WHERE DOES DIVERSITY BEGIN IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

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WHERE DOES DIVERSITY BEGIN IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

The admissions data released by the Department of Education Wednesday looked much like the numbers last year.

The majority of accepted students at Stuyvesant High School, for example, are Asian. Offers for next fall went to 10 students who are black, 27 who are Latino, 151 who are white and 613 who are Asian. It is unclear how many will accept. Spots are in such demand that 23,063 students applied to Stuyvesant.

The department said 28,333 students took the exam, slightly more than the previous year. Among all the offers, 4.1% went to black students, 6.3% to Latino students, 26.5% to white students, and 51.7% to Asian students, with the rest going to teens of other backgrounds. Systemwide, 67% of students are black or Hispanic.

While almost 30% of the Asian students who tested were offered places, just 3.6% of black test-takers got seats, 4.9% of Latino test-takers, and 26.2% of white test-takers.

SO IT WAS ONLY NATURAL THAT THE GOVERNMENT OF NEW YORK CITY WANTED TO INCREASE THE DIVERSITY IN THE TOP THREE PUBLIC SCHOOLS INCLUDING STUYVESCENT

And they encountered a source of protest, which paints an anthropological picture of these children of immigrants.

 (FROM NYT}

A new plan to change the way students are admitted to New York’s elite public high schools is infuriating members of some Asian communities who feel they will be pushed aside in the drive to admit more than a handful of black and Latino students.

But in a series of forceful statements on Tuesday, Richard A. Carranza, the schools chancellor, offered a blunt rebuttal to their claims. “I just don’t buy into the narrative that any one ethnic group owns admission to these schools,” he said on Fox 5 New York.

SO A HIGHLY ACHIEVING GROUP OF ASIANS (MOST OF WHOM ARE EITHER CHINESE OR INDIAN) ARE COMPLAINING THAT THEY ARE BEING DISCRIMINATED AGAINST.

Jews who are not considered a MINORITY in this country, even though they fulfil the criteria of being a MINORITY.

That would make you realize that MINORITY status stops when you achieve the American dream and live a life comparable to the Americans. The Japanese Americans are a good example. Most of them are born in the USA and more than likely to marry a non-Asian and they have reached the standards of livings of native born American whites.

So the Asian Americans who are achievers would soon realize that to get status as a Minority with all the privileges it entitles to, and excelling or exceeding the standards and then crying discrimination is not a broad minded approach.

Should the Jews complain to the New York City Education Department saying that high percentage of Asian students prevent their children from getting an education?

No, instead they instill the desire to study and also a desire to help others. In this case, the Jewish Americans are a model group to follow: They were in the forefront of the civil rights movements, one or more of the founders of NAACP were Jewish.

I am not very impressed with the current trend of every body wanting to be a businessman/woman, automatically excluding them from the vibrations of the society and into a selfish lifestyle. Innovation and Greed are not the same. ISRAEL is the most innovative country in my experience but they also have an excellent Education system for all and a Free Medical Care that is equal to the Best available in the USA. So Innovation in Science and Society can go in hand.

I have the feeling that the parents who were protesting about letting in more Black and Latinos into their children’s PUBLIC schools is more driven by greed than innovation, if not they would open the door for less fortunate as well.

These people tend to forget that they left their countries of origin because things were not good SOCIALLY there, as seen in this survey published in the Economist. So shouldn’t they pay a little bit more attention to the social inequality in their new country?

Whenever I am in an Asian country especially in INDIA, I get tired of hearing how well their emigrant compatriots are doing in USA. I point out to them that all immigrants are doing well; the most successful immigration in the last quarter of last century was not Asian but CUBAN. Who number much less than all Asian immigrants put together and already have 14 representatives in the United States Congress much greater than the five or six Asians (just one Indian American) that serve in the congress.

Anthropology is the study of Man and a very humanistic of social sciences. While Indians try to boast that about 5 % of USA doctors especially in Private Practice are Indians, if you look at the faculty members of Asian ancestry in Social Sciences, there is a rather slim minority.  Indian Americans have contributed to the Literature: Jhumpa Lahiri comes to mind, a couple of doctors writing about AIDS and Cancer have had literary success so has Chopra the Holistic Physician.

Seven universities in Asia feature among the best anthropology departments, with the leading entrants being Singapore’s National University of Singapore (NUS) at 22^ndand Japan’s University of Tokyo at 27^th. China, South Korea, Hong Kong and India claim one entry each, all ranked in the 51-100 range.

Over in the Middle East, Israel appears once in the anthropology ranking, while the only African country represented, South Africa, features twice.

Apart from NUS and Tokyo no Asian University had a top Anthropology Department! China had just ONE and Indian had Just ONE when you think they between each other have half the population in the world.

Who do we remember most?

People who made more money or who made a difference in the lives of the people among whom they choose to live?

While writing this I realize that we no longer consider consciously Japanese and Japanese Americans as Asians, nor do we include Israelis as Asians. Most of the Nobel Prizes won by “Asians” have been either Japanese or Israeli with a small smattering of Indian or Chinese.

It is true in Brasil that the Japanese Brasilians the Nikkei are considered Brasilians rather than Asians. The Middle Eastern people have integrated well in all the countries they have emigrated to. (Technically they are Asian).

So in this context ASIAN can be considered a racial term, distinguished by looks as in Chinese and colour as in Indians.

As an aside, we can easily accept a Chinese from China would identify themselves as Chinese, we do not generally enquire into their territorial or colloquial identity. Whereas when someone says they are from India, we are more curious to find out where they are from. My usual retort is: then, are you from Nagaland; then they say I am from Kerala, I am from Punjab etc.

It is good to remember than only a small portion of the population from any country migrates. Only Less than 20 million Indian emigrants from a population of 1300 million. Recently there have been more refugees than emigrants and in fact, the term migrants are now used for both legal and illegal and refugee populations.

One thing that concerns me is that children of immigrants tend to be more conservative than the general public, this is especially true in USA and Australia, countries where they have some personal things/property to protect and less so in a country like UK or Europe where they have something to gain.

Looking from this holistic prism of view, we cannot be sure who is being the Racist here, in the protest against diversifying the Stuyvesant School student body. The Asians call the Government Racist; the non-Asians call the Asians racist. It is good to remember that you don’t have to be WHITE to be racist (as seen in countries like Jamaica and Brasil or Namibia)

This note has used sources and quotes from many sources. This is just a BLOG. Thank you for allowing me to use these excerpts including The Economist, my favourite news magazine.

The article at The Economist is more level headed and less emotion laid.

they quote:

As Jerome Karabel’s study of Jews and the Ivy League (“The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale and Princeton”) shows, it was only when Jews had gained political power that the Ivies stopped discriminating against them. And Asian-Americans are under-represented in politics as well as in business. Only 2.4% of the 113th Congress were Asian-Americans; by one count, fewer than 2% of state legislators are. 

College admissions—and the lawsuit against Harvard—may provide a spark to fire Asian-Americans into becoming more assertively political. Many in California were infuriated last year by a bill to rescind the state’s ban on using race in university admissions promoted by a Hispanic state senator. A Change.org petition and 36 organisations, 26 of them Asian-American, opposed the bill, and it was dropped. “There’s a growing community angst,” says Mr Hahn of the belief among Asian-Americans that they are being discriminated against. “What’s next? Law school admissions? Employment?” He organises political fund-raisers, and says that the coffers have opened. “Hedge-fund money, private equity, lawyers. They’re giving huge sums …It took the Jews half a century to get where they are,” he adds. “I hope it doesn’t take us that long.” 

 On a personal note, I would like universal access to Education and Health Care for all. The Developing countries could look at Cuba for inspiration and the Richer countries can look to France. Why is that Education and Health (in provision and access go hand in hand?)

I would like every one to do well. I am never impressed by what a person does for HIMSELF or HERSELF but certainly impressed with what PEOPLE do for OTHERS and usually without expecting a reward or recognition. I have seen this best among American Indians of North and South America, as well as the Buddhists in many countries including Myanmar. I travel a fair bit within the USA and I do not talk to my seat mates (jokingly I tell myself especially if they are wearing black suits, I think it was Michael Moore who said: it is the people who wear Black Suits who brought us this economic disparity?) but when I get to the Airline Lounge or the Hotel, I am very friendly to the workers, most of whom are immigrants and mainly from Spanish speaking countries. It is people like them that make USA great for me..and make me smile on my monthly visits to the USA..