bmubyzal

Response

Ok, here it goes...

Clearly, the publishing of the WSJ article last weekend was one of the biggest events to hit MV in a long, long time. Not only has it sparked a tremendous debate, but it offended many people throughout campus.

Here's my problem - people are focusing so much on being frustrated and angry with the details that they lose focus on the larger picture. Sure, there were errors in the article, some pretty bad ones in fact. And yes, we should be mad about it. And of course, we should send letters to the editor to clarify our position and voice our complaints. But once we're finished with that, we need to step out of ourselves and look at the situation objectively.

Statement 1 - Monta Vista is academically driven.
Statement 2 - People perceive that the academic drive is caused by asians.

I think statement 1 is true regardless of your subject position. Monta Vista is an academically driven school which has its corresponding harms and benefits.

Stament 2 is where I think people get confused. People are leveling a lot of criticism at the author of the article for saying that "asians cause the academic pressures." I think this is unjust. She was reporting on a phenomenon which is occuring at Monta Vista and evaluating the reasons why it occurs. It is not her opinion which she is expressing, but the views of those who she interviews (undoubtably, she took quotes out of context, but I think the general sentiment still exists.) We are confusing the statements "People PERCEIVE asians causing academic stress" and "Asians cause academic stress."

This confusion is preventing people from reading through the article and seeing what it's really about. This article IS about racial issues. I have heard complaints about how the author uses race to sensationalize an article on academic pressure. I think it's the exact opposite. The article uses academic pressure to illustrate the growing tensions between races. And don't kid yourself. Race is a major issue in Cupertino that people are simply ignoring.

I think this is where our efforts should be. After we finish sending our letters off to New York, we need to bring our heads back to Cupertino and see what we can do to address the real issues. Racial tensions exist, what can we do about it?

Here's what I think we need to do:
1. Dispell the Asian Myth. There is this idea that Asians are always high achieving which is blatantly false. Oftentimes people say, "well yes, maybe we're all born equal, but asians value education more." I know my parents are guilty of this, and even I have fallen into believing it at times. The problem is perpetuated even more by books like Top of the Class: How Asian parents raise High achievers - and how you can too. Both through anedcotes and studies, the entire Asian myth has been disproved. In a recent discussions with ms. chung, she explained

if you're interested in the issues brought forth in the article, i recommend your picking up david brooks' book, and skimming the chapter on high school students; he did a sociological study of middle america, and the description he has of (upper) middle class students preparing for college (and beyond) is relevant to mv; yet he makes no mention of race and sees it as a socioeconomic phenomenon. a couple of summers ago, i talked with friends who are teachers in tennessee and in new york who are in schools with not many asians but in the same socio-economic strata as mv; when i mentioned how the academic pressure phenomenon is blamed on asians, they shook their heads and said "not true; our 3rd/8th graders suffer the same pressure [from parents, etc] but our population of asians is 2%."

The idea that race has anything to do with academic success is absurd. I think as asians we all want to be help up as the model minority. It's nice to feel above other people, so we never complain or even look to see if it's true. Ironically, the WSJ article actually makes an (small) attempt at dispelling the myth. It brings up the example of Pali, demonstrating that there are predominately Caucasian schools that do well too.

Dispelling the Asian myth does two things. First, it clarifies where the academic pressure is coming from. People are no longer able to scapegoat the pressures onto Asians. Secondly, it forces people to treat caucasians and asians equally. When it's no longer believed that Asians are inherently higher achieving, you eliminate the problems associated with racials preferences.

2. Address the the pressure and single-minded focus on academics at Monta Vista. This is where defending ourselves gets in the way the most. I see people claiming, "Look at our excellent sports teams, dance, theater, leadership, etc." We feel so strongly about MV being portrayed negatively that we never step back and look at how much we value our extra curriculars. Maybe to us, we have the right balance. But imagine the "average high school student" looking at Monta Vista. If they went to a football game, what would they see? half-filled stands. If they went to a volleyball game, what would they see? half-filled stands. And if they went to a basketball game, what would they see? half-filled stands. Now go into a Chem AP class, how many empty seats would you find? none. Now go into a Calc BC class, how many empty seats would you find? none. And go into a Physics Honors room, and well, you get the picture. Now this may be ok to us, but to that "average high school student" that would be weird. It would be something that he or she probably has never seen. It would also probably be outside of they perceive a good education entailing. And this is the subject position that the article is written in. So instead of pronouncing how great MV is, we should atleast look at the issue of pressure and our values. If after reflecting, we feel that this is exactly where we should be, then fine, don't do anything. But I have a feeling that after really thinking about our values, there will be certain changes we will want to make.

This article brought up a whole slew of issues. Even if you disagree with my opinions, it would be unfortunate if we did nothing with all our passion. Obviously, Monta Vista cares about what was said in that article. The point of an article is not only to inform, but at its best, make change. "The New White Flight" is clearly not a great article, but it definitely informs us on an issue and its underlying causes. Now we have the information and the passion, so why not go and make the change?

posted by Edward Young @ 8:33 PM