This week’s central theme is the debunking of myths surrounding Asian Americans in higher education. The academic paper that stood out to me the most was Nancy Chung Allred’s piece on affirmative action. Until I started high school, my family was only barely above the poverty line. According to statistics, my situation was the norm for Southeast Asian (Vietnamese) families. Because of this, I was predisposed into being a supporter of affirmative action. However, because I came from a racially diverse high school in California, there were a lot of Asian Americans. As I became a senior, I heard horror stories from my Chinese and Indian American peers regarding college acceptance. Stories about how Asian Americans scored higher than everyone else, but failed to get accepted into top schools. In fact, one of the upperclassmen in my high school claimed that he got rejected from every high school because he was Asian American. This can be seen in the following video :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ixzZYxM7Hc
Allred's paper points out that this is problematic because opponents against affirmative action assume that Asian Americans are a monoethnic group, which is definitely not the case. It is not surprising to me that the majority of Asian Americans against affirmative action are Chinese American, which can be seen in the video. Conservative pundits have also used this case as justification to remove affirmative action against whites.
References
Insider, Business. “Does Affirmative Action Hurt Asian Americans?” YouTube, YouTube, 14 Feb. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ixzZYxM7Hc.
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