Asians - The Atypical Minority
I would be remiss if I had a long drawn out discussion of Affirmative Action, if I did not include my own race - Asian, Chinese to be specific.
98% of discussions about race refers to African Americans, Hispanics and so on. But no one ever mentions Asians in their comments. Why?
I mentioned it briefly in the last article. Democrats need to keep minorities in poverty in order maintain their voting base. If a minority group were to ever succeed, they will want tax cuts and less government intervention in their lives. When this happens they become Republicans.
As long as Democrats can convince minorities that they need government programs to survive because "racist" America doesn't care, then they have a voter for life.
It's interesting that Asians are never included in that group. Why? Because Asians have figured out the keys to success in America that other minority groups will not take advantage of.
Let me start by saying that Asians are not perfect. We are far from perfect, but we have come to realize that it's not the government that let's us attain the American dream. It's hard work and persistance.
We're not sitting around waiting for the government's promise of 40 acres and a mule. Hate to break the news, but it's not coming. Success in America can only be attained through individual effort.
Why do Asians succeed?
Asians have had similar experiences in the United States as many other minorities in the history of this country. The first constitution of California prohibited Chinese from owning land. The Chinese living in "Chinatowns" to protect themselves. For the white man, we built your railroads, washed your clothes and cooked your food. We even did your gardening for a while. We were subject to the same racists attitudes during the last 50-100 that all of the other minorities have experience.
Contrary to popular belief, Asians are not genetically superior to other races. Nor have we sold our souls to the white man. We made our success individually and did not demand that the government hand it to us on a silver platter.
My family like many other asian family started with the first immigrants with nothing to their name, working hard to make a name for themselves and praying that their children will have a life better than theirs.
My grandfather came to this country, looking for a better life than the one they had in China. They came and started their own businesses: one in Los Angeles and one in San Francisco. Both were equally successful. Strangly enough, all of their children went to and graduated from college. This also includes me and my cousins, most of us are college graduates with masters and doctoral degrees.
Sure we can thank the government for the student loans for some of us, but that's hardly reparations for racism of the past. Even without student loans, we would have all found a way to go to college.
My story is hardly anecdotle. It try of all of my Asian friends: Chinese, Korean, Philipino, Japanese, etc. Again, this is hardly genetics. We had parents that saw the advantages of education and threatened to disown us if we ever failed in school.
As much as I loathe to say it, but the same thing that we have in common with white people is the importance of education. I kid, but the fact is no matter how much we hated school, we knew that it was important. My parents were alway riding me about my grades. They would not accept a 'C' on my report card. They would not accept laziness when it comes to my success in school and college. They will never allow me to become dependent on the government when I could provide for myself.
My Affirmative Action Doesn't Work for Asians
Let me start with my college days. A white person with a 4.0 GPA and perfect SAT's had a slim chance of going to the best schools like UCLA.
The funny thing is that an asian with a 4.0 GPA and perfect SAT's had an even slimer chance of going the best schools like UCLA.
Now Affirmative Action discriminates against whites and asians. Why is this never talked about? Because Asians don't like to complain. We tend to find a way of working through adversity. But again here's another example of Affirmative Action discrminating based on skin color and not on the content of a person's character.