A Model Minority

ARTICLES OF WISDOM engineering students are of Asian descent; at Berkeley the figure is 40%. To win these places Asian-American students make the SAT seem as easy as taking a driving test. The average math score of Asian American high school seniors in 1985 was 518 (of a possible 800), 43 points higher than the general average. A telling measure of parental attention is homework. A 1984 study of San Francisco-area schools by Stanford Sociologist Sanford Dornbusch found that Asian-American students put in an average of eleven hours a week, compared with seven hours by other students. Some Asian Americans may be pushing their children too hard. Says a ChineseAmerican high schools in New York City; “When you get an 80, they say, ‘Why not an 85? If you get an 85, it’s ‘Why not a 90?’ ‘Years ago,’ complains Virginia Kee, a high school teacher in New York’s Chinatown, “they used to think you were Fu Manchu or Charlie Chan. Then they thought you must own a laundry or restaurant. Now they think all we know how to do is sit in front of a computer.” The image of Asian Americans is as relentless bookworms. “If you are weak in math or science and find yourself assigned to a class with a majority of Asian Kids, the only thing to do is transfer to a different section,” says a Yale sophomore. The performance of Asian Americans also triggers resentment and tension. “Anti-Asian activity in the form of violence, vandalism, harassment and intimidation