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'Model minority' a myth, report says

With their high visibility on elite college campuses, Asian Americans have picked up a nickname that makes many uncomfortable: the "model minority."

But a new report argues that Asian Americans’ reputation for academic success has obscured important variations within the group and created a false sense that all their education needs are being met.

As a group, Asian Americans have earned above-average incomes and achieved high average levels of education, said Democratic Representative David Wu at a news conference to release the report. But they are clustered both at both the high and low ends of the scale.

“The conversation in our society has had this high-income, high-education group completely overshadow this other group of folks,” Wu said. “It has been an education process to convince folks that we are not an ethnic group, every one of which has just graduated from Harvard.”

Relative to other ethnic minorities, Asian Americans have, indeed, been extremely successful by many academic measures. They substantially outscore other minority groups on average scores on the SAT college entrance exam. The report said more than 44 percent included in the group Asian American (but excluding Pacific Islanders) have earned a bachelor’s degree, 20 percentage points higher than the national average.

In the prestigious University of California system, the number of Asian-Americans enrolling each fall has shot up 59 percent in the decade since a ballot initiative ended racial preferences in admissions.

But the study notes often overlooked disparities in achievement among various Asian and Pacific Islander groups.

Just 7.5 percent of Hmong immigrants, 9.2 percent of Cambodians and 7.7 percent of Laotians had earned a bachelor’s degree in 2000, compared to 43.8 percent of Filipinos and an identical proportion of Koreans.

On standardized tests, Asians are often disproportionately represented among the highest scores, but also among the lowest — doomed by poor English skills. And while their numbers have surged at many high-profile schools, enrollment among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders is actually increasing faster at community colleges than at four-year ones.

Jih-Fei Cheng, coordinator of the Asian and Pacific Islander Student Center at California State Polytechnic, Pomona, said the “model minority” idea is a burden for many Asian-American students, who comprise about one-third of the student body there.

The report also argues the “model minority” argument can mislead policy-makers.

“They face a number of challenges such as being invisible, people assuming they don’t have any educational needs, they don’t need services, they don’t need to be included when it comes to particular policies,” said Robert Teranishi of New York University, one of the authors of the study, a collaboration between two NYU research institutes and the College Board.

Also, he said, “there’s some emerging trends that we’ve found relating to use of mental health services, suicide rates,” indicating Asian-American students may be at particular risk.
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