
The Asian American ‘advantage’ that is actually an illusion - ilamont
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/29/the-asian-american-advantage-that-is-actually-an-illusion/?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_asianam-8a:homepage/story&utm_term=.15a3d724f940
======
simonsarris
Jeff Guo at the Washington Post seems to be making some odd conclusions
lately.

For the study, _Upward Mobility and Discrimination: The Case of Asian
Americans_ , compare his reporting:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/29/the-r...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/29/the-
real-reason-americans-stopped-spitting-on-asian-americans-and-started-
praising-them/)

To Marginal Revolution's reporting:
[http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/11/upw...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/11/upward-
mobility-discrimination-asians-african-americans.html)

It's like they read totally different papers. Or Guo is just gonna talk about
whatever he wants to talk about regardless of what's on his desk, I guess.
Which might be what's happening here.

If you're really interested compare both of them to the study:
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8J_qdFYwNJ6TXdRVkM5S3lMNUU...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8J_qdFYwNJ6TXdRVkM5S3lMNUU/view)

~~~
gph
Sounds like someone reads SSC :)

------
tristanj
This article has a glaring logic flaw. After COLA, Asians and Whites show
roughly the same median household income. But among minorities, Asians still
have higher median household incomes than their Black and Hispanic
counterparts. The author barely makes an attempt explain _why_ this is the
case. Doesn't the data just reinforce the perception that Asians are the model
minority?

So what the article should have said, is after COLA, Asians still have an
"advantage" over Blacks and Hispanics. But the illusion is that they don't do
better than Whites, they perform the same. Which is not the illusion most
people had in mind.

~~~
bluedino
People don't have negative stereotypes towards Asians like they do for blacks
and hispanics. People assume they are intelligent. When an Asian man walks
down the street, white peoples don't cross to the other side like when they
encounter a black man. If you see an Asian in a BMW people assume they are a
doctor or engineer, if you see a black person in a BMW, people assume they are
a drug dealer, the car is stolen, or they play professional sports.

~~~
chimeracoder
> People don't have negative stereotypes towards Asians like they do for
> blacks and hispanics

They absolutely, absolutely do have negative stereotypes towards Asians. There
are a _different_ set of negative stereotypes (and in fact, different
stereotypes for East Asians, South Asians, and West Asians), but there very
much are negative stereotypes towards those groups.

The effect of these stereotypes is sometimes mitigated by the fact that
Asians, unlike African-Americans, largely came to the US (a) of their own free
will, and (b) on work visas which _explicitly_ bias selection in favor of
previous wealth and education status. But on the other hand, in other cases,
the effect of these stereotypes is _enhanced_ by this difference as well - it
depends on the situation in which they manifest.

------
tabeth
This article sure is strange:

>>The contrast between whites and Asians is particularly stark. Nearly 1 in 5
white Americans reside in rural counties, where a dollar goes a lot further.
But 97 percent of Asian Americans live in or near a major city, where the cost
of living is higher.

By definition of living in a lower income area and subsequently making less
money, you are unable to live in a nicer, high cost of living area. Personal
preference aside, this means you're living in a more desirable area (for many,
by definition) and these areas tend to have more job opportunities.

>> Asian Americans, largely for historical reasons, cluster near expensive
coastal cities. More than 25 percent of Asian Americans live in one of the
four metro areas with the highest costs of living — Honolulu, San Jose, New
York and San Francisco. Overall, about 73 percent live in metro areas with
above-average costs, 24 percent live in metro areas with below-average costs,
and 3 percent live in rural areas.

This is basically irrelevant. One could also say, Black Americans, largely for
historical reasons, cluster near more Southern large cities and towns (Dallas,
Georgia, New Orleans, etc.)

>> When we factor in these geographic patterns, the racial income gaps start
to look a little different

Yeah, Asian Americans still are making much more than Black and Hispanics. If
this is supposed to negate the assertion many make that "For that reason,
Asian Americans have often been invoked as a way to excuse the income gaps
between whites and blacks or whites and Hispanics..." this isn't doing a great
job.

>> If you compare whites and Asian Americans with the same amount of
schooling, Asian Americans actually make less money.

They should also compare Asian Americans with Black and Hispanic Americans
too, for good measure.

\---

This conclusion may be faulty, but I'm basically getting the following: for
"elite Asians" (keep in mind, most Asians are not "elite"), they enjoy
inklings of White privilege, if there's such a thing. However, they do not
receive as much of said privilege as actual White people.

~~~
BookmarkSaver
What he's trying to imply is that the place people live is affected by more
than simple economics. There are differing historical and cultural reasons why
blacks and Asians might live in different cities, regardless of their economic
power.

So controlling for their environment, Asians stand out less than they do just
by looking at raw numbers. Compared to where they live, they stop
outperforming whites, they just tend not to live in poor areas where whites
also populate.

~~~
wutbrodo
> So controlling for their environment, Asians stand out less than they do
> just by looking at raw numbers. Compared to where they live, they stop
> outperforming whites, they just tend not to live in poor areas where whites
> also populate.

That's begging the question of why they tend to live where they do: whether
someone lives in a high-income/high-cost/economically-productive area is in
large part driven by whether they can git into that economy.

By your logic, I could take Americans in high-income areas and those in low-
income areas and prove that the former don't stand out in terms of income
(which is obviously silly).

------
bluthru
>So while Asian American households seem richer on paper, many of them don’t
really feel richer because they live in places where the rent is high and the
groceries are more expensive.

Ok, but other things like online purchases and college tuition aren't affected
by cost of living. If you live in a high cost of living area sending a kid to
an Ivy is relatively cheaper for you than someone in a lower cost of living
area.

Cost of living is high partially because there is higher demand for that
place. Cincinnati isn't San Francisco.

~~~
akhilcacharya
>If you live in a high cost of living area sending a kid to an Ivy is
relatively cheaper for you than someone in a lower cost of living area.

I don't disagree with your point but this is a very strange example. Most
people don't send their kids to Ivies (most don't even think about applying),
and even fewer pay full price.

~~~
bluthru
My general point is that college is a large cost that isn't affected by CoL.
Same for vehicles.

~~~
rwmj
I live near London so I'm a bit of an outlier, but housing is by far my
largest expenditure, double that of food and approximately 7 times that of
vehicles/transport.

Also (AIUI) in the US most of the cost of education is in huge loans taken out
by the child.

------
bhc3
I guess it goes without saying that the headline is clickbait. The difference
isn't "an illusion". Rather, the article describes an insightful way of
looking at incomes based on cost-of-living for different geographies.

The yawning difference between Asians and whites mostly disappears after
accounting for geography. But it's still quite large versus other segments
(blacks, hispanics).

Based on the headline, I was expecting to see income convergence among the
four groups. Not the case at all.

------
teen
Why would you factor out local cost of living when comparing incomes? For the
wealthy, a high cost of living is a choice to live where they want.

~~~
gph
>For the wealthy, a high cost of living is a choice to live where they want.

To an extent. I think some of them might not mind living in less expensive
rural areas if they didn't need to be in proximity to their workplace or
common areas of business.

We aren't exclusively talking ultra-wealthy billionaires here, I imagine the
article is mostly concerned with the more common wealthy upper-middle class
workers like programmers, doctors, etc.

------
randyrand
Another _huge_ flaw:

COL is not at all a sunk cost like this article has you believe; places with
higher COL are generally better places to live. it's actually is a good
indicator for the hard to quantify value in living one place over another. In
other words, you can't just blindly factor it out and call it a day.

There is real value in living in San Francisco vs bumblefuck. It's the whole
reason people want to live there in the first place despite it's higher COL!

In turn for your extra COL, you generally get access to nearby airports for
travel, access to good jobs, a variety of career choices, a wide assortment of
options for food and social nightlife, etc. These things have real value. You
_pay_ for this value.

you can't just blindly factor out COL.

------
home_boi
Has no one done a study on the amount of time each race spends studying? It
seems to be a very easy data to collect and could help us draw an actual
conclusion.

~~~
randyrand
But when you factor out how many more times Asian parents tell their kids to
study, they actually study about the same.

/s

------
scythe
It has to be noted that Asian people still drastically out-earn black people
and are roughly "equal" with white people by city. Really the data shows that
discrimination is more anti-black than it is pro-white (I think it would be
helpful if Hispanics could be stratified by generation).

It's also revealing of the author's personal biases that he considers living
in expensive coastal cities to be a disadvantage. In nearly every other
context it's considered an advantage, despite the cost of living; imported
goods and travel are cheaper, and infrastructure is nicer. The education
system also tends to be better in rich cities, although it is worse in
California due to Proposition 13. Having tenure in growing cities (and
therefore owning property) is also a significant advantage in terms of wealth.
Someone who bought a $200,000 house in Indianapolis in 1980 is doing a lot
worse than someone who bought a $200,000 house in LA in 1980.

Of course the really old money everywhere is dominated by white people, but
most white people don't have access to that.

~~~
RoboticFoot
> Really the data shows that discrimination is more anti-black than it is pro-
> white

Or it shows that there is something about the statistically average black
person that makes them less successful than the statistically average asian
person. I don't claim to know what the difference is, but this is a fairly
obvious inference to make. I'd actually say this is, a priori, a lot more
likely than "everyone coincidentally discriminates against these particular
racial groups but not any of these other ones".

My _suspicion_ (not based on any hard evidence) is that much of this
difference is accounted for by the vast and obvious cultural differences
between the average asian person in the US and the average black person in the
US. Most Asian (South or East) immigrant cultures in the US _aggressively_
push for educational and professional success. Black culture in the US
doesn't.

~~~
pessimizer
> I'd actually say this is, a priori, a lot more likely than "everyone
> coincidentally discriminates against these particular racial groups but not
> any of these other ones".

How would you change that prior if you were informed one of those groups had
been enslaved on the basis of race for a couple of centuries, ruthlessly
oppressed for another century, then blamed for most of the problems in the
country for the lion's share of the next one, becoming the primary subject of
every leadership discussion?

> Most Asian (South or East) immigrant cultures in the US aggressively push
> for educational and professional success. Black culture in the US doesn't.

Educational attainment is more difficult to translate into professional
success for blacks in the US; black college graduates have twice the
unemployment rate as white college graduates[1]. With the rising costs of
education and the yawning gap between white wealth and black wealth, the value
proposition is only becoming worse. In my experience black people think that
their best chance of success lies in sales and/or entrepreneurship. The only
other choice is being the best of the best.

[1]
[http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/05/when-a-...](http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/05/when-
a-degree-is-no-guarantee/371613/)

~~~
home_boi
It doesn't seem like that study normalizes for quality of college degree. I
don't think it's a stretch to say that the average "ranking" (used as a proxy
for quality) of the alma matter of black people is worse than that of other
races.

------
ivthreadp110
I agree about the logic flaws in this article. As someone who works with one
of the largest public college systems in the USA, yes, URM and Non_URM
students do tend to give off the impression that asian americans fair better,
and yes it is an illusion- however, focusing on ethnicity is a mistake when
focusing on students who's parents also went to college- and pre-existing
socio-economic status. Asia is much father away then mexico or what have you-
it costs more to come here from asian countries then it does from hispanic
contries on travel distance alone.

I don't like this article, I also don't like the URM/NON-URM status that
school systems make based on ethnicity alone. There are many fields in which
non_urm (meaning not white or asian) preform better- and they call these
negative gaps. A gap is an ABS there is no -Gap. Pardon my spelling mistakes.

~~~
ivthreadp110
The illusion of it all is that you can measure based on "ethnicity" instead of
something that matters more... such as being a first generation college
student- being a first generation immigrant to the states- if you are eligible
for PELL status or not. It's silly that we, the USA, still use ethnicity over
socio-economic background as a measure to compare student success. When in all
reality- ethnicity does not matter- it's about the culture and family you are
raised in. No ethnicity is innately better then any other one. Culturally some
might be more focused on education- and as a country, the United States is
losing that culture because instead of focusing on future generations we focus
on ethnicity and dumb shit.

------
vidoc
I'm always amazed at how obsessed certain people are with "race" (aka
ethnicity) in this country. I'm very well aware of the tough racial history
and I'm not saying that kind of ethnical stats shouldn't be made, but frankly,
shouldn't we be talking about social classes instead?

This last presidential election was a great display of what I am talking about
from both side. While one side was demonizing non-WASP, the other side banked
its whole strategy on the fact that african-americans would surely vote for
them (which is, when you think about it, basically saying that most people's
vote cannot be predicted as they may flip/flop and are usually 50/50 +/\- 5%,
except for african-americans of course ...). And of course the next day, they
were blamed responsible for the defeat.

------
ivthreadp110
Everyone can bend data. I work with the raw data of this kind of thing. Sure
his graphs and charts are "right" but they're bent data.

As a data scientist we don't cook the books. It's the readers of our results
who decide to Cook them.

------
ivthreadp110
[https://calstate.edu/highschool](https://calstate.edu/highschool)

On the second tab you can see demographics.

~~~
ivthreadp110
Full list of highschools: [https://csudata.calstate.edu/highschool/school-
list?pagestyl...](https://csudata.calstate.edu/highschool/school-
list?pagestyle=hs)

------
themgt
This is such incredibly poor agenda-driven "journalism", with cherry-picked
data used to (poorly) attack a sort of straw man argument: _Asian Americans
seem to offer proof that minorities can prosper — and even leapfrog whites —
if they work hard and jump through the right hoops. For that reason, Asian
Americans have often been invoked as a way to excuse the income gaps between
whites and blacks or whites and Hispanics._

So even assuming the (unconvincing) argument that where asians live can
account for the fact they are __more __successful than whites, how does their
nonetheless COL-adjusted near parity (still ahead!) vs. whites undermine the
idea that minorities can succeed in the USA?

It's easy and cheap to virtue-signal your care for this difficult problem, but
the elephants in the room here are IQ and culture, and mainstream liberalism
is frankly bordering on fraudulence with its refusal to confront these topics.
If you actually care about fixing the worsening income and wealth gap between
races - and I would suggest everyone should, as it is clearly toxic to our
social fabric - it's long past time to have honest conversations about all of
the potential underlying causes and possible solutions.

~~~
JPKab
You're on the money.

Sadly, the only way to even discuss culture's role without being labelled a
bigot is to discuss the cultural differences within white Americans. When
you're talking about how cultural traits prevalent in Appalachian communities
like the one I grew up in exacerbate inequality, suddenly you have an
audience. See the author J.D. Vance who wrote 'Hillbilly Elegy', and has
subsequently become a darling of the political left.

It's funny, because my time spent in poor white communities and poor black
communities allowed me to see how radically similar the two communities
cultural traits often are. And also very similar is the fact that these
communities have mixed within them families who go against the grain and
succeed by not succumbing to the cultural norms around them.

Thing is, if we're honest, it's a lot easier to become popular as a minister
or a politician when you tell a disenfranchised group of people that they are
victims of someone else than to tell them they need to fix their own culture.
Poor white families whose fathers abandon them have the same issues as black
families whose fathers are absent, but the media would rather focus on the
edge cases where racist cops shoot black men without cause.

Nobody ever asked black Americans to vote for a spokesman. Instead the media
has decided that Al Sharpton and his ilk should be the ones consulted as to
what black folks care about. He's in New York like they are, so it's easy for
them and lucrative for him. In the meantime, kids hold signs saying "Black
Lives Matter", but nobody wants to hold a sign that says "Black Dads Matter"
even though a movement like that would do more to help black America than any
government program. 70% of children being born out of wedlock has a huge
effect, whether anyone is willing to admit it or not. And blaming
incarceration solves nothing. The majority of absent fathers in the black
community are not incarcerated.

~~~
ajamesm
Why do you blame culture, but ignore historical practices like redlining, or
the obvious correlation with poverty, or the fact that American black people
have had scarcely 50 years of equality under the law? That drugs in black
communities are treated as crime, but drugs in white communities are seen as a
public health crisis?

There are hundreds of issues of infinitely more substance than whether black
children are conceived in wedlock.

What makes you a bigot isn't that you see that as something worth addressing.
You're a bigot because, of all the problems facing black communities, you
choose that one to judge them by.

~~~
eric_b
I mean... jeez, again with the name-calling. Have you looked up the definition
of "bigot"? It's defined as a person who is intolerant toward those holding
different opinions.

In the comments I've seen you post so far, the intolerant one is... you.

~~~
Frondo
There is nothing intolerant in calling someone a bigot.

------
dnprock
"Asians are really not better than whites" maybe, that should be the title.

