The Asian Myth

The success of Asians in America is simply a smoke and mirror magician trick being played on the ignorant. This is not to say that the success of Asians in America, in regards to education and household incomes, is a fallacy. The fallacy of the Asian story comes from comparing their performance and success with the aggregate performance of Americans in general and other races in America in particular.

This week, a Hmong man from South East Asia killed six hunters in the woods of Wisconsin. This act certainly does not fit the image held of Asians by most Americans. In fact, the Hmong community in Minnesota is the largest outside their native country. This community has existed in Minnesota since the early seventies, the product of the war in Vietnam. The Hmong fought of the side of the USA against the communist in South East Asia. The communist won the war and the Hmong lives were threatened and hence many were brought to the USA as refugees.

The Hmong are an interesting case study. If one looks at their educational attainment and income levels, it falls far below the average and median performance of the Asian population in the USA. Thee is also a high level of violence, from street gang related violence, to domestic violence, in the Hmong community in Minnesota, along with their high levels of poverty. Many live in public housing projects and poor communities in St. Paul Minnesota inner city.

So what makes the Hmongs performance in America so much different from than the performance of the Asian community in general? The primary answer to that question is based upon how they arrived here. There is big difference between the performance of immigrants who come as refugees, as opposed to those who come legally through the office of immigration. Those Asians who come by virtue of visas represents a filtering processes that has resulted in selecting the best and the brightest or the most ambitious into this nation. On the other hand, refugees are not filtered into the country based upon education or financial means and hence selects a more representative reflection of the reality of their native peoples.

It is this filtering process, by the US immigration department, along with some other factors, which results in the filtering into this nation the best and brightest and the most motivated from other nations. This is true for all those groups who enter into this nation legally, including the Africans, the West Indies and other places. One simply has to ask the question “how did they manage to get here, when so many others from their nation would like to come also.” These immigrants, in most cases, represents the elites, in regards to education, income and motivation, of their native countries.

These filtered elites are then used to play on the credulous of ignorant people by juxtaposing their success against the totality of the African Americans in this nation. The goal of this juxtaposing is to make the claim that African Americans are simply lazy and irresponsible and hence the major source of their problems. The Asian is then used as a template of what is can be accomplished by a minority group in America…if they are willing to work hard.

Not to take anything away from Asians, but some of the statistics in regards to income is misleading. For example, it is often noted that the Income of Asians is higher than that of white Americans. Again, this ignores that the Asian population are filtered elites and should outperform the general population of any group, barring discrimination. However, the truth of the matter is that most Asians are concentrated in the states and metropolitan areas with the highest cost of living and hence with the highest rates of pay. Most educated people know that the typical professional in Mississippi earns less than the typical professional in California or New York. Most Asians are concentrated in those two states, where incomes are higher. Hence, their national incomes appear inflated relative to other groups whose populations are dispersed more evenly throughtout the nation.

In conclusions, people should not allow themselves to fall victims to the smoke and mirrors statistics in regards to the Asian population, especially when they are being juxtaposed against the general population of other groups.