The disconnect for some Asian parents is that they're stuck with the Chinese idea that highest marks always equals best university. As a result they push push push their child to test higher on the SAT, GPA, farm community service hours, play more piano... But they don't realize American schools aren't solely score based, and at the end of the day, there comes a point where the University just isn't impressed by the same profile over and over again.
As a supporting anecode, I'm Chinese, and I was admitted to a competitive department at UCLA with a 3.7 unweighted GPA in 2009, which was far below the average for whites, or asians. So I don't think there's a conspiracy against Asians.
As for your own experience, prop 209 passed in California banned the state, including state universities, from considering race, so you were not judged by any heightened Asian standard like some other schools.
It's because Asian-Americans statistically score much higher than white Americans so the competition is fierce.
If you check the "Asian" box when you take the SATs, you actually get points deducted from your overall score.
I'm not sure what started it, but the vicious cycle of over-achieving continues to make it so they need to get extremely high scores to be accepted to many ivy-league universities.
On top of this, most universities in the US have student quotas based on ethnicity, instead of basing admission on merit.