Education In A Form Of Madness (Continued)

This is the 2nd part of the post. The 1st part is here.

In the 1st part of the post, I wrote a little about the recent termination of affirmative action in college admission. It is regrettable to see that Asians have played a central part in this event. I am not surprised since the Asian immigrant community is very conservative on social issues. I have always wished that it will change, but it hasn’t. Actually the Asian immigrant community in America is more conservative than Asians living in Asia. I don’t know why this is the case, but it is what it is. Probably the life of an immigrant makes people feel more insecure, and thus more conservative.

Anyway, here I am trying to enumerate the reasons why I think Asians should support Affirmative Action rather than oppose it.

Top Colleges

I’ve heard of cases in which Asian Americans suing Harvard, Princeton, Yale or other top colleges regularly for admission discrimination, if not every year, at least every two or three years. Since the admission standards for Asians are so high and so capricious in top colleges–perfect school grades (GPA), perfect standard test scores (SAT), breathtaking extracurricular activities–many high-achieving Asians who have tried very hard to get in cannot get in. There are all kinds of rumors flying around in the community here. Some say one has to be less Asian to get in–whatever that means. Some say one has to go visit the North Pole or Antarctica or save an endangered species. Some say one has to have a really touching “sob story” about one’s grow-up experience. Whenever there is a problem that doesn’t have a solution, one ends up hearing many imaginary solutions of various degrees of craziness.

Facing such a problem, groups are formed and organizations are energized, which have tried to help frustrated students come up with lawsuits against the universities that have rejected them.

As Asians, we rarely protest or speak up. It is said among all the ethnic groups, Asians are the least likely to file complaints against their employers–the rate of complaint is so low that it is almost like zero–even though everyone of us hears stories of discrimination, some subtle and some blatant, regularly. By employers, I mean mid-sized companies or big companies. I don’t mean small businesses. I mean if one is hired by a small mom-pop store, one can be certain that one is going to hear screaming, yelling, or other verbal abuses. That is not called discrimination; that is called small business owners being under tremendous pressure and about to go insane.

Since we rarely speak up, I have some misgivings on this college admission issue, for which Asian Americans choose to make protests so often. Why this issue? Why not other issues–so many of them among immigrants–that are more important to human happiness? This issue only concerns a small group of people who strive for elite colleges. It hurts and I understand that. I am not saying that because it only concerns a few, it is not a real pain or it doesn’t deserve consideration. It is a valid issue and it should be discussed, evaluated, and even protested.

However the contrast is so huge that it is impossible for me to ignore. I mean the contrast between the issue being chosen and the issues not being chosen, between the spoken and the unspoken, between the well acknowledged and the deliberately ignored. Actually somehow I feel that the chosen issue sucks all the attention away that other more important issues are not given any recognition at all.

The more important issues I am talking about are like the following: so many highly skilled Asian immigrants work on jobs that don’t require skills at all; mental problems are more acute and prevalent among immigrants due to a lot of factors; so many women don’t get enough support since their relatives are overseas, which have contributed to a lot of women’s mental issues; so many people refuse to acknowledge the existence of mental problems; marital problems are aggravated by more social and economic pressure due to immigration. These are just a few and there are so many more. The list is almost endless and none of the issues is getting any attention at all. Actually there is almost an inexplicable consensus that these issues are trivial, for which it is almost a shame to dwell on.

I can just imagine a family, in which the child gets a rejection from Harvard. The family pride is injured, the sense of injustice arises, to such a degree that the family decides to sue Harvard. They look around and immediately find an organization that can help them do it without asking a big legal fee. At the same time, the mother (or the father) suffers in silence–her skills cannot be utilized; she works on non-skilled job she dislikes; she does all the housework and is depressed; she tries to talk about her issues but doesn’t know how; her English is good but she still feels insecure, which she feels ashamed; her old friends are overseas and don’t understand her present worries while new friends are not easy to come by, which is always a problem for small communities. Furthermore, her grandma was a big narcissist who created a family of narcissists, from whom she has suffered severely. And this poor woman looks around and tries to find help, but no help is available–no organization is there to provide any assistance to her plight.

I have so much to say about this issue, but I have to continue tomorrow on the following aspects:

• Insecurity And Not Belonging
• Vanity
• The Bamboo Ceiling
• Mental Health Issues
• Women’s Life
• The Diversity Among Asians

(To Be Continued Here)

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Image by Harish Sharma from Pixabay