Asian American Discrimination in Harvard Admissions [pdf]

Asian American itself is an interesting (and quite arbitrary) category. It perpetually fascinates me what is considered "Asian". East Asians are undeniably lumped in. You'd be hard pressed to find someone who considers Chinese/Korean/Japanese not Asian. SE Asia as well. South Asian (i.e. Indian, Pakistani, Bangla, etc.) ditto.

But the moment you cross this devious little Bactrian border, you start getting more and more pushback upon being labeled Asian. Talk to someone from Georgia or Armenia, or even Israel (yes, Israel is in Asia), and they'll quickly tell you that no, they're not Asian. Except...yeah you are.

One could make an argument that well, they're culturally European. I don't buy that. If you're in Asia and then your culture is Asian culture by definition. Of course nobody goes by that metric. So how do people determine Asianness? My estimate is that they do it by otherness. I.e. Asian culture is that which is not European or at this point American-European. A neat corollary to this is that Asianness is associated with a lack of social capital. Hence the insistence on not being Asian that you face in Central and Western Asia.

Which ties itself neatly into this problem. Asian-American as a category is borne out of otherness. It's that which is not European or American. And it makes sense that this group would face trouble in getting cultural, if not financial acceptance.

What to do about this? Well one thing not to do is to lash out at other people who are struggling to gain social or financial capital. Black and hispanic people are not our enemies here. A society that does not acknowledge the damaging effects of racism in its institutions and in its culture will not be a society that is beneficial to Asians.

I'm not sure what the solution is to college admissions. I don't think anybody does. But I'm adamant that it should not be used as a tool to divide minorities.

Excellent point. Asian Americans form an extraordinarily heterogeneous group, spanning all areas of socio-economic status and access to opportunity. Race is an imperfect proxy for what affirmative action attempts to do, which is to normalize circumstantial variables to better assess an individual's potential in the context of his or her environment. Several natural questions follow: 1) what other applicant characteristics better map onto what affirmative action tries to achieve? and 2) if we concede that self-reported race or perceived race is not the right characteristic to adjust for, then how do we create a truly race-blind application process?

Speaking as an Asian-American alumnus of Harvard, I will say that the conversations I've heard in the community are mixed, even among Asians. Most people are aware that discrimination against Asians is a real problem, though they do not believe affirmative action as a principle is at fault; rather, its implementation is imperfect and not nuanced enough. Adding to this debate is the complex piece of how legacy students are treated by admissions, what role money/wealth plays independently of affirmative action, and the overall autonomy and goals of private institutions. And in the end, to what extent should private and public institutions be held liable for how they achieve their diversity goals, and how do you balance this with fairness toward applicants?