The Bamboo Ceiling

[aristotle1990]

So there's this article that's been making the rounds on the Internet about how Asian Americans (particularly young, male Asian Americans) don't get ahead because they're not aggressive enough. This is hardly new stuff, of course, but what makes the piece interesting is how the author (who is Korean American himself) makes his case. Thesis?

Let me summarize my feelings toward Asian values: Fuck filial piety. Fuck grade-grubbing. Fuck Ivy League mania. Fuck deference to authority. Fuck humility and hard work. Fuck harmonious relations. Fuck sacrificing for the future. Fuck earnest, striving middle-class servility.

Obviously an attack on the Tiger Mom thing. Anyway, it's a great read, regardless of what you think about the author's argument.

[gato]

Are you Asian American?

I haven't read the article, but I can tell what the article's about from your quote. This identity/cultural clash problem becomes less of a problem with the second- and third-generation immigrants -- many Japanese-Americans, for example.

[aristotle1990]

No, I'm not, so I can't really relate psychologically, although I do have a lot of Asian American friends, and I think you're spot on in that things are different in Japanese-Americans.

What I want to know is what the optimal success strategy (in purely monetary terms) for immigrants to the US is. Let's say (East) Asian Americans do just focus on test-taking -- yes, they'll hit a bamboo ceiling eventually, but this will ensure that a relatively large proportion of them end up at good colleges and with solid professional jobs. Even the ones who aren't very intelligent will get good careers because they spend a lot of time studying, whereas if there were no emphasis on test-taking in Asian culture, the ones who are not particularly motivated or hardworking might end up wasting their lives. So in the aggregate, the amount of money made by Asian Americans may exceed that made by White Americans in per capita terms (which it does).

[abcdefg]

I agree it was a great read. Thanks for the link.

I have several Chinese friends doing graduate study in the US. Some seem to socialize and adapt better than others. They are generally also the ones who are happier there.

Those who just keep slaving away to achieve top grades, never making friends or going out to play, have a grim existence without much joy. I cannot picture them ever really fitting in or becoming successful in future years.

[gato]

The great Nicholas Lemann wrote a very perceptive article about the Asian-American situation many years ago. He found some similarities between the issued faced by 1st and 2nd-gen Asian Americans and those faced by Jewish American kids in the 1960s. But of course, Jewish culture is very different. It's much more verbal and has a natural institutional center based on religion, which isn't as in place for Asian Americans. I think Indian culture may come the closest to Jewish culture among the Asian Americans.

http://www.slate.com/id/2378/

Jews in Second Place

When Asian-Americans become the "new Jews," what happens to the Jews?

By Nicholas Lemann Posted Tuesday, June 25, 1996, at 3:30 AM ET

In fact, a Portnoy of the present, a kid with his nose pressed up against the window (to borrow the self-description of another ghetto-bred Jewish writer, Theodore H. White) would surely regard these stick-wielding, puck-handling lads as representing full, totally secure membership in the comfortable classes of American society. Some Lysenkoist suburban biological deviation, or else intermarriage, has even given many of the hockey-playing Jewish boys blond hair and even blue eyes.

More to the point, these Jewish kids and their parents have decided to devote endless hours of childhood to an activity with no career payoff. Do you think they're going to 6 a.m. practices for a shot at the National Hockey League? Of course not. They're doing it--mastering hockey, and every conceivable other sport--to promote "growth," "teamwork," "physical fitness," "well-roundedness," "character," and other qualities that may be desirable in a doctor but don't, as a practical matter, help you get into medical school.

What all the hockey-playing Jewish kids in America are not doing, during their hundreds of hours hustling to, on, and from the ice rink, is studying. It's not that they don't study at all, because they do. It's that they don't study with the ferociousness and all-out commitment of people who realize (or who have parents who realize) that outstanding school performance is their one shot at big-time opportunity in America.

Meanwhile, there is another ethnic group in America whose children devote their free time not to hockey but to extra study. In this group, it's common for moms to march into school at the beginning of the year and obtain several months' worth of assignments in advance so their children can get a head start. These parents pressure school systems to be more rigorous and give more homework. This group is Asian-Americans.

At the front end of the American meritocratic machine, Asians are replacing Jews as the No. 1 group. They are winning the science prizes and scholarships. Jews, meanwhile, at our moment of maximum triumph at the back end of the meritocracy, the midlife, top-job end, are discovering sports and the virtues of being well-rounded. Which is cause and which is effect here is an open question. But as Asians become America's new Jews, Jews are becoming ... Episcopalians.

[Glenn]

That was indeed a fascinating and entertaining article. Thanks for posting!

[aristotle1990]

I think Indian culture may come the closest to Jewish culture among the Asian Americans.

Perceptive. I agree wholeheartedly. The most intelligent and successful Jews are really quite similar to the most intelligent and successful Indians. (After all, .) But as that article points out, the really intense intellectual environment that produced so many successful Jews a generation ago is unfortunately rapidly disappearing.

[gato]

Just read the article. It's a bit rambling. I don't really agree with his premise. His idea of a successful life isn't really that different from that of Amy Chua's Tiger Mom. But instead of through piano lessons a la Amy Chua, it's through a mishmash of alpha-male play acting. If you compare the tone of Yang's article with Lemann's, it's apparent that Yang is still at the confused and angst-ridden stage. It's hard to change the means if you don't change the end.

It just occurred to that the movie "The Graduate" is symbolic of the adjustment process for American Jews. I don't know if it's a 12-step process, but from the beginning, where Dustin Hoffman is a just an awkward college kid, to swearing off plastic, to sleeping with Mrs. Robinson, and finally running off with Elaine, the transformation is epic and, one might say, representative of a generation of American Jews (Jewish boys?) coming of age in the 1960s. Today's Asian Americans unfortunately missed out on the Summer of Love and Flower Power; otherwise, I think they might be much better adjusted. Without sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll, the adjustment is going to take longer, but surely adjust it will.

[jbradfor]

Read it yesterday, didn't know what to make of it, honestly. On the plus side, it was the first time I came across the term "Bamboo Ceiling"

The first 7.5 pages, IMHO, were really nothing new. I've seen / experienced all that before. [Not to myself, as I'm not Asian-American, but to many people I know, both ABC and Chinese-born-Chinese.] Plus, there were a couple of flaws to his arguments.

The last 2.5 pages (ignoring the meaningless ramble about his own life), however, were a bit different. If I read the argument correctly, I think the author is saying that the Bamboo ceiling will be gone not when Asian-Americans (a term I hate, actually) act like Americans, but when America accepts that stone-faced passive Asians can be leaders.

"Good Luck" is all I can reply.

[Glenn]

Man, I didn't read it like either of you. It was all pretty new to me, actually. I don't have any Asian-American friends, and I haven't read or heard about Jewish-American experiences or seen The Graduate, so my base is quite different from yours. Makes me think I'm more sheltered, or maybe isolated, than I thought I was. Come to think of it that's pretty accurate, actually...

But, I didn't think he was saying that the Bamboo Ceiling will be gone when Americans accept that stone-faced passive Asians can be leaders. I actually got the opposite out of the last 2+ pages that you did, jbradfor.

[gato]

You gotta see The Graduate, Glenn. People will think that you live in a cave (or Abbottabad) if you tell them you haven't seen it.

[jbradfor]

On page 8:

If the Bamboo Ceiling is ever going to break, it’s probably going to have less to do with any form of behavior assimilation than with the emergence of risk-­takers whose success obviates the need for Asians to meet someone else’s behavioral standard.

In high school, I think about half my friends were Asian (and the other half Jewish). But a lot of that depends on where one grew up. If I grew up where I live now, which is hardly a model of diversity, I'm pretty sure I'd be in your shoes too, glenn.

[Glenn]

That looks like he's saying there need to be more Asian risk-takers who are successful more than Americans needing to accept stone-faced passive Asians. That is, it looks like he's still putting the focus on the Asian-American population to take action than he's asking non-Asian-Americans to just accept them as leaders as he perceives them being perceived now. At least that's how I read it.

By the way, my entire school experience before college was probably 85% white, 14.98% black, and 0.02% Asian (Chinese from Hong Kong, actually). Not quite a model of diversity there, either.

You gotta see The Graduate, Glenn. People will think that you live in a cave (or Abbottabad) if you tell them you haven't seen it.

I suppose I should keep the list of other movies I haven't seen to myself, then.

[crazy-meiguoren]

Interesting that while the push for the stereotypical Straight A Asian child might yield a quicker foot in the door, those perfect grades can get someone only so far. In the end, a degree from a state university is just as good as a degree from Harvard. It won't matter either if the student transferred from a community college as long as the schools are accredited. They all use the same textbooks.

Many scholarships are looking for leadership and community involvement as well as good grades. A 4.0 student who plays classical violin and piano may get passed over for a 3.7 student who is on the student council and volunteering at a food bank.