Maybe we’re just better at hiding it.
Asians are stupid, too. In fact, I would love for people to think Asians are stupid. That way, people will underestimate us instead of overestimate us, so they won’t be so surprised at our success. I mean, come on, the only minority in America that’s actually really smart are Jews, right?
Racisism aside, the model minority myth is unfortunately very popular among the masses. It is also, just as unfortunately, very popular among the Asian masses, which makes things worse. Sure, we have the glorious Confucius, odd family customs and rituals that incite higher suicide rates among students in East Asia, kung fu skills, and eyes that need eyeglasses – an important indicator of intelligence, I am told – but sometimes I’ve wonder if people haven’t seen a dumb Asian. I have. Or at least I’ve seen Asians that aren’t smart. Fine, “not smart” and “dumb” are not the same things.
Nevertheless, I have an unscientific, untested theory as to why there seem to be so many smart Asians – merely a matter of statistics, I believe.
Basically, the whole model minority myth is the result of circumstantial racial categories. In America, there are officially four major racial categories: white, black, Hispanic, and Asian. Now, well-educated immigrants, that is, immigrants who have high levels of education come from all over the world. We have, for instance, Iranians, many of whom fled from the current regime following the Revolution; we also have Africans (from Africa), who prefer to lend their talents away from their unstable homelands; we also have well-educated Europeans from Europe, well-educated people from Latin America and the Carribean, and so on. However, out of all these groups, only Asians constitute a separate racial category. Iranians and other Middle Easterners are often classified as white; Africans from Africa as black; and so on. So in the non-Asian categories, the well-educated immigrants are lumped together with other folks (some well-educated, some not-so-well-educated) already living in America, while in the Asian category, since there weren’t that many Asians to begin with, well-educated immigrants are overrepresented.
In short, my theory is that Asians only seem smarter because well-educated folks are overrepresented in the Asian category even though well-educated immigrants come from all over the world. Of course there are other reasons and issues too (such as the decent performances of Asians school in Asia), but I’ll just pretend they don’t exist for argument’s sake – I just want to point out one factor here.
Maybe all this makes no sense at all. If you are really skeptical, and wish to see a real example of a stupid Asian, look no further: he’s right here. I got barely passable grades in Calculus and Physics, and it’s a family thing too; probably explains why my parents weren’t so angry at me, since they figured they didn’t want me saying something like “Well, at least I passed Physics unlike you.” That’s a stupid Asian for you.
Look, I want Asians to be treated like stupid, normal people. That way, colleges won’t overestimate us and not want to take too many of us in, and we’ll be able to get into the best correges unrike those sirry American kids!
(Ah, it feels good writing up something after a long absence. I am also a very lazy, unmotivated Asian.)