Now before I start this, the title probably got your attention as it was meant to, just not in a positive way I assume. It's not meant to be racist or anything of that nature. This was the title used in an american debate amongst College's who saw a rising Asian population as something at least worth mentioning. It's also the title of two articles that got my attention (Maclean's & the Toronto Star). I'm not going to really agree to some of the points made in the Toronto Star, as it seemed they were implying Asian parents should calm down and stop pushing there kids to head towards engineering or to become a doctor. Now I don't necessarily agree that pushing kids for a better future is a bad thing, but pushing someone with the social development of a six year old and no talent in a given field is beyond horrible parenting. I would not like a depressed bent out of shape surgeon in the coming years who hates his job and his patients operating on me. At least in Macleans they leaned towards just informing people that this isn't so much an issue, but is being seen as one by universities and educators. Some universities are almost in denial in the high asian density of certain programs. In the states people of asian descent are having to do that much more than their white counterparts to enter colleges in some parts of the states.
Still though, this isn't so much an issue but something to look out for. Not demonizing one side or the other here. You can do that for practically any race; overly social but educationally un-prepared white people, black people with a astigmatism towards learning, the list goes on. The only thing that rang a worrisome bell in my head while reading the Maclean article was when it mentioned the numbers. Imagine a minority group of less than forty percent, taking up over eighty percent of a university. Specifically programs like engineering and the like. That is one demographic in the major fields in universities and colleges across both borders. Now its not that some of these students are only taking these courses for the sake of taking them with little invested interest, or the obvious racism that is already occurring towards these asian students (a little odd since they did work to get their), not even that some schools have already taken initiatives to lower these numbers. I'm not really sure whats bothering me about this article so much. Than again this happens when ever I read articles about minority groups with racist undertones (both over achieving asians and lazy white people), whether they were on purpose or not. And I'll end off on here before I finally cross a line.
But as a last note, and since this is my blog, I personally think this is a huge load of crap in many ways. We can't simply say one group is working to hard and chastise them for that. In a city that'll have the minorities becoming the majority soon, I can't imagine a better outcome. And if these students, as the Star implied, are failing in the universities screw 'em, it'll act as a wake up call and let them handle their own buisness. As for the disparity of white students having to face the overly competitive MINORITY asians in their schools, don't make me laugh.
Links if your interested:
http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/11/10/too-asian/
http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/education/article/888368--asian-students-being-forced-into-university-maclean-s
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