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special_k7's review against another edition
3.0
The book offers great and very interesting insights regarding the question of why Asian Americans have the highest educational achievements compared to any other groups, even native-born Americans. However, for a book that is trying to explain the issue without pointing to cultural values, they do not quite convince me all the way. The fact that they reiterate the effort mindset of Asian Americans versus the ability mindset of the Americans in the U.S., would point to a difference in culture.
The book is also very repetitive all throughout, which makes reading it a little bit tiring.
The book is also very repetitive all throughout, which makes reading it a little bit tiring.
circularcubes's review against another edition
5.0
I learned a good deal more about Asian-American and mainstream American perceptions of success than I really expected to from this book. I though I had a fairly good handle on my upbringing, my community, and why my peers and I had the expectations we did growing up in the Asian-dominated San Gabriel Valley, but this book actually gave me entirely new perspectives that I hadn't considered - namely, why was it that I, a Chinese-American from a lower-class, single parent background, was able to achieve as much as my peers from middle-class backgrounds? (Because the support systems of upper-class and middle-class immigrants were brought to the US and replicated but turned into ethnic support systems, thereby allowing first-generation Americans of all economic backgrounds to partake in extracurricular activities, after-school tutoring, and the like that evens the playing field for first-generation students). Why do Asian immigrant parents brag so much about the achievements of their children? (It's a way to make up for their own loss of status when their educational backgrounds, language skills, and prior experience were demoted in value thanks to their status as immigrants in the US). I hadn't given nearly as much thought to the "second generation convergence" as I ought to have, and for that alone this book is worth 5 out of 5 stars from me.
It's so refreshing for me to immerse myself in a book like this, because I've become aware since leaving the bubble of the 626 that "Asians just work harder" and "Asians value education" is not really the reason that Asian-Americans have risen to model minority status in the US. And this book breaks it down in a thorough and easily digestible manner! I almost wish the book devoted another section or two to Asian diaspora communities outside of North America. I've visited Prato and the Chinese-Italian community there, and there were almost no recognizable parallels between that community and the Asian-American community I grew up with in Los Angeles County. I knew that the class difference was the main culprit, but this book fleshes out how class difference can create an entirely different culture of expectations for Asian-Americans.
The chapter on how hard Asian-Americans who remain in a bubble of "coethnics" (aka other Asian-Americans) can be on themselves rings true to me. I've seen it happen myself to my high-achieving peers who still believe that they aren't good enough because there's some other first-generation student who's achieved more Leaving my hometown for much whiter (and browner) communities in Massachusetts has given me outside perspectives that the high expectations that the myth of Asian-American exceptionalism breeds are not that standard of "success," and that they are in fact very high standards that far surpass what has been expected by other families of non-immigrant, non-Asian backgrounds.
It's so refreshing for me to immerse myself in a book like this, because I've become aware since leaving the bubble of the 626 that "Asians just work harder" and "Asians value education" is not really the reason that Asian-Americans have risen to model minority status in the US. And this book breaks it down in a thorough and easily digestible manner! I almost wish the book devoted another section or two to Asian diaspora communities outside of North America. I've visited Prato and the Chinese-Italian community there, and there were almost no recognizable parallels between that community and the Asian-American community I grew up with in Los Angeles County. I knew that the class difference was the main culprit, but this book fleshes out how class difference can create an entirely different culture of expectations for Asian-Americans.
The chapter on how hard Asian-Americans who remain in a bubble of "coethnics" (aka other Asian-Americans) can be on themselves rings true to me. I've seen it happen myself to my high-achieving peers who still believe that they aren't good enough because there's some other first-generation student who's achieved more Leaving my hometown for much whiter (and browner) communities in Massachusetts has given me outside perspectives that the high expectations that the myth of Asian-American exceptionalism breeds are not that standard of "success," and that they are in fact very high standards that far surpass what has been expected by other families of non-immigrant, non-Asian backgrounds.
moreteamorecats's review against another edition
4.0
I thank the authors, profusely, for giving me the new term "success frame". It's all but self-explanatory, and it instantly clarifies certain kinds of conversations.
Their sociological narrative is tight and fascinating, and I won't summarize it any better than they did themselves in the description. One crucial point that should have been obvious to me, but wasn't, because privilege: The Asian American success frame's emphasis on quantitative fields is a direct response to White supremacy. "One plus one always equals two," one child remembers their mother saying. The STEM and medical professions really are better at letting the hardest and smartest workers rise to the top, because their objective foundations resist bias.
Their sociological narrative is tight and fascinating, and I won't summarize it any better than they did themselves in the description. One crucial point that should have been obvious to me, but wasn't, because privilege: The Asian American success frame's emphasis on quantitative fields is a direct response to White supremacy. "One plus one always equals two," one child remembers their mother saying. The STEM and medical professions really are better at letting the hardest and smartest workers rise to the top, because their objective foundations resist bias.
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