Week 3 - Annika Altura

Annika Altura
Week 3
Section A01 | Model Minority

The first article, "Beyond Tiger Mom Anxiety: Ethnic, Gender and Generational Differences in Asian American College Access and Choices", is one that covers a summary of statistics about the college decision process for Asian Americans. Tiger Mom, Amy Chua firmly believes in the notion that strict, pressuring, parenting, that is supposedly traditionally Chinese, produces the best and most well-prepared for college children. Some may believe that parents have the greatest influence over their children's decisions. While the study did show that family was of utmost importance when creating decisions, it is apparent that the people rely most on counselors for information rather than their parents. When it comes to Tiger parenting, its easy for kids to want to retreat, because rationally, this sort of pressure comes out of love and with the parents' best interests at heart. However, the difficulty is in that the kids don't feel like their own choices and interests will be put first. Naturally, students thus seek guidance elsewhere. 

The second article on Affirmative Action clearly highlighted the issues that come with being a model minority. It's a strange mix, because on the one hand, Asian Americans tend to still be considers as outsiders, having to live up to the "White American" standards. On the other hand, Asian Americans are the subject of perfection, where standards are set higher, due to the Asian-immigrant upbringing. The one word that I think of with regards to tiger parenting and the model minority, is pressure. As an Asian who just moved to the US, I've only just started to feel the expectations that are set for Asian Americans. There's an air of pre-conceived success that comes with being Asian American, and because of that I've sometimes felt as though there isn't as much freedom to fail, and grow from that. I've never truly felt this sort of racism in the states, or teased about having to know math. However, I've felt it on the flip side in the Philippines, where knowing English and being American was the model minority, and I was thus expected to "do better" than everyone else because of that. 

Chung Allred, N. (2007). Asian Americans and Affirmative Action: From Yellow Peril to Model
Minority and Back Again. Asian American Law Journal, 14(3). Available at
http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/aalj/vol14/iss

Poon, O. and Byrd, A. (2013). Beyond Tiger Mom Anxiety: Ethnic, Gender and Generational
Differences in Asian American College Access and Choices. Journal of College of Admission 
Retrieved from http://ecommons.luc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1077&context=education _facpubs

Initiative, 8. (1970, January 01). Good News On College Admissions Front. Retrieved April 16, 2017, from http://8020politicalpower.blogspot.com/2014/11/good-news-on-college-admissions-front.html