The real secret to Asian success in America was not about education

A new study finds that educational gains had little to do with how Asian Americans managed to close the wage gap with whites. Instead, the research suggests society simply became less racist toward Asians and started treating them with a little more respect

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Some 70 years ago, this was the Asian stereotype. Photo: Library of Congress

Published: 3:59pm, 20 Nov 2016Updated: 9:49pm, 20 Nov 2016

For those who argue race-based disadvantage is no longer a real factor in the United States, Asian Americans are a favourite talking point. The argument goes something like this: if “white privilege” is so oppressive – if the US is so hostile toward its minorities – why do census figures show that Asian Americans out-earn everyone?

In a 2014 editorial, conservative commentator Bill O’Reilly pointed out that Asian household incomes were 20 per cent higher than white household incomes on average.

“So, do we have Asian privilege in America?” he asked.

Of course not, he said. The real reason that Asians are “succeeding far more than African Americans and even more than white Americans” is that “their families are intact and education is paramount”, O’Reilly argued.

This line of reasoning has been with us since at least the 1960s, when it served as a popular rejoinder to the challenges issued by the Civil Rights Movement. Many newspapers printed flattering portraits of Asian Americans in order to cast scepticism on the people marching for economic and social justice.

“At a time when it is being proposed that hundreds of billions be spent to uplift the Negroes and other minorities, the nation’s 300,000 Chinese Americans are moving ahead on their own,” claimed a 1966 story in the US News and World Report, which noted their “strict discipline” and “traditional virtues”.