>There is a similar system in the US, based on skin color.
Is there? It is very easy to find instances of poor black kids that are now multi-millionaires due to sports. Lebron James, for example, grew up without a father figure and in a poor household. He is now a billionaire.
"Are Greg and Emily More Employable Than Lakisha And Jamal"
5000 job applications with evenly weighted resumes randomly paired with names more commonly given to white children and names more commonly given to Black children. The "White" applicants were FIFTY PERCENT more likely to get a callback.
Here's an article from the fed discussing a study that shows the average white family has just under 5x more assets than your average Black family, and crucially, that intergenerational wealth doesn't play a big role in that:
There is so much more empirical proof that the US simply is not a meritocracy. You must be deliberately shielding yourself from it or astonishingly naive to think otherwise.
Except it applies to their kids too. Asian Americans growing up in the bottom 1/5 of the income distribution are more than twice as likely to end up in the top 1/5 as adults compared to white Americans. You can say that’s because their parents are highly motivated—but you can’t gift your kids motivation. What you can do is pass on certain culture and values, which brings us back to the point above.
I can tell you from my experience that, parents of the current 2nd gen Asian-American children were mostly very poor, parents of the current 1st gen Asian-American kids (who just immigrated in recent years) are mostly wealthier than the average family in their home country (some are equivalent to a middle class American family, some are super rich)
I know of some black people in the C-suite at large companies (i'm not aware of any CEO, but a few one step below). While we can argue if they earned that or not, either way they are clearly rich making more than a million dollars per year.
I'm not claiming all minorities are rich, I'm saying a few are and yet their kids get advantages that others don't have beyond their advantage of being born rich.
I'm saying I know poor white people who have all the same problems as the black and Hispanic families living in the same area, but they get less help.
The counterpoint is probably going to be something along the lines of, what if the median wealth of one family is that way because dad and mom were working 100 hours a week each, fed the kids ramen everyday, and the kid got no attention at all. Then you're comparing that to some family that ate cavier on their yacht everyday while their parents worked 20 hours a week in their medical practice and devoted the entire rest of their time to the kids education and taking the kids on bullshit "volunteering" trips to make the kid look like mother Teresa for his college and med school application.
Same family wealth, but clearly cavier kid had the leg up. Maybe better to compare full time wage or something? Personally I would dispense with both race and wealth as metrics.
If we look at a 1 year old black child, and a 1 year old while child, the average household wealth of the white child is around 10x higher.
What did the white child do to deserve this? How much better could they possibly be at drooling and crawling to have so much more wealth available to them?
So I guess your belief is that household wealth has no impact on children?
This needs to be repeated. Asian parents in America aren't pushing their kids to be millionaires. They push them to guarantee they have a good life at a comfortable white collar job. That is the goal--not starting the next Facebook or being an all star athlete. Remember, these immigrant parents typically came to America with nothing working low-paying blue collar jobs.
my parents were born in 1930s, due to wwii they didn't even finish high school.
my father (even so my mom) was very poor, he worked for a while for relatives but later for his own. he's good in business -- none of his children amasses comparable wealth though; however, none takes (or forced to take) 'stable' route (everyone works for self)
they are very hands-off on education. all but one receives bachelor degree though. i picked the school i wanted to go and majored in engineering -- never was forced.
my grades were always low. each year, pincipal always called my mom to discuss it. grades were never important to our family anyway and she's happy that i passed each :D
maybe it's just my parents. they survived one of the most tumultous era and without schooling or external help managed to do extremely well
so perhaps they expect as much for the children shrug
---
from reading others in this thread, i got the impression that [highly academic] parents with stable income (linear growth, not exponential) tend to be pushy
maybe because the formula worked for them. that formula would have steered my parents into slavery (and very high chance that i now am plowing a field instead of hacking lisp)
Having a black doctor for a parent probably provides more benefit than having a white dockworker for a parent. That's the point of the comment above. Similarly for being the daughter of rich couple or the son of a poor couple.
The first line of the article qualifies the title by adding [being born] "to white, well-off parents who lived in thriving communities and were able to send us to excellent schools."
It's interesting that people are careful with stereotypes and analysis of poor kids, but have no problem using them for wealthy kids.
Kids born into wealth, at least moderate wealth, are much more likely to be successful than kids born into poverty, so it seems they figure out that struggle thing eventually.
No one implied any such thing and there is a difference between being poor due to lackluster parenting / childhood and not growing up to be Bill Gates.
Families that nurture the value of good education (as in knowledge not a piece of paper) and hard work would quite likely have more successful children this is especially true when you can afford to lead by example rather than just yell do your homework.
"Beyond wealth, there is poverty of taste, standards, and expectations, family practices and emotional intelligence that define many Asian family backgrounds."
This is a great insight and I see it all the time in the Asian community. The comparing of children's credentials and achievements, the psychological terror of getting less than an A in class growing up, the the keeping up with the Joneses w.r.t. other Asian families. This stuff really messed with my head growing up and now as an adult, I appreciate the work ethic they instilled in me but I will never raise my kids like that and I appreciate the simple things in life and spend more on quality not quantity. I never faced the horrors and atrocities they faced in their respective countries growing up and I'm forever grateful for their sacrifices in dropping everything to immigrate here and being born and raised in America. I simply would not be the person I am today if I had to come here via H1-b visa so I'll take my odd childhood in the best light possible, my first generation parents made the best of their situation compared to the educated and stable parents of my peers.
Can anyone here first generation American relate? I may be younger than most, turning 30. Would love to hear your experiences and relationship with parents w.r.t. culture and practices growing up in America (or immigrating young) and how it effected how you raise(d) your children.
> As a conceptual shortcut, I'd want to understand what immigrant and first-generation Asians do, and do that.
It's pretty simply actually. They try to hold a steady job, save a high percentage of their income, don't have expensive hobbies, buy some property in the best school district they can and spend a lot of time on their kids education to get them into good colleges and elite professions like doctor, engineer etc.
Kids learn good financial habits from their parents, and repeat the cycle with some additional knowledge (index funds, rental properties etc.) until they "make" it.
I would argue that cultural influences do play a major role. Asian Americans on average make nearly $20k/yr more than whites. Almost 20% of billionaires are Jewish[1]. Those kinds of discrepancies don't come from nowhere, and absolutely show that upbringing and culture have a massive effect on future growth and goal attainment.
Now look at popular US culture nowadays. People are told they can be whatever they want to be, and losers are given participation trophies. Comfort and inclusion is seen as more important than competition and self-control. Our culture is changing massively, and it's showing in our test scores.
Well, the grasshopper's parents couldn't get a bank loan because they were PoC so they had poor investment options, missed out on promotions for similar reasons. Grasshopper got arrested for standing on the street while black and spent 2 months in jail because he didn't have a spare $10k for bond, and lost his job, even though charges were dropped. Ms grasshopper got sick while pregnant and had to pay $30k in hospital fees with an expensive loan. Loss of income meant they couldn't service the loan and they declared bankruptcy. Now they can't get credit for decades. Meanwhile the ant went to college and gets a good job, maximum access to tax breaks, social mobility etc.
So yeah, the poor choice to be born disadvantaged. Seriously, go back to your troll hole.
Are Asian Americans, who are better off financially than whites in America underprivileged?
reply