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Comment by rsy96 | Hacker News Reader

One reason that Asians outperform other racial groups in the United States is overlooked in the article: the difficulty of immigration. Most whites and blacks are born within the US, and Hispanics are either born or move into the US by simply crossing a land border. For Asians to come to the US, they have to cross the Pacific Ocean. In order to do that, they have to be either rich (at least middle class), highly educated, or extremely adventurous and self motivating. The Pacific Ocean filters out many would-be Asian Americans that would have lowered the average of the "modelness" of the group.

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I'm a fifth generation Asian American and my family came to Hawaii as plantation workers, my father was the first in the family to go to college, and made captain in the US Navy. Ironically in his civilian (government) job his performance reviews can back as "no leadership potential" despite that in his military job he led the team that implemented the first digital inventory for the navy...

I think the trope of asian culture promoting "shyness" and respect for authority has some bearing on this, but not in the way the article mentioned.

While many asians may have these characteristics, it's not that it makes them unfit to lead it is more about the promoting managers looking for the wrong signals. We see similar trends with introverts and women, no? They don't fit the extroverted, authoritative, direct management style that is deemed "successful", but is often not optimal.

I had a similar situation at work recently. I've always been a high performer and natural leader. People love talking with me, they trust me with their problems, and I do the best I can to help them out. I lead from behind, and try to guide people forward. I've been a manager of a large team, and was up to be promoted to manage an even larger team. I left instead to start my own company. That company got acquired and I got a new manager. The new manager was terrible, and had no idea what was going on with the team. He regularly skipped 1:1s, and after almost 2 months of not talking with him, I get my review feedback.

He mentioned a lot of really positive qualities (great at technical work), but his one criticism for me was that I could "show more leadership". He failed to expound on that when I asked him for examples. He was so uninvolved with our day to day, he was rarely present. Little did he know, I was the one working behind the scenes keeping his flailing team together. This struck me down pretty hard, it was my first known experience with racism in the American workplace. My confidence shattered, and I started doubting myself. I hope to put this experience behind me soon, but it left some serious doubts for me, and honestly, it made me reconsider my previously ambitious aspirations. After this experience, I started really emphasizing with the experiences of women in the workplace.

It's also entirely possible that, on average, Asian people are more intelligent than other groups. We won't really know for a long time, as discussing such things is taboo.

I'm Asian and I don't think it's possible. Jews on the other hand are confirmed with the most Nobel prizes per capita. :)

That might be due to culture.

I'm Asian too. I don't think it's because of raw intelligence. Asians work hard, but in a very confined way, and visible way. For example in high school, you work hard in school to get into a great college, your hard work is visible.

Scientific discovery and technological innovation takes more than hard work, it takes the willingness to be obsessed with specific and sometimes obscure fields and forfeit social prestige and stability. Neither of those things are praised by the Asian culture.

People do talk about it. Read The Bell Curve.

I definitely don't think this is true, and I'm Asian as well. I think the parent has a better hypothesis, it's the higher bar for immigration. I bet the demographics of Asian immigrants is way higher educated than the average American. My dad has a PhD, my mom multiple Bachelors, and pretty much all of their Chinese friends had at least a Bachelors, most likely a Masters of PhD.

I would say it's very possible that genetically, the Asian population in America is smarter than the average American. Combine that with a culture that emphasizes hard work and education and you'll have extraordinary results. But don't think that Asians are more intelligent as a whole. There are plenty of idiots back in China to balance that out.

No idea why you're being downvoted, this is the reason right here. I don't think I've met a single poor Chinese person in Canada.

Which makes sense since you can't immigrate here without a degree in a field the government has put on an 'in-demand' list. That or a spouse or family member financially sponsoring you.

Exactly, if you put it another way, it's a highly self-selecting group. They are well educated, highly motivated and driven, and are so focused on "making it" whatever that means, they are willing to move to a foreign country that has the promise of being "better".

My wife's parents fit that definition, and interestingly, all her uncles and aunts who came to America are over-performing here in America, and all the ones who stayed are underperforming in Asia.

Agree with your point. Under that extreme "win or die" situation, immigrants will need to work harder to survive.

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