Cultural Factors in Asian-American students’ stress
“Why only 99 points? What happened to the other one point?” In Confucian based societies, high academic achievements are expected commonly. As the epitome of someone who has two cultural backgrounds, I am the ambassador between Asian culture and American culture. Most of the time, both cultures are in accordance with each other, but sometimes their principles conflict with one another. According to the US Department of Education, Asian/ Pacific Islander students consistently achieved the highest GPA among all ethnicity from 1990 to 2005. However, there are scenes behind that glorious façade; due to cultural factors such as parental expectations and values, Asian-American students report higher level of stress.
Family is a substantial source of stress for Asian-American students. An outline by Shane Jimerson points out that Asian family structure is more extensive than American’s nuclear family structure. Asian families bond together and emotionally and materially help maintain the students’ grades. They assist the student with benevolent intentions, however, it sometimes backfires. For instance, since they contribute more, they expect higher results in return. Grades become not only a reflection to oneself, but of the whole family. The fear of disappointment establishes stress upon Asian-American students.
In contrast, Asian-American students are slightly different from the students in Eastern countries. In particular, United States’ students are more independent from their family (Dornbusch). Independency is emphasized in the Western ideals that were rooted by our founding brothers. This can be demonstrated in daily life, such as high school students working part-time job t...
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... Institute of Education Sciences U.S. Department of Education, 2005. Web. 21 Feb. 2012. .
Seal, Kathy. "Do Asian-American Parents Push Their Kids?" Asian-American Parents: Pushy or Perfect? Miller-mccune, 18 Jan. 2011. Web. 21 Feb. 2012. .
Stevenson, Harold W. "Why Asian Students Still Outdistance Americans." Educational Leadership Feb. 1993: 63. Academic OneFile. Web. 21 Feb. 2012.
Vora, Pooja. "How to Manage Student Stress Triggers; While Children May Undergo Tension and Anxiety Due to the Burden of over Expectations, Parents Can Help Them in Overcoming These Concerns so That They Focus on Studies without Getting Stressed out." DNA (Daily News & Analysis) 15 Nov. 2011. Academic OneFile. Web. 21 Feb. 2012.
Both essays highlight how the authors felt as outsiders growing up. Both were exposed to various stereotypes and write on how the stereotypes are time again permeated across societies. Asian Americans are viewed as the ‘Model Minority’. Asian Americans have high rates of admission into institutions of higher education, low rates of drop outs and also higher grades across all groups. Asian Americans also have higher average annual incomes than other groups. Asian Americans also figure lower in crime rates. Their also hold very low poverty rates. All these figures have led to Asian Americans being touted as the Model Minority.
Studies of Hmong students are not sufficient to provide in depth and comprehensive information on the performance and education of this minority group. There are countless factors that impact the achievement levels of these students and in order to address the needs and issues, more research needs to be done. I suggest that more studies need to be done on the newly founded Charter schools which focus on the Hmong culture as well as American academics. I also suggest more studies that focus on the examination of peer pressure and gender equality issues relative to academic success involving Hmong-American students, and most especially for Female Hmong students for whom data is typically lacking (Vang, 2004) .
As a minority, coming from an international country to a foreign nation has been the most crucial decision that my family has concluded to live the possibility of the "American Dream". However, growing up as an Asian-American student wasn’t simple; I was faced with the challenge of malicious racial slurs, spiteful judgment, and unjustified condemnation that attacked my family's decision to come to America.
Wu, Ellen D. "Asian Americans and the 'model Minority' Myth." Los Angeles Times. 23 Jan. 2014. Los Angeles Times. Web. 04 Feb. 2014. .
Family loyalty is a strong Asian value. Family members are encouraged to do their best because failure would bring shame and embarrassment not only to them personally but to their whole family. Guilt and shame are the main techniques used to control behavior within the family. Americans emphasize personal goals, but the Asian culture encourages family harmony and success as a group. This can cause difficulties for Asian-American children who must fit in both at school and abide by the social rules at home as well.
Asian Americans, often referred to as the “model minority” are also affected negatively. In Keith Osajima’s article “Internalized Oppression and the Culture of Silence”, he focuses on how Asian Americans deal with their form of oppression. He noticed that many of them “were reluctant to take the risk of thinking critically about the inequities in society” (Osajima). He states that the typical quiet, well-behaved Asian American deals with what Erica Sherover Marcuse calls “internalized oppression”. Osajima asserts that internalized oppression “[leads] the oppressed people to believe that the solution to their problem is to become like or to be accepted by those in the dominant group” (Osajima). Therefore, Asian Americans have dealt with their oppression by: being good students, going to college, and getting well-paying jobs, like their white counterparts. This is where the phrase “model minority” comes in for Asian Americans. Because so many Asian Americans excel in school, the pressure to perform well is immense. Southeast Asians in particular “are not able to conform to this unrealistic expectation and in fact, have the highest high school dropout rates in the country” (C.N. Le). Osajima sums his argument up perfectly with his final sentence when he states that “the educational process can do more than reproduce a compliant work force, but can be a vehicle for liberation.” (Osajima). His strategies for allowing his classroom to serve as a site for liberation included cutting down on lecture time, encouraging students to take risks with their thinking, and assuring his students that their contributions would be respected and not be looked down upon. With encouragement and the use of these techniques, Asian Americans can begin to think critically about their role in society
In 1970, the term “model minority” was popularized by journalists, social commentators and some academics to refer to Asian Americans. The stereotype suggests that Asian Americans are more academically, economically and socially successful than any other racial minority groups, and it was achieved by overcoming disadvantages through hard work, thrift, strong family ties, and emphasizing children’s education. Contrary to this popular belief by Americans, the exaggerated praising of Asian Americans as the model minority is false. This positive image of Asian Americans as a model minority has a sinister core of believe about Asian Americans and other racial minorities in America: a view of Asian American as foreign. Since most studies on Asian children centered on their success stories and the realization of the invisible crisis that many Asian American children face is fairly recent, few studies have addressed the diverse and complex experiences of Asian American children, especially those who do not fit the model minority stereotype. This paper revisits the model minority myth and examines the impact of model minority myth on underachieving student who are failing schools. I will first present a contextualized understanding of the “model minority myth,” what is it and what does it mean to be model minority. Secondly, I will demonstrate that the myth has been inaccurate and invalid representation for many Asian American students. Then, I discuss the impact of the model minority stereotype on underachieving Asian American student schooling. I argue that the stereotype has pose a threat to the students’ advancement on school and society. In order to illustrate the impact of the model minority stereotypes on individual experiences, I r...
In this paper I will be sharing information I had gathered involving two students that were interviewed regarding education and their racial status of being an Asian-American. I will examine these subjects’ experiences as an Asian-American through the education they had experienced throughout their entire lives. I will also be relating and analyzing their experiences through the various concepts we had learned and discussed in class so far. Both of these individuals have experiences regarding their education that have similarities and differences.
Amy Chua (2011) names off three reasons that support her argument in why Chinese children are more successful. First, she mentions that Westerners worry too much on how their child will accept failure, whereas Chinese parents assume only strength in their child and nothing less. For example, if a Western child comes home with a B on a test, some parents will praise the child on their success and some may be upset, while a Chinese parent would convince their child they are “worthless” and “a disgrace.” The Western parents hope to spare their children’s feelings and to be careful not to make their child feel insecure or inadequate, while Chinese parents demand perfect grades because they believe their children can get them (Chua, 2011). Secondly, Chinese parents believe their chil...
People form East Asian immigrate to the Unite States, which is an ethnic cultural crucible, that only is a small ethnic group. However, they have been considered to be different from other minority ethnic groups because of their high school achievement. According to Huang, Asians get higher score than whites get at schools, especially in mathematics, science and other technical areas(cited from Pang, Han,& Pang,2011; Peng& Wright,1994). As immigrants, Asian American are not only adjusting themselves to acculturation, but also bringing and keeping their own culture, habits, behaviors, and belief system. The questions are: Are there any relations between culture and achievement in Asian American family education? How does their culture influence
Chua believes that Chinese parents force their children to be academically successful in order to reach “higher” goals in life. She emphasizes this when she states “…Chinese parents have … higher dreams for their children…” (Chua 8). Although Amy set higher s...
It is very interesting on how the America’s mindset on the Asian American community has changed from yellow peril to model minority in the span of 100 years. I remember my family talking about how Asians are taking over the educational market and the jobs in the USA and accepted it as a fact and backed up the fact due to the cultural values and tiger parenting as one of the major reason. However, after surveying 600 middle and high school children, and the research by Pickerill showed that tiger parenting causes children to lose self-esteem and complicates school adjustment compared to supportive parenting. While taking the course, I was surprised to know how the government played an important role in shaping the model minority myth. In the
We’ve all heard it said that Asian Americans are good at math; anything involving science, technology, and medicine. They study all the time, work really hard, and live a version of the American dream many of us never thought to dream of. And of course, we know these stereotypes are dangerous and often untrue, but perhaps we still find ourselves buying into them. Ronald Takaki”, the ethnic studies expert, writes about the idea that Asian Americans are more successful than any other American minority group in his article “The Harmful Myth of Asian Superiority. Takaki refutes this idea by strategically, and somewhat effectively, using reason, statistics, and word choice to show that Asian Americans still face some of the same hardships and barriers
Although Tiger parenting has been criticized by many, culturally, tiger parenting has led Asian children to achieve academic...
Pressures on children in today’s society are a problem that is becoming more evident in academics as parents and teachers put more and more emphasis on these children to outperform their classmates, stress in the child’s life becomes an interfering problem (Anxiety.org, 2011 Weissbourd, 2011,). From preschool children to college adults, pressure to execute academic perfection extends across all areas of curriculum. In our highly competitive, American society, emphasis placed on academic achievement has never been so intense (Anxiety.org, 2011, Beilock, 2011). This need to be the best, fueled by our culture in America, has created a social force affecting education, a force to be reckoned with at that. Too often, parents and teachers sacrifice their chil...