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Why were/are the Asian immigrants so successful?

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First off, I promise that this will be the last thread I make in a while. I know that I've made two similarish threads in the past so please forgive me if I'm annoying you.

I guess what has been bothering me lately is just how and why Asian immigrants tend to be successful. The more I research, the more I'm surprised with the success with some of these ethnic groups that came from such humbled backgrounds.

A vast majority of the Vietnamese, Koreans, Laotian, and Cambodians came from incredibly humble backgrounds, with most of them coming from rural areas. Yet despite this the poverty rate of the Vietnamese fell from one third in 1990 to less than half of that in the present day. And while the Cambodians and Laotians didn't have their rates fall quite that far, they still have had their poverty rates decline substantially over the years. This comes as odd as a high amount of these people, even today, don't have high school degrees and even less get college degrees. And nearly half (in some cases more) have limited english profitency. Yet despite this nearly all of these ethnic groups have a higher personal income than virtually every other uneducated immigrants. I'm just curious to as of why. Again sorry for starting another thread but it just bugs me. And why exactly can't most immigrants take on this winning formula?

Spoiler most data from US Census and here.
 
Same reason a lot of other immigrants are successful, they worked their ass off to get here and they want to continue succeeding, so they are continuing to work their ass off.
 
Cultural thing.

- Higher value on education
- Confucian values/principals
- Used to hard work and labor (we think of Japan, Taiwan, and Korea as very modern countries today, but even one generation back like my mother -- they lived in farm houses with dirt floors)

Multi-faceted, but it comes down to a cultural thing.
 
I read somewhere that nigerian immigrants hold more graduate and undergraduate degrees than asian groups. So it's more that immigrants are willing to work harder than natives, and this is true for most immigrant countries.
 
Confucianism. Confucianistic ideals prioritise hard work and dedication. It is not a race thing. IT is a mindset thing. Asians are brought up with a certain type of mindset.

I have seen people openly decry confucianistic ideals right here in GAF. Never understood why. As if respect, hard work, dedication and filial piety are bad things.
 
bobbytkc said:
Confucianism. Confucianistic ideals prioritise hard work and dedication. It is not a race thing. IT is a mindset thing. Asians are brought up with a certain type of mindset.
Click to expand...

Pretty much this.

That's why japanese engineering is fantastic and japanese pop culture is absolute shit as well.
 
CharlieDigital said:
Cultural thing.

- Higher value on education
- Confucian values/principals
- Used to hard work and labor (we think of Japan, Taiwan, and Korea as very modern countries today, but even one generation back like my mother -- they lived in farm houses with dirt floors)

Multi-faceted, but it comes down to a cultural thing.
Click to expand...
What are the cultural values of other immigrants?
 
CrushDance said:
What are the cultural values of other immigrants?
Click to expand...

Don't know, but Confucianism is very pervasive in all Asian cultures.

I'm not doing it justice, but Confucianism places a heavy emphasis on:

- Filial piety - caring for your parents, elders
- High personal morals, propriety, and humanism
- Education and attainment of intellect
- Hard work and self sufficiency - one of my favorite Confucian writings is:

I do not enlighten those who are not eager to learn,
nor arouse those who are not anxious
to give an explanation themselves.
If I have presented one corner of the square
and they cannot come back to me with the other three,
I should not go over the points again​

etc, etc.

While it's not like Asians actively study Confucianism like Christianity or the Bible, Confucianism is very pervasive in Asian daily life and culture.

Second generation Asians in the US, however, I feel definitely lose the strong sense of Confucian ideals. It's really striking.
 
When you come from a place where you have to work 365 days a year to make ends meet its easy to exceed North Americans with their summer breaks and success through Nepotism
 
- It's more difficult to illegally immigrate over the Pacific ocean than it is to cross the southern land border by foot. I'm assuming a lot of immigrants who are legally let in often have a degree or marketable skill/job from where they came from.

- If I remember correctly, a lot of first generation asians set up banks and organizations in the states that cater specifically to asian immigrants. I see a lot of asian businesses around california that thrive on their specific demographic. Maybe this was an important social safety net decades ago?

- A lot of immigrants who barely spoke english turned to career paths that wouldn't be as reliant on speaking/writing english fluency, like math and the sciences. Math is a universal language.

- I know that schools in at least China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are super hardcore. There are "good" schools and "bad" schools. Where you go to school isn't determined by where your family lives, it's determined by what scores you get. Elementary students take a big SAT-style test that determine what middle school they get into, middle schoolers take yet another big test that determines what high school they get into, etc etc. So a lot of immigrant parents grew up in that environment and try to instill the same value in their kids.

The average asian per capita income is about as high as white people (maybe even higher now?), but there's also still a lot of poor asians out there. Go to any chinatown. So it's important not to forget there's still a lot of problems out there.
 
Onion_Relish said:
When you come from a place where you have to work 365 days a year to make ends meet its easy to exceed North Americans with their summer breaks and success through Nepotism
Click to expand...

Nepotism doesnt exist in Asia? Lol, bout the only way you get get a job in china is through connections
 
We have an incredible cultural emphasis on education. At least from what I observe, the quality of higher-level education we achieve serves as a source of bragging rights for the entire family as a whole. Many parents, who have barely achieved high school education, live vicariously through the success of their children, not unlike the attitudes of some Americans and their kids towards high school football.

In a sense, the university we attend is more important than the job we land afterwards. You're going to have kids making into really good universities that are berated by their parents because they only know the names of the ivy leagues and a few state colleges. I find that encouraging education as a familial duty rather than genuine interest (though not mutually exclusive) as somewhat stifling, but for the most part it puts us on the path to lead relatively secure lives.
 
It's not just East Asians immigrants, South Asian immigrants (Pakistan, India, Bangladesh) do very well too. But it also depends on family background and education level.

The whole bragging thing applies to those cultures as well. You have parents who barely completed high school in their country but their kids are Ivy league so they are bragging about it non stop. Not really bragging but like "oh so where did your son go to? My son is in Stanford pre-med".

That said the ambition isn't high in these people. They just want a good paying job in the end, they are not usually looking to being the President or searching a cure for cancer.
 
My Chinese relo's all have one thing in common - they are some seriously hard working people. Early starts, late finishes, weekends and they use the money they earn to make sure their kids can study as hard as they work. It's a good cycle for building family wealth.

And I don't hear them complain about anything either. Relo's on my Euro side are always bitching about someone or something being unfair, the Chinese side don't get into that.
 
I assume it's because it takes a lot of effort to get here in the first place, so the ones who do make it are naturally predisposed to doing the best they can to survive and become successful.
 
To some degree it is Darwinian. The ones that managed to get here obviously had what it took to leave their countries and gain admission to the USA. So to some degree, the 'smart Asian' stereotype is because we got the smart ones.

But that is just for some, not all of course.
 
There are plenty of lazy Asians in Asia just like there are plenty of lazy Americans in America. You mostly see the hard working foreign Asoans in Amerixa because you have to work hard to get here in a lot of cases.
 
All Asian immigrants have always lived in good, no crime neighborhoods. All of their parents are well-to-do and educated. And finally, all Asian immigrants have never been discriminated against in any form. They've had it really easy.
 
And it's not true that everyone who gets here will have the same level of success, luck plays a huge factor

Immigrants from harsh backgrounds are just better conditioned to succeed.
All Asian immigrants have always lived in good, no crime neighborhoods.
Click to expand...
They often worked to get there.
All of their parents are well-to-do and educated.
Click to expand...
Not always.
And finally, all Asian immigrants have never been discriminated against in any form. They've had it really easy.
Click to expand...
Cultural Revolution ring a bell?
 
It's not just poor immigrants though. A lot of well-to-do families in asian send their kids to colleges in the states. Even if they're not smart, they at least have support from back home to fall back on. So I guess that helps a lot too.
 
OJdaKiller said:
All Asian immigrants have always lived in good, no crime neighborhoods. All of their parents are well-to-do and educated. And finally, all Asian immigrants have never been discriminated against in any form. They've had it really easy.
Click to expand...

Youre joking, right?
 
Haly said:
And it's not true that everyone who gets here will have the same level of success, luck plays a huge factor

Immigrants from harsh backgrounds are just better conditioned to succeed.

They often worked to get there.

Not always.

Cultural Revolution ring a bell?
Click to expand...

Your sarcasm meter is working well.
 
CharlieDigital said:
Don't know, but Confucianism is very pervasive in all Asian cultures.

I'm not doing it justice, but Confucianism places a heavy emphasis on:

- Filial piety - caring for your parents, elders
- High personal morals, propriety, and humanism
- Education and attainment of intellect
- Hard work and self sufficiency - one of my favorite Confucian writings is:

I do not enlighten those who are not eager to learn,
nor arouse those who are not anxious
to give an explanation themselves.
If I have presented one corner of the square
and they cannot come back to me with the other three,
I should not go over the points again​

etc, etc.

While it's not like Asians actively study Confucianism like Christianity or the Bible, Confucianism is very pervasive in Asian daily life and culture.

Second generation Asians in the US, however, I feel definitely lose the strong sense of Confucian ideals. It's really striking.
Click to expand...

Well the upside is that they are following their hearts and allowing their creativity to flourish.
Two great examples of this are Eddie Huang and the excellent Ken Jeong.
 
Couldn't you have put at least a week between this and your model minority thread?

Zoramon089 said:
You do realize Americans have the least vacation time of any 1st world country, right?
Click to expand...

You do realize that a lot of the Asian immigrants didn't come from 1st world conditions, right?
 
CharlieDigital said:
Don't know, but Confucianism is very pervasive in all Asian cultures.

I'm not doing it justice, but Confucianism places a heavy emphasis on:

- Filial piety - caring for your parents, elders
- High personal morals, propriety, and humanism
- Education and attainment of intellect
- Hard work and self sufficiency - one of my favorite Confucian writings is:

I do not enlighten those who are not eager to learn,
nor arouse those who are not anxious
to give an explanation themselves.
If I have presented one corner of the square
and they cannot come back to me with the other three,
I should not go over the points again​

etc, etc.

While it's not like Asians actively study Confucianism like Christianity or the Bible, Confucianism is very pervasive in Asian daily life and culture.

Second generation Asians in the US, however, I feel definitely lose the strong sense of Confucian ideals. It's really striking.
Click to expand...
So you don't know what cultural values other immigrants have? I'm not disagreeing with you on the Confucianism bit. But this is just another false stereotype that all Asians work hard, all succeed and that by relation; all other immigrants are lazy and fall or are in it for a free ride. But I guess if it's a positive stereotype people are more willing to accept it.
 
time.png

Tiger moms.
 
They become tiger moms after immigrating. The questions, who tiger moms the tiger moms?
 
OJdaKiller said:
All Asian immigrants have always lived in good, no crime neighborhoods. All of their parents are well-to-do and educated. And finally, all Asian immigrants have never been discriminated against in any form. They've had it really easy.
Click to expand...

Oh my god please read a history book.
 
XiaNaphryz said:
Not all. Philippines is primarily Catholic, for example. Thank you Spanish Empire!



wat

Plenty of race issues on the US west coast going a long way back.
Click to expand...
Asian culture is widely loved by the western world and is pervasive in many forms. Especially the fetishism of Asian women. The only Asians that get the short end of the stick are Asian men.

It is not a secret that Asians are generally looked at better than others.
 
CrushDance said:
Asian culture is widely loved by the western world and is pervasive in many forms. Especially the fetishism of Asian women. The only Asians that get the short end of the stick are Asian men.
Click to expand...

The fuck is this?

No it's not. Please actually look into how asians were treated historically in the US.
 
Devolution said:
The fuck is this?

No it's not. Please actually look into how asians were treated historically in the US.
Click to expand...
Did you even read? I never said that Asians don't face discrimination or have a history of being persecuted. I said that culture and stereotypes are responsible for how Asians are viewed now.
 
CrushDance said:
Did you even read? I never said that Asians don't face discrimination or have a history of being persecuted. I said that culture and stereotypes are responsible for how Asians are viewed now.
Click to expand...

Widely loved? Their culture as well as them are constantly mocked and derided. It's not that I can't read, it's that you don't know what you're talking about.
 
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