Being uneducated peasants, these Chinese immigrants were denied all the rights other ethnic groups were…
In a fund drive each year, one of the region’s Public Broadcasting Services presents a documentary about the plight of earlier Chinese immigrants.
Being uneducated peasants, these Chinese immigrants were denied all the rights other ethnic groups were enjoying.
During the Gold Rush era in the mid-1800s, Asians, mostly from China’s coastal provinces of Guangtung and Fujien, began to migrate to California. They were discriminated against and given the worst labor jobs, if any.
More than a century later, ironically, some Asian Americans still face discrimination because they do better academically than other minority students.
In his column titled “Race-norming in Michigan” in the June 23 issue of Newsweek, George Will decried the admissions policy of the University of Michigan that discriminates against Asian Americans.
He wrote that earlier Asian Americans were denied “the protection of the law. In various jurisdictions they were forbidden to testify in courts against whites, practice law, be employed by corporations, attend public schools, marry Caucasians. …’’
Will lambasted the university for giving racial preferences for certain minority undergraduate applicants in the name of “diversity.”
According to the policy, African Americans, Hispanic and native Americans get 20 points automatically added to their scores; however, on June 23, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the point system.
Asian students are by no means smarter than other ethnic groups, but they work much harder than their peers of other ethnicities, or else they could not get into the nation’s top academic institutes, whose diplomas mean a passport to a better career.
Academically, racial preferences for the said minorities actually hurt them. Such a policy would have created a wrong perception that they could gain without pain.
Our education problems are rooted in the family structure. There are too many single parents with each having more than two children. They have to work and, as a result, are unable to pay enough attention to their children’s academic performances.
On the other hand, Asian parents are very strict yet willing to make great sacrifices for their children’s future. Parents’ strong support is indeed the cornerstone of children’s achievements.
About two decades ago, Asian students won all the honors as valedictorians and salutatorians of a dozen high schools in northern Indiana.
Locally, Asian students excel at Flushing High School, and some of them graduated this year with top honors. They are children of new immigrants.
Asian parents, mostly first generation in this country, are inclined to think that without a good education from a prestigious college their children would be nothing but outcast in a competitive society.
There are perhaps more Asians in Queens than anywhere else in the city. You can find a lot of Chinese, Indian, Japanese and Korean families in Bayside, Forest Hills and Fresh Meadows, where schools of all levels are considered better than their counterparts in other parts of the city.
The other day, I watched a C-Span program titled: “Should the U.S. close its borders to foreign students?”
The question drew about an equal number of callers on both ends of the political spectrum.
Some said yes because these foreign students remained in the country after completing their education, thus taking jobs away from Americans whose parents’ tax dollars have supported those academic institutes of higher learning.
That is partially true. State schools are funded by tax dollars, but prestigious private colleges generally rely on high tuitions and donations from philanthropists and alumni, many of whom are from foreign countries.
Others say foreign students, who are here working on advanced degrees, have made great scientific contributions to this country. Data showed about 45 percent of scientists in America are foreign-born.
Albert Einstein, the greatest American scientist in the 20th century, was a German Jew. Many of the Noble Prize winners in this country are foreign-born intellectuals, including five Chinese and an Indian, who were educated here.
Therefore, we should not close our borders to foreign students. Without them, many colleges would have closed their doors. They have brought vitality and diversity to our schools and society.
Many of us are fearful of young people from the Arab world after the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Some of the terrorists entered this country as students. To prevent such a tragic repeat, we must tighten our screening process to weed out persona non grata.
