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- <text id=93TT0402>
- <title>
- Dec. 02, 1993: The Perils Of Success
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1993
- Dec. 02, 1993 Special Issue:The New Face Of America
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- SPECIAL ISSUE:THE NEW FACE OF AMERICA
- The Perils Of Success, Page 55
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p>Asians have become exemplary immigrants, but at a price
- </p>
- <p>By James Walsh--Reported by Jeanne McDowell/Los Angeles, Scott Norvell/Atlanta
- and Sribala Subramanian/New York
- </p>
- <p> In every way that counts, Took Took Thongthiraj is the personification
- of American promise. Engaging, intelligent and an achiever,
- the 22-year-old UCLA senior radiates confidence. "I'm 100% American
- and 100% Asian," she declares. "A lot of Asian Americans feel
- forced to choose between the two, which is a message they get
- from their parents. But I've worked hard to create a cultural
- hybrid for myself."
- </p>
- <p> The youngest of six daughters born to a Thai couple who immigrated
- to Southern California nearly 30 years ago, Thongthiraj has
- posted a perfect grade-point average of 4.0 at UCLA. She hopes
- to go on to win a master's degree and a Ph.D., with the eventual
- aim of teaching women's and Asian-American studies at the university
- level. Her story sounds like every parent's dream come true,
- but it is hardly unique. Around the country, young people of
- Asian descent seem to embody the tongue-in-cheek demographics
- of Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon, where "all the children
- are above average." Working-world Asians, meanwhile, have produced
- a veritable galaxy of stellar performers in the U.S., from the
- arts and sciences to business and finance. Like immigrating
- Jews of earlier generations, they have parlayed cultural emphases
- on education and hard work into brilliant attainments.
- </p>
- <p> What does make Thongthiraj unusual is her determination to win
- something more elusive than a career: to fashion a new identity
- out of the conflicting allegiances and double-edged stereotypes
- that plague the Asian-American psyche. Material success has
- bred resentment, envy, even backlashes of violence from such
- other subnationalities as blacks and Latinos; last year's Los
- Angeles riot was a vivid reminder of that vulnerability. The
- image of Asians as immigrant role models has also disguised
- the enduring poverty of some, as well as the political feebleness
- of the minority as a whole.
- </p>
- <p> Grace Yun, director of the New York City-based Inter-Relations
- Collaborative, describes this role-model "myth" as a "source
- of enormous concern." She deplores the idea that Asian Americans
- don't have any problems: "Thirty-six percent of the Vietnamese-American
- community in 1990 was below the poverty line. You see computers
- being advertised by little Asian geniuses. This is very damaging.
- One of the devastating by-products is anti-Asian violence."
- </p>
- <p> The story is not new. From the time Chinese Forty-Niners joined
- the California Gold Rush, Asians have tended to see America
- in terms of the old Cantonese name for San Francisco: Gao Gam
- Saan (Old Gold Mountain), or a land of economic opportunity
- above all. Nativist harassment of the newcomers, coupled with
- openly racist citizenship and immigration laws, encouraged the
- impulse to get ahead financially without bothering about assimilation
- into the mainstream society. Politics was something to be avoided.
- As an old Far Eastern maxim goes, the nail that sticks out gets
- hammered down.
- </p>
- <p> At UCLA, Thongthiraj is helping change that view. She is director
- of the Asian Pacific Coalition, an umbrella group of 19 ethnic
- organizations on campus. In promoting cultural awareness and
- aiding new immigrants, especially hard-luck cases from Indochina,
- the coalition encourages them to articulate a more assertive
- political voice and American identity.
- </p>
- <p> Like most other younger U.S.-born Asians, Thongthiraj feels
- at home in American civilization. Even so, she is not willing
- to forsake her special heritage. "There is something in the
- Asian family that promotes success," she acknowledges. "Parents
- feel you have to get established. They push a filial sense of
- duty and a message to fulfill parental expectations. What I
- do reflects on my family."
- </p>
- <p> As a rule, Asians in America have reflected extremely well,
- especially those who have drawn from the wellsprings of the
- older civilizations of India, China, Japan and Korea. Though
- they make up just 2.9% of the country's population, Asians have
- produced outstanding success stories: cellist Yo-Yo Ma and violinist
- Midori; writers Amy Tan (The Joy Luck Club) and Maxine Hong
- Kingston (China Men); Sonny Mehta, editor of the distinguished
- Knopf book-publishing house; and filmmaker Wayne Wang (Dim Sum).
- Consider also: Chang-Lin Tien, the chancellor of the University
- of California, Berkeley; Paul Terasaki, a UCLA professor of
- surgery who developed tissue typing for organ transplants; and
- Vinod Khosla, one of the founding partners of the computer-workstation
- manufacturer Sun Microsystems.
- </p>
- <p> Asian faces are as prominent in the mass media today as they
- were all but invisible in the past. Besides Connie Chung, who
- co-anchors the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, Asian-American
- journalists seem to be fixtures in almost every big-city local-news
- telecast. The time is long gone when white Americans would expect
- visages with a Far Eastern cast to belong to restaurant or laundry
- operators who confused their rs and ls: younger-generation Asians
- in California often speak like Valley Girls and hum tunes from
- the Top 40.
- </p>
- <p> Yet a certain image of exoticness lingers. Douglas Kwon, 28,
- a recent law-school graduate in Atlanta, has views on politics
- and marriage that differ markedly from those of his Korean parents.
- But he has also grown cynical about the prospects of truly fitting
- in. From the taunts he drew as a schoolboy to the persistent
- query he gets as an adult ("Where are you from--no, really?"),
- he concludes, "The bottom line is everyone is racist; everyone
- carries certain stereotypes around with them, and nothing is
- ever going to change that." Peter Son, 25, also a member of
- Atlanta's fast-growing Korean community, says that some semblance
- of the old-country folkways must be preserved, if only to remain
- sane: otherwise, he points out, "we will just end up as foreigners
- in a strange land with no identity."
- </p>
- <p> Like a slowly developing photo, however, the outlines of a clearer
- identity are beginning to emerge. So strong is the presence
- of Asian Americans on the West Coast that politics can no longer
- afford to overlook them. Michael Woo, the unsuccessful Democratic
- candidate for mayor of Los Angeles this year, demonstrated the
- fund-raising resources of prospering Asians by drumming up campaign
- contributions across the country. While Woo's defeat was a blow
- to morale, Asians can boast three members of Congress from California:
- U.S. Representatives Robert Matsui from Sacramento, Norman Mineta
- from San Jose and Jay Kim from Diamond Bar, east of Los Angeles.
- </p>
- <p> As of three years ago, California was home to 2.85 million Asian
- Americans, about 38% of the nation's total. Between the 1970
- and 1990 censuses, their numbers in Los Angeles County alone
- increased fivefold. Paul Ong, a UCLA urban-planning professor
- and author, predicts that by the year 2020, Asians in California
- will number 8.5 million, accounting for about 20% of the state's
- population.
- </p>
- <p> They already make up disproportionately large shares of university
- classes, a development that has stuck a bamboo pole into the
- affirmative-action machinery. Fully 41% of the entering freshman
- class at UCLA this autumn consists of students of Asian descent.
- At Berkeley they total 33.6% of enrollments, which has prompted
- calls for an admissions policy limiting their numbers. Not all
- rivals for the fruits of education are convinced that such an
- invidious system would be fair play. Some black intellectuals
- who have a stronger faith in self-reliance have argued that
- competing minorities would be better off raising their own academic
- standards rather than clamping a lid on Asian-American industriousness.
- </p>
- <p> Stop signs are fairly common in the job market, though. In large
- corporations, very few Asians have reached senior-executive
- rank. The reason, in part at least, seems to be a kind of cultural
- Great Wall that blinds management to what Asians expect in the
- workplace. Says J.D. Hokoyama, president of the national nonprofit
- organization known as LEAP (Leadership Education for Asian-Pacifics):
- "In America a worker comes into my office and asks for a promotion.
- Asians don't do that."
- </p>
- <p> Many, in fact, fail to get ahead in any way. In Westminster,
- the "Little Saigon" in Southern California's Orange County,
- 140,000 Vietnamese refugees are crammed into 5 sq. mi. often
- under deeply impoverished circumstances. Without the resources
- and planning that other Asian families have used in resettling,
- many of them work at dead-end jobs or, as a last resort, subsist
- on government handouts, which profoundly shames them. Says Nghia
- Tran, 30, executive director of the Vietnamese Community of
- Orange County: "As refugees, this population represents a special
- set of needs, and sometimes they are not met. This is where
- we get our delinquency problems, with Vietnamese youths getting
- involved in gangs." The loss of the support systems afforded
- by an extended-family network in the old country also isolates
- the elderly and leaves them in lonely anguish.
- </p>
- <p> A willingness to tackle what must be done helps sustain most
- newcomers. Sun Microsystems' Khosla, 38, an Indian engineer
- with an M.B.A., worked through holidays and vacations for two
- years to build up his company, which sold $4.3 billion worth
- of computer workstations last year. Quasi-retired as a multimillionaire
- for eight years now, he remarks, "Growing up in India made your
- expectations of reward much lower. So, you are prepared to work
- harder and make more sacrifices."
- </p>
- <p> While that ethic does not necessarily resolve identity conflicts,
- times are changing. Says Stephen Chen, a 20-year-old liberal
- arts major at Atlanta's Emory College: "When first-generation
- Asians talk about Caucasians, they tend to say `Americans.'
- That leaves the impression that we're foreigners and always
- will be, and we have to accept that--which I don't agree with."
- Elaine Kim, professor of Asian-American studies at Berkeley,
- comments, "It used to be that you had to be assimilating or
- foreign. Now we have young Asian-American writers who are refusing
- that choice. What they are trying to do, and succeeding at it,
- is to create a new self-defining way of being Asian American."
- </p>
- <p> In the meantime, many shining examples of this minority in the
- golden land try to bear up under the occasional unwitting offense.
- Says Berkeley chancellor Tien, a first-generation Chinese American:
- "Just today I was walking on campus when someone saw me and
- asked, `Are you from Japan?' I said, `No, I'm your chancellor.'"
- With lines like that, the education of America can't be far
- off.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
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