Americans, it was 106. Among Jewish Americans, it was 113. Among Latino Americans, it was 89. Among African-Americans, it was 85. Around the world, studies find the same general pattern: whites 100, East Asians 106, sub-Sarahan Africans 70. One IQ table shows 113 in Hong Kong, 110 in Japan, and 100 in Britain. White populations in Australia, Canada, Europe, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States score closer to one another than to the worldwide black average. It's been that way for at least a century. Remember, these are averages.
URL for the above is: HERE.
Actually a better way to conceptualize the whole problem is the use of "g." A discussion of this from the Scientific American can be found HERE.
The problem here is those who insist there are not IQ or other differences between the races demand there are no differences because we are "all equal." They seem to insist that we are all equal in IQ as a prerequisite for equality before the God and the Consitution. Conflating the two--measured differences and human rights--is a mistake in logic more than anything else.
It is important to remember that these differences are average differences and that the average difference between siblings in the same family is 12 IQ points.
hugh=huge
East Asia does not have welfare. You don't do well, you starve to death. In China's famine of 1958 thru 1961, 15 million Chinese people died from hunger. Knowing of relatives who died from hunger can have a great effect in focusing on achievement
The generation who grew up in the Great Depression also was serious about getting their kids to do well in school. The later generation, having never known hunger, is somewhat less focused
They’re smarter, on average? Are we allowed to suggest that thought?
I’m not sure about genetics, but there have been observations that people just off the farm do poorer in dealing with abstracts than most city folk.
"Because All the vatos want to wear the zoot-suit and live the life of the pachuco"
Audio out-take from the movie Zoot Suit; Starring Daniel Valdez, Edward James Olmos. 1981
Also look at how “friends” can influence youngsters- an asian’s friend will razz them for “only” getting a 97
Other groups will razz them for getting a 97, “you geek!”
p.s. Boyle Heights is one rough neighborhood. Just to get though school should be quite an accomplishment.
Yet we are being forced to assimilate to the other culture. Press "1" for the rest of my post in English.
Sunny Hills or Westminster?
In general terms, of course.
Years ago, it was thought of as a paradox with Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, which was very puzzling.
To start with, there was a general disdain for education beyond high school, and most families didn’t push their children to excel. But at the same time, there was great respect for the highly educated, called “men of letters” (that is, with BA, BS, MA, MD and PhD attached to their names).
To make things even more confusing, Mexico was stratified in several ways. Economic class, which strictly limited who someone could marry, mattering even more than race. But at the same time,
Mexico had strange attitudes about race as well.
The original official distinction between Mexicans and Indians was that “Mexicans wore shoes”. But this later became a complex classification scheme by their government of over 40 races and racial mixes, which included European white, black, Chinese, and blends of three races.
Yet an oddity of the weird classification of “Hispanic”, which became a US classification during the Reagan administration, is that while “Hispanics” will marry people of non-Hispanic races, they almost never marry other Hispanics from other Hispanic countries. That is, Mexicans do not marry Venezuelans or Colombians, etc., except in a tiny fraction of cases.
So all this being said, what are Asians either? They are about 60% of the world’s population, and come from a bunch of different countries as well.
On the latino side of the equation, I observed that the student was primarily driven by their social situation. Literally it is cool to be uneducated, jailed and have illegitimate kids.
Because most Asians obey the law and come here throgh difficult channels like H1-B and Student Visa portals. Educationally, they are the cream of the crop of billions of people. The latinos sneak in to pick tomatoes and work in slaughterhouses and don’t know the value of education. Educationally, they are the bottom of the barrel of hundreds of millions of people.
Our gain of Asians is Asia’s loss. Our gain of Latinos is our loss and Latin America’s gain.
Gotta be fair, also. There are more young asian burnouts than young latino burnouts.
It’s really simple...
I live in L.A. Check out the Public Library. Hispanic/Latino kids are outside (just like the black kids) screwing around, while inside...Asian kids are reading.
Nuff said.
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