Asian-Americans divided on Yale affirmative action case
- US Justice Department calling Yale biased against white and Asian-American applicants has won fans but also critics
- Ethnicity and background affects outcomes, some say, while others point to ‘anti-black’ privilege
Asian-Americans have long pointed out that they should not be regarded as a homogenous group, as their diversity of ethnicities and backgrounds affect life outcomes.
For example, research has shown that those of Southeast Asian descent found it harder to attain higher education or economic security than those of Japanese, Korean or Chinese heritage.
Katrina Dizon Mariategue, who works with a Washington DC-based national advocacy group for Cambodian, Laotian and Vietnamese Americans, said groups of Southeast Asians had ended up in the US after fleeing war and genocide in their home countries, and faced well-documented resettlement challenges.
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A 2016 research paper by the Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement found Hmong, Cambodian and Laotian refugees, who fled to the US in the 1970s after the Vietnam war, “dispersed into poor neighbourhoods with low-achieving peers” and a lack of residents of the same ethnicity.
Government assistance focused on helping them with survival rather than advancement, the paper noted.