Why are Asians successful? Are Asians smarter?

Q: Why are Asians successful in America? Do Asians have a higher intelligence than non-Asians? Are Asians more hard-working?

A: Asian immigrants in the United States and their descendants are more successful on average because they are highly self-selected. Overseas immigrants are a biased sample and not representative of their original country’s general population. They tend to be economic immigrants coming from the middle and upper classes, with a higher degree of education and wealth. However, the subset of overseas immigrants (including Asians) that are refugees suffer extreme poverty, on average, because they are more representative of the general population of their originating countries.

All non-whites in the United States are subject to racial discrimination in employment, and are denied white privilege. Even the Asians that arrive with or inherit economic and educational privileges suffer from racism in employment, as they need to have more education than a white person to receive the same pay. They also bump into the glass ceiling.

The United States is not a meritocracy. Racism, sexism, and inherited wealth are determinants of who is in power.

Q: Where is the data that supports this explanation?

A: Sociologist Stephen Klineberg conducted a 1996 survey of Asians in Houston and found that there was little or no social mobility among Asians.

[…] Klineberg revealed that nearly 40 percent of Asian respondents said their fathers had been doctors, lawyers, corporate managers or other professionals, compared to about 30 percent of Anglos, 20 percent of Blacks, and 15 percent of Hispanics.

[…]

The occupational profiles of the Asian respondents and their fathers suggest little or no upward social mobility. For example, 44 percent of the Indians and Pakistanis in Houston are in professional or managerial positions, but so were 47 percent of their fathers. Among the Vietnamese, 28 percent are in low-skilled production or laboring jobs as were 30 percent of their fathers.

From the same study, Klineberg found that although Asians, on average, are more likely to have college degrees compared to Anglos, their income and employment positions are lower than Anglos.

While nearly 60 percent of Asian adults in Harris County have college degrees, compared to about 40 percent of Anglo adults, Asians report considerably lower household incomes and are more apt to work in lower status positions than Anglos.

Sociologist C.N. Le reviews research on the “returns in education”, which shows that non-whites, including Asians, earn less than whites with equal qualifications.

Recent research from scholars such as Timothy Fong, Roderick Harrison, and Paul Ong, to name just a few, continues to confirm these findings that controlling for other variables, Asian Americans still earn less money than Whites with virtually equal qualifications. Once again, for each statistic that suggests everything is picture-perfect for Asian Americans, there is another that proves otherwise.

Guofang Li, an academic researcher and assistant professor in the University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education, debunks the myth that Asians are by nature more academically successful than other minorities:

Although many Asian students do quite well in school and on standardized tests, Li maintains their success often reflects the additional expensive private schooling provided by upper- and middle-class parents on evenings and weekends.

[…]

The persistence of these ideas, says Li, prevents us from unraveling the social realities of those who face problems in the educational system. Furthermore, she says, they authorize a flat denial of racism and structures of social dominance, and silence those who are not economically successful.

More data and explanations debunking this “model minority” myth can be found in the section below.

Further reading:

• How Whites Use Asians to Further Anti-Black Racism by Tim Wise
• Myth: Asian-Americans are a model minority by Steve Kangas
• A Brief History of the ”Model Minority” Stereotype by Andrew Chin
• Black Immigrants: the new model minority? by Wendi Muse
• Survey Examines Asian Mobility (Rice University)
• The Model Minority Image by C. N. Le
• Researcher Debunks “Myth” that Asians Are, by Nature, More Academically Successful than Other Minorities (University at Buffalo)

Most Japanese Canadians are Canadian-born.

If you ask an Asian in Canada, “Where are you from?”, the person may be take offense at being assumed a foreigner because of her race, or she may be happy to tell you about her motherland. Foreign-born and native-born Asian Canadians are different. They should not be lumped together and treated the same.

Although you cannot tell if an Asian individual is foreign-born or Canadian-born by looking at his physical features (being born and raised in a Western country does not change small, slanted eyes into large, round eyes), we have data on Asian Canadian visible minorities as an aggregate and where they are from.

2 in 3 Japanese are Canadian-born:

1 in 4 Chinese are Canadian-born (“Canadian-Born Chinese” or “CBCs”):

1 in 3 South Asians are Canadian-born (so-called “Canadian-Born Confused Desis” or “CBCDs”):

On average, 3 in 10 visible minorities were Canadian-born. The breakdown of the Canadian-born percentages across the individual visible minority groups are shown below.

Visible minority group	Percentage Canadian-born	Canadian-born occurrence
Japanese	63.2	2 out of 3
Black	44.3	9 out of 20
Southeast Asian	31.2	1 out of 3
South Asian	29.3	1 out of 3
Arab	27.0	3 out of 10
Filipino	25.6	1 out of 4
Chinese	25.5	1 out of 4
Latin American	21.1	1 out of 5
Korean	15.0	3 out of 20
West Asian	14.8	3 out of 20

(The “Canadian-born occurrence” column is an extrapolation from the percentage, not explicitly listed in the analysis series article.)

Sources:

• Statistics Canada. 2008. Canada’s Ethnocultural Mosaic, 2006 Census. 2006 Census. Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 97-562-X. Ottawa. Released April 2, 2008.

Racial demographics of Toronto (CMA): 42.9% visible minorities

Visible minorities accounted for 42.9% or 2,174,100 of the population in Toronto (Census Metropolitan Area), according to the 2006 Census. The largest visible minority groups in Toronto were South Asian (684,100), Chinese (486,300), Black (352,200), and Filipino (172,000).

The census metropolitan area (CMA) of Toronto had the largest proportion of visible minorities among all CMAs in Canada. 94.0% of the visible minority population in Toronto (CMA) lived in one of six municipalities: the City of Toronto, Mississauga, Brampton, Markham, Richmond Hill, or Vaughan. The municipalities of Markham and Brampton had the highest proportion of visible minorities within the Toronto CMA.

Markham: 65.4% visible minorities

The municipality of Markham, Ontario had the highest percentage (65.4%) of visible minorities in Canada, surpassing the visible minority percentage of Richmond, British Columbia (65.1%). The two largest visible minority groups in Markham are Chinese (89,300) and South Asian (45,000).

Brampton: 57.0% visible minorities

The municipality with the second-highest proportion of visible minorities within the Toronto CMA was Brampton, Ontario, with 57.0% visible minorities. The largest visible minority groups in Brampton were South Asian (136,800) and Black (53,300).

Visible minorities made up 49.0% of Mississauga, 46.9% of the City of Toronto, and 45.7% of Richmond Hill.

Sources:

• Statistics Canada. 2007. 2006 Community Profiles. 2006 Census. Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 92-591-XWE. Ottawa. Released March 13 2007.
• Statistics Canada. 2008. Canada’s Ethnocultural Mosaic, 2006 Census. 2006 Census. Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 97-562-X. Ottawa. Released April 2, 2008.

Visible Minorities in Canada 2006

Visible minorities made up 16.2% of the total population in Canada in 2006, according to the newly-released 2006 Census data.

Visible minorities are defined as “persons, other than Aboriginal persons, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour.”

Interestingly, South Asians have surpassed Chinese as the largest visible minority group.

The South Asians became Canada’s largest visible minority group in 2006, surpassing Chinese for the first time. The populations of both were well over 1 million.

The 2006 Census enumerated an estimated 1,262,900 individuals who identified themselves as South Asian, a growth rate of 37.7% from 917,100 individuals in 2001. They represented one-quarter (24.9%) of all visible minorities, or 4.0% of the total population in Canada.

In contrast, the number of individuals who identified themselves as Chinese increased 18.2% from 1,029,400 in 2001 to 1,216,600 in 2006. Chinese accounted for 24.0% of the visible minority population and 3.9% of the total Canadian population.

The number of those identifying themselves as Black, the third largest visible minority group, rose 18.4% from 662,200 individuals in 2001 to an estimated 783,800. They accounted for 15.5% of the visible minority population and 2.5% of the total population in 2006.

Other visible minority groups included Filipinos, who represented 8.1% of the visible minority population, Latin Americans (6.0%), Arabs (5.2%), Southeast Asians (4.7%), West Asians (3.1%), Koreans (2.8%) and Japanese (1.6%).

Related webpages:

• Canada’s Ethnocultural Mosaic, 2006 Census: Summary

Fallacy: Making moral judgements about ethnic minorities based on the actions of foreigners.

If you condemn people of ethnicity P who live in your country based on the actions of foreigners of ethnicity P living in a different country, your reasoning is illogical. At a basic level, this is fallacious because

• If individual x has property P and individual y also has property P, one cannot conclude that x = y.
• If individual x has property P and individual y also has property P, one cannot conclude that if x has some property Q, y also has property Q.

In the ethnicity example, if a foreigner x of ethnicity P in a different country participates in action Q that is morally questionable, one cannot condemn a minority y in your country for action Q simply because that individual is also of ethnicity P.

For example, if a Muslim in a Western country complains that her rights were violated by the state, it is illogical to argue that this individual is being hypocritical because the laws in Saudi Arabia are worse in terms of human rights violations. Here, the individual y who complained about the violation is not necessary the person x who carried out a human rights violation, even though both x and y have property P, being Muslim. Furthermore, it is not the case that if some w has property P and property Q, all z who have property P also have property Q.

At a second level, this reasoning is fallacious because it assumes that minorities of ethnicity P in countries like the United States and Canada are representative of people of ethnicity P living in countries where ethnicity P is the majority. This is often not the case, as those who choose to immigrate to a Western country tend to be sympathetic towards Western values, and may even be escaping persecution from their original country. Cuban Americans on average tend to be anti-communist despite or perhaps because of the fact that Cuba is a communist country. Iranian Americans on average tend to be actively against Muslim fundamentalism despite or because of Iran having a Muslim fundamentalist government. Making generalizations about ethnic minorities based on foreigners living in a different country is simply ignorant, and often ironic.

At a third level, this reasoning is racist because it assumes that Canadian-born Canadians and American-born Americans of Asian, Middle Eastern, or Latino descent are somehow “the same as” or interchangeable with foreigners. This is known as the “perpetual foreigner” stereotype. For example, the tastes, culture, and politics of a fourth-generation American of Asian descent are often inferred from the tastes, culture, and politics of her ancestral country instead of her native country and country of origin, the United States. On the other hand, the tastes, culture, and politics of a second-generation American of Western European descent are assumed to be American. The perception of foreignness when it comes to native-born North Americans of Asian, Middle Eastern, or Latino descent is almost always a result of racial prejudices rather than the “culture” manifested by these individuals.

Related webpages:

• Asian Americans and the Perpetual Foreigner Syndrome by Frank H. Wu – An analysis and history of the perpetual foreigner syndrome as it relates to Asian Americans, explaining why it is racist and making references to “color-blindness”, color-consciousness, and the reality of participating in racial discrimination without being mindful of it.
• “Asking Permission” by X. Dean Lim – Humourous video about equating “Asian” with “foreign”. Rather than the reverse situation shown in this thought experiment, in practise, there are more situations where an Asian American is alone and under the scrutiny of the white American majority, so social pressure usually works against him.