Asian American Education and Income Attainment in the Era of Post-Racial America

Abstract

Background Prevailing perceptions of Asian Americans as model minorities have long situated this population within postracial discourse, an assumption that highlights their educational success as evidence of the declining significance of race and racism, placing them as models of success for other people of color. Despite evidence to repudiate the model minority thesis, the visibility of Asian Americans in higher education continues to reinforce essentialist paradigms about their presumed success while rendering invisible the educational experiences and diminished educational earning power of low-income, women, and noncitizen Asian populations. Purpose The purpose of this article is to situate the most recent data on the mobility of Asian American students within the K–Ph.D. educational system in the new so-called colorblind postracial America. This article presents the most recent national educational outcomes for Asian Americans by looking at differences in attainment across race, class, gender, citizenship, and educational earning power. Research Design Drawing from the March Supplement of the Census’ 2010 Current Population Survey (CPS), we carried out multiple cross-tabulations that allowed us to disaggregate the educational attainment and earning power for Asian Americans across various social categories. The March Supplement of the CPS, referred to as the Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC), is given once a year over 3 months—the 2010 ASEC was given to 77,000 households, with a response rate of over 91.5%. This quantitative analysis of the intersectional effect of race, class, gender, and citizenship provides a more nuanced examination of their interactional impact on educational attainment. Findings/Results Our intersectional analysis of educational attainment and earning power reveals the multiplicity of experiences and heterogeneity among Asian Americans. There is a clear positive relationship between class and educational attainment, but the intersectional impact of gender with class, and gender with citizenship points to a nonlinear relationship between these constructs and educational attainment when they are examined together. The data also make evident important gaps in earning power for Asian Americans compared with White Americans, and an especially disproportionate burden of diminished earnings for Asian American women. Conclusions/Recommendations This study sounds the alarm as postracial discourse has created several new challenges on issues related to Asian Americans, affirmative action policies, and the vitality of ethnic studies in the K–Ph.D. system. As a result of this study, the authors warn that the model minority thesis inaccurately depicts Asian Americans in policy discussions on education, race relations, poverty, and civil rights. This article makes important recommendations for coalition building, research approaches, and a new educational policy framework that can mediate current policy failures to include Asian Americans in discussions of equity.

Annual review of Asian American Psychology, 2014.

“…For model minority myths and stereotypes , studies covered three areas: (a) race/ethnicity differences on perceptions of the police (Y. Wu, 2014), perceptions of leadership (Festekjian et al, 2014), and employment discrimination (Covarrubias & Liou, 2014; Kushins, 2014); (b) Muslim Americans’ experiences post-9/11, such as perceptions of stigma (Khan, 2014) and experiences of ethnic prejudice (North et al, 2014); and (c) Asian Americans’ attitudes or reaction to racial discrimination (Son, 2014), perpetual foreigner stereotype (Tsuda, 2014), and exceptionalizing stereotype (i.e., being treated as an outlier of Asian Americans, A. G. T. T. Tran & Lee, 2014).…”

“…For model minority myths and stereotypes, studies covered three areas: (a) race/ethnicity differences on perceptions of the police (Y. Wu, 2014), perceptions of leadership (Festekjian et al, 2014), and employment discrimination (Covarrubias & Liou, 2014;Kushins, 2014); (b) Muslim Americans' experiences post-9/11, such as perceptions of stigma (Khan, 2014) and experiences of ethnic prejudice (North et al, 2014); and (c) Asian Americans' attitudes or reaction to racial discrimination (Son, 2014), perpetual foreigner stereotype (Tsuda, 2014), and exceptionalizing stereotype (i.e., being treated as an outlier of Asian Americans, A. G. T. T. . A. G. T. T. Tran and Lee (2014) found that participants evaluated their partner, the interaction, and future interaction less favorably when they were told by their partner, "You speak English well for an Asian" (high racially loaded condition, exceptionalizing stereotype) than when they were told, "You speak English well" (low racially loaded condition) or, "Nice talking to you" (control condition).…”

Complexifying Asian American student pathways to STEM majors: Differences by ethnic subgroups and college selectivity.

“…In this regard, recent literature has criticized the monolithic image of the model minority stereotype in terms of students’ educational outcomes (e.g., Covarrubias & Liou, 2014; Lee, 2006; Nguyen et al, 2019; Ocampo & Soodjinda, 2016). In the United States, for example, most Southeast Asian populations age 25 and older, including Cambodian (16.4%), Laotian (18.0%), Hmong (18.4%), Burmese (21.3%), and Vietnamese (29.5%), attained bachelor’s or higher degrees at rates significantly lower than the average of the national population (31.3%) in 2016, whereas several other Asian American groups such as Asian Indian (74.2%), Korean (56.3%), Pakistani (56.2%), Chinese (55.4%), and Japanese (51.6%) reported overall higher figures (Snyder et al, 2019).…”

Asian Americans and Income Inequality: Disparities Between and Within Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Groups

“…Many studies of Asian American income inequality focus on the generation differences in income among immigrants. Following Alejandro Covarrubias and Daniel D. Liou (2014), we include information on respondent citizenship and nativity and use both to create proxies for these generational differences. For the citizenship variable, the CPS collects information about whether respondents are "U.S. Citizen," "Born in U.S., outlying," "Born abroad of American Parents," "Naturalized Citizen," and "Not a U.S.…”