# 9.4: Social Institutions


## Education

In a lot of ways, Asian Americans have done remarkably well in achieving "the American dream" of getting a good education, working at a good job, and earning a good living. So much so that the image many have of Asian Americans is that we are the "model minority" -- a bright, shining example of hard work and patience whose example other people of colors should follow (Wu, 2018). However, the practical reality is slightly more complicated than that.

### Statistics Don't Lie . . . Do They?

Once in a great while, statistics don't lie. It is true that in many ways, Asian Americans have done very well socially and economically. The data in Table 9.4.1 was calculated using the 2000 Census Public Use Microdata Samples, then comparing the major racial/ethnic groups among different measures of what sociologists call "socioeconomic achievement."

These numbers tell you that among the five major racial/ethnic groups in the U.S., Asian Americans have the highest college degree attainment rate, rates of having an advanced degree (professional or Ph.D.), median family income, being in the labor force, rate of working in a "high skill" occupation (executive, professional, technical, or upper management), and median Socioeconomic Index (SEI) score that measures occupational prestige. Yes, in these categories, Asians even outperform whites. Asian Americans seem to have done so well that magazines such as Newsweek and respected television shows such as 60 Minutes proclaim us to be the "model minority."

Many people go even further and argue that since Asian Americans are doing so well, we no longer experience any discrimination and that Asian Americans no longer need public services such as bilingual education, government documents in multiple languages, and welfare. Further, using the first stereotype of Asian Americans, many just assume that all Asian Americans are successful and that none of us are struggling.

On the surface, it may sound rather benign and even flattering to be described in those terms. However, we need to take a much closer look at these numbers. As we will see, many other statistics show that Asian Americans are still the targets of racial inequality and institutional discrimination and that the model minority image is a myth.

### When Good Numbers Go Bad

Again, we need to remember that not all Asian Americans are the same. For every Chinese American or South Asian who has a college degree, the same number of Southeast Asians are still struggling to adapt to their lives in the U.S. For example, as shown in the tables in the Socioeconomic Statistics & Demographics article, Vietnamese Americans only have a college degree attainment rate of 20%, less than half the rate for other Asian American ethnic groups. The rates for Laotians, Cambodians, and Hmong are even lower at less than 10% (Ty, 2017).

The results show that as a whole Asian American families have higher median incomes than white families. However, this is because in most cases, the typical Asian American family tends to have more members who are working than the typical white family. It's not unusual for an Asian American family to have four, five, or more members working. A more telling statistic is median personal income (also known as per capita income). The results above show that Asian Americans still trail whites on this very important measure.

### "Success" May Only Be Skin-Deep

Another telling statistic is how much more money a person earns with each additional year of schooling completed, or what sociologists call "returns on education." One of the first in-depth studies that looked at per capita income between Asian Americans and other racial/ethnic groups came from Robert Jiobu and is cited in Asian Americans: An Interpretive History by Sucheng Chan. Using this measure, research consistently shows that for each additional year of education attained, whites earn another $522. That is, beyond a high school degree, a white with 4 more years of education (equivalent to a college degree) can expect to earn$2088 per year in salary. In contrast, returns on each additional year of education for a Japanese American is only $438. For a Chinese American, it's$320. For Blacks, it's even worse at only \$284. What this means is that basically, a typical Asian American has to get more years of education just to make the same amount of money that a typical white makes with less education.

Recent research from scholars such as Timothy Fong (2020), Roderick Harrison, and Paul Ong, to name just a few, continues to confirm these findings that controlling for other variables, Asian Americans still earn less money than whites with virtually equal qualifications. Once again, for each statistic that suggests everything is picture-perfect for Asian Americans, there is another that proves otherwise.

As another example, in California, almost 40% of all Vietnamese refugees are on public assistance and in Minnesota and Wisconsin, an equal number of Cambodians, Hmong, and Laotians also receive public assistance. Another example is that of many Korean immigrants who come to the U.S. with very high levels of education. But for various reasons (i.e., not being fluent in English), many are not able to get decent jobs that pay well. Therefore, they are forced to to work as janitors, waiters, busboys, or go into business for themselves to survive. The only reason why many Korean small business owners are able to make a small profit is that they have no paid employees and work 20 hours a day.

### Always Check Below the Surface

Another point is that even despite the real successes we've achieved, Asian Americans are still significantly underrepresented in positions of political leadership at the local, regional, state, and federal levels (despite the successes of a few individuals such as Norman Mineta and Elaine Chao) -- just like Blacks, Latinos, and American Indians. In the corporate world, Asian Americans are underrepresented as CEOs, board members, and high-level supervisors -- just like Blacks, Latinos, and American Indians.

This is not to say that there aren't Asians Americans out there who are quite successful and have essentially achieved the American dream. As their socioeconomic attainment levels clearly illustrate for example, Asian Indians consistently outperform not only other Asian ethnic groups but whites in several achievement measures, sometimes by a large margin. And of course, you'll find plenty of examples of Asian Americans who are quite affluent and successful, and as Asian Americans, we should rightly feel proud of these examples of success.

The point is that just because many Asian Americans have "made it," it does not mean that all Asian Americans have made it. In many ways, Asian Americans are still the targets of much prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination. For instance, the persistent belief that "all Asians are smart" puts a tremendous amount of pressure on many Asian Americans. Many, particularly Southeast Asians, are not able to conform to this unrealistic expectation and in fact, have the highest high school dropout rates in the country (Chou, 2008).

Asian Americans are also increasingly becoming the targets of hate crimes. In fact, research shows that Asian Americans are the fastest growing victims of hate crimes in the U.S. Asian Indians and other successful Asian Americans may have extraordinary levels of socioeconomic achievement but it's very unlikely that many of them will say that they no longer experience discrimination because of their Asian ethnicity.

Ultimately, the process of achieving socioeconomic success among Asian Americans is very complex. There are many examples of affluence and prosperity within the Asian American population but in many ways, we still face the same types of racism, social inequality, and institutional discrimination that other groups of color face. Therefore, the image that the entire Asian American community is the "model minority" is a myth.

## The Economy

Work, employment, and occupational mobility have been prominent features of the history of Asian American communities ever since they first arrived in the U.S. In fact, the fundamental reason why the majority of Asians first immigrated to America was to find work and earning a living to support themselves and their families. To this day, work remains an important part of life for Asian Americans and the reason why so many Asians continue to immigrate to the U.S.

### Self-Employment Then and Now

In the early era of Asian American history, the Gold Rush was one of the strongest pull factors that led many Chinese to come to the U.S. to find their fortune and return home rich and wealthy. In addition, many Chinese (and later other Asian groups as well) also came to Hawai'i as contract laborers to work in sugarcane plantations. On the mainland, Chinese also worked as small merchants, domestics, farmers, grocers, and starting in 1865, as railroad workers on the famous Transcontinental Railroad project.

However, the anti-immigrant and anti-Chinese nativist movement of the late 1800s, best represented by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, forced the Chinese to retreat into their own isolated communities as a matter of survival. Inside these early Chinatowns, the tradition of small business ownership developed as many Chinese provided services to other Chinese and increasingly, to non-Chinese, such as restaurants, laundry, and merchandise retailers.

The phenomenon of self-employment has been a prominent mode of work for many Asian Americans, starting with the first Asian immigrants into the U.S. and continuing through today. The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act led to the immigration of millions of Asians into the U.S. and also resulted in the growth of Asian ethnic enclaves in numerous metropolitan areas around the U.S. These two developments have led to a resurgence of self-employment among many Asian Americans.

Scholars have described four general reasons why Asian Americans are likely to become self-employed, all of which can overlap with each other. These theories are described in more detail in the article on Asian Small Businesses. Briefly summarized, they include:

• Labor market discrimination: becoming self-employed in order to avoid having to settle for lower-status or lower-paying jobs in the conventional labor market.
• Ethnic resources: either having "cultural" characteristics that facilitate entrepreneurship or relying on family and relatives for cheap labor and/or co-ethnics for patronage.
• Structural opportunities: openings within certain economic sectors, markets, or industries that offer easy entry but also include high risks of failure.
• Class resources: attaining education, training and experience, and/or financial capital in order to enter self-employment.

These tensions have led to numerous incidents of hostility, most famously represented by the extensive burning of Korean-owned businesses in the Los Angeles riots of 1992. In response, many Asian small business owners have made concerted efforts to address these complaints and reach out more to their communities in order to improve relations.

While a large proportion of Asian Americans are self-employed, most are conventional employees in the U.S. labor market. The passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act finally made it illegal to discriminate against someone based on race or ethnicity, which removed legal barriers to employment opportunities for Asian Americans. Reflecting the ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity of the Asian American population, contemporary Asian Americans also have different employment and occupational mobility patterns as well.

Social scientists have described how the American economy has undergone deindustrialization in the last few decades, from an economy based on manufacturing to one centered around technological innovation, information management, and services. Within this context, many scholars also note that the U.S. labor is becoming increasingly polarized. That is, there has been an expansion in the number of jobs at the top, within "information-intensive" sectors, and that require high levels of education and job skills and that pay very well -- jobs that many Asian Americans have successfully landed.

At the same time, there has also been a proliferation of jobs at the bottom that are relatively low-paying, unstable, and require little education or skills. However, the middle layer of skilled manufacturing and blue collar jobs has generally been shrinking, thereby leading to this stratified labor market. At the low end of the labor market, many Asian Americans share much in common with early Chinese laborers in that they possess little formal skills and English fluency. As a result, they have little choice but to work in relatively low-paying unstable service sector jobs, many located inside traditional urban Asian ethnic enclaves.

To illustrate these patterns, using data from the 2000 Census 5% PUMS, Table 9.4.3 presents distributions of occupational categories for different racial/ethnic and Asian groups (employed, ages 25-64).

The results indicate that for most racial/ethnic and Asian groups, the largest proportion within each group are concentrated in either the "Sales, Operations, and Support" or "Skilled Blue Collar" occupational categories. On the other hand, the lowest proportions within most groups are found in the "Legal and Financial Services" occupations.

Other notable findings are that, of all the racial/ethnic groups in the table, Asian Indians have the highest proportion in the "Computer, Scientific, & Engineering" occupations. Also, Chinese and Japanese share the highest proportion among all groups in the "Legal and Financial Services" occupations. Filipinos have the highest proportion of those in the "Medical/Healthcare Professionals" categories while Japanese have the highest proportion in the "Education, Media, & Community Services" occupations.

In general, the results again confirm that, at least in terms of occupational attainment, Asian Indians as a group seem to have attained the most prestigious jobs. In addition, Chinese are well-represented in the computer, scientific, and engineering fields, Filipinos have a significant level of representation among medical professionals, and Japanese enjoy a relatively high level of representation as executives and upper management. Conversely, employed Cambodians/Hmong/Laotians and Vietnamese tend to be more working class, as shown by their higher representations in the skilled blue collar occupations.

### Persistent Glass Ceiling Barriers

As the statistics show, many Asian Americans have attained skilled, prestigious, and relatively high-paying professional jobs. At the same time, many still face numerous challenges in their work environments. For example, although Asian Americans have the highest rates of having a college (43% of all adults between 25 and 64) or a law, medicine, or doctorate degree (6.5% of all adults between 25 and 64), they only have the second highest median personal (per capita) income behind that for white workers.

That is, within many occupations, Asian Americans are still paid less than whites, despite having the same educational credentials and years of job experiences. In addition, numerous studies continue to point out that Asian Americans are still underrepresented as senior executives in large publicly-owned corporations.

Many scholars point out that the relative lack of Asian Americans within the most prestigious occupations is due to the continuing presence of glass ceiling barriers within the workplace, meaning that one's success hits an invisible barrier. There are several glass ceiling mechanisms that affect Asian Americans. The first is that many companies consciously or unconsciously bypass Asian Americans when it comes to recruiting for and outreaching to future executives. This may be based on the implicit assumption that Asian Americans do not fit their picture of a future executive or corporate leader.

A second glass ceiling mechanism occurs when Asian Americans have a hard time penetrating the old boys network (social connections experienced by elite men) in many occupational environments. Research consistently shows that it is in these informal social networks that valuable mentoring takes place, along with an exchange of important career information. In this case, Asian Americans are hurt by the persistently stereotype that all Asians are foreigners or outsiders.

Third is the phenomenon of "institutional tracking" in which Asian Americans are confined to only professional and technical jobs. While these jobs may pay well up to a certain point, many are dead end jobs that do not have promotion ladders or career tracks that lead up to supervisory or executive positions. Many Asian Americans are restricted to working in these "white collar sweatshops" because their supervisors may feel that they are not interested in managerial, supervisory, or executive positions.

Similarly, many Asian American professionals are alleged to lack the language, communication, or leadership skills required for promotion. In other words, the belief is that while Asian Americans are skilled at technical aspects of certain occupations, they may not have the "soft skills" related to personality, attitude, and behavior that would give them a competitive edge when it comes to moving up into senior leadership positions. Within this context, Asian American workers may be subject to biased and subjective standards of evaluating their work performance.

### Achievement in the New Millennium

Despite the challenges that Asian American workers continue to face, they continue to use hard work and employment to attain socioeconomic mobility through numerous boom and bust cycles of the American economy. In the process, many Asian Americans have achieved impressive occupational successes and are poised to become prominent members of their respective industries.

Initially achieving success only to be driven into relative isolation, Asian Americans have persevered, adapted, and taken innovative strategies on their way toward achieving socioeconomic mobility. Reflecting the ethnic and cultural diversity of the Asian American population, employment patterns among workers range from unskilled service sector employees to highly-educated and highly-skilled professionals. Regardless of type of work, Asian Americans continue to further contribute to the strength and vitality of America's economy and culture.

## The Family

One of the most public manifestations of race is the choice of one's partner or spouse. This very individual and personal aspect can sometimes produce a lot of public discussion. Studies consistently show that Asian Americans have some of the highest "intermarriage" (also known as "outmarriage") rates among racial/ethnic minorities -- marrying someone else outside of their own ethnic group. But as always, there's more to the story than just the headline.

### The Public and Private Sides of Ethnicity

Whether it's dating or marrying someone of a different race, interracial relationships are not a new phenomenon among Asian Americans. When the first Filipino and Chinese workers came to the U.S. in the 1700s and 1800s, they were almost exclusively men. A few of them eventually married women in the U.S. who were not Asian. However, many people soon saw Asian intermarriage with whites as a threat to American society. Therefore, anti-miscegenation laws (discussed earlier in Chapter 1.4) were passed that prohibited Asians from marrying whites.