Yesterday Maclean’s published an article entitled “Too Asian?” The Toronto Star wrote an article about it as well, slapping on the dramatic headline, “Suffering for Success” on the front page of their paper. How this is even news — let alone headline-worthy news — I do not understand, but let’s not get into that.
Much of the article seems to be comprised of quotes from select individuals making statements that re-enforce existing Asian stereotypes:
“I do have traditional Asian parents. I feel the pressure of finding a good job and raising a good family.”
“As a so-called ‘model minority,’ they are more frequently targeted because of being “too smart” and ‘teachers’ pets.'”
“‘My dad said if you don’t go into engineering, I won’t pay your tuition,’ says Jason Yin, a Taiwanese software engineering student at Waterloo.”
However, the main point that Maclean’s tries to make is that schools have a problem with there being a high proportion of Asian students, causing frustration among non-Asians who find it unfair that they have to struggle to compete… apparently.
“… many white students simply believe that competing with Asians—both Asian Canadians and international students—requires a sacrifice of time and freedom they’re not willing to make. They complain that they can’t compete for spots in the best schools and can’t party as much as they’d like (too bad for them, most will say).”
Another “problem” it states is that Canadian universities are struggling with deciding whether or not they should openly address this phenomenon and that if they don’t, all of the students will basically just stop socializing with each other (WTF):
“… many in the education community worry that universities risk becoming too skewed one way, changing campus life—a debate that’s been more or less out in the open in the U.S. for years but remains muted here. And that puts Canadian universities in a quandary. If they openly address the issue of race they expose themselves to criticisms that they are profiling and committing an injustice. If they don’t, Canada’s universities, far from the cultural mosaics they’re supposed to be—oases of dialogue, mutual understanding and diversity—risk becoming places of many solitudes, deserts of non-communication.”
The U of T president, David Naylor, thinks the opposite:
“This is a non-issue… We’ve never had a student complain about this. In fact, this is a false stereotype, as we know that Asian students are fully engaged in extracurricular activities. So the whole concept is false.”
The article seemed to spark a huge response for reasons that include the perception that it makes racist statements and that it is just bad journalism.
So, is this an actual problem in Canada, or is Maclean’s just making it out to be one for the sake of increasing their readership?
Macleans is making it out to be a big problem when its not. They’re probably making it a bigger problem by fueling a stereotype. A lot of comments on stating the difficulties of being Asian comes from the same ideal as UofT students complaining about UofT. They infer that Asian’s lack social skills, however, it appears that most clubs and events are hosted by them. The Maclean’s article causes more racial and stereotypical thinking that society would like to avoid.
Thank you, Lori, for writing this!
Yes, thanks for writing this Lori! Lots of reactions against this article and I’d love to see what U of T students think…would be great if we get more of that dialogue here on the blog!
I seem to be one of the few who are unphased by this article. Yeah, there are definitely lots of stereotypes in there but there’s some truth in it too. That quote “‘My dad said if you don’t go into engineering, I won’t pay your tuition,’ really made me chuckle when I read it because oh man does it ring true for me. Not exactly the same situation but listen, I’m a fourth year PoliSci/Soc student about to graduate in June and every day my dad still asks me, “So, how’s that engineering degree of yours coming along?”. It’s true that traditional Asian values are still being instilled in us by our parents, many of whom I assume to be first generation immigrants. It is odd that Macleans spends a large amount of time talking about how Asian’s typically lack social skills but in fairness they do say at some point that we’re not monolithic and not all conform to this image.
But anyway, I personally wasn’t aware of this problem before reading the article. In fact, I agree with Shane when he said that it seems that a lot of the clubs and events are hosted by Asians. I was just telling my friend about this the other day…almost everywhere I see some different Asian organization setting up a booth somewhere or organizing something. Seems pretty socially active to me.
I don’t think Asians should feel threatened or offended by this article. It underscores the fact that we are hard working, ambitious, and perform incredibly well academically. Those are pretty good traits if you ask me! Honestly, I found it offensive for white people who were portrayed in this article as students who just want to get by, who are content with mediocre grades, and who’d rather drink “23 hours a day”. I’d be pretty pissed if I were white.
I’m surprised there aren’t more comments on this post, lol.
-When I use “you” or “your”, I mean those white kids on the maclean’s article- :]
It really angered me when I read it, maybe because I’m Asian. But it doesn’t cut it. I used to live in the States [Silicon Valley, so..I was a bit luckier I guess] and there was also this feeling but it was a bit more accepted and had an “over it feeling” by the time I lived there.
I think it’s important for people just to come to terms with the fact that the world is globalizing, people work and go to school around the world and it is truly competition that keeps people going. If you cannot keep up, work harder. There’s nothing else to it. We [by we I mean my generation, kids who were born or grew up in North America] succeeded because we worked hard, because we chose to study when others didn’t. This has NOTHING to do with our race, at least nowadays it doesn’t. Sure, some Asian kids’ parents put a lot of annoying pressure on them, but that doesn’t mean you can’t put pressure on yourself.
At the end of the day it is your opportunity, it is your seat in university. If you get in and if you do well, it should have nothing to do with whichever racial or ethnic group you belong in. If you don’t get in or if you feel the need to succumb to laziness, don’t use your race as an excuse. Nothing degrades you more than when you victimize yourself with your disguised racism.
I just want to add something else — for the people who were not born here, immigrants regardless of backgrounds, they had to work from basically nothing. There’s a reason why some of them push their kids; after being put down and scoffed by North American society this is the only way they know how to get ahead. Language barriers, culture barriers, and diverse academic backgrounds are enough for a typical immigrant to handle; the only other difference between them and the people who have already settled here is merit. They didn’t come here to steal your jobs, they came here to repair your lack of productivity. I try to keep an open mind at all times but it disappoints me to see that there are still people of this saddening nature living in my country. I hope they know how pitiful of a picture they are illustrating on behalf of their own demographic group.
Just as much as I want to keep my anger pointed at those kids, I need to say that Asians need to improve as well. I know some people who only hang out with other Asians, I know some kids who only commit to extracurricular activities that can decorate their resumes. This is a two way street and we all need to work on these flaws.
As Asians, we are doing more socially. The current Nobel Peace Prize winner is Chinese, Secretary General of the UN is Korean, and I’m sure many more adults and students in campuses around the world are mobilized by one interest or another.
+ Thank you for writing about this. What I hate more than racism are silence and ignorance. Things that obviously don’t breed at UT.
It’s funny what jealousy leads people to say and act.
Anyway, back to studying!
I wasn’t too particularly happy with this article. It underscored the stereotype that Asians are not social enough, that we’re “nerds” and that somehow it’s bad for you to work hard to get into university. The article should have focused more on why other ethnic backgrounds aren’t being represented or in university. In other words, there should have been a more positive spin on encouraging more inclusiveness of other ethnic groups.
Winna I think you’re exactly right, that people are looking at it from the wrong perspective. The way they’re presenting it is like Asian kids should try less and restrict themselves so that us dumb white kids can succeed. This is soooo backwards.
As a U of T student in Economics and Statistics, I have to say I don’t like that over 90% of my classes are Asian. I don’t have anything against Asians and I think its great that they are so hardworking. BUT I find them to be quite unfriendly. They have their own cliques, they only talk amongst themselves and often in their own language. As a commuter student, it is so hard for me to meet people at school with such a large anti-social Asian group in my classes. I took a couple of English and PoliSci courses and I did actual meet some new people (none were Asian).