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Comment by nataz | Hacker News Reader

Man, I remember appplying to colleges and being rather selective about how I self identified. I'm half Asian, and half "white" (which is weird in itself because it's technically a bunch of different races bundled into one light skinned bucket).

On almost all my applications I identified as Asian (better chance of acceptance and scholarships!).

The only exceptions were Ivy and California schools which even in the late 90's were obviously discriminating against Asians. You know it's bad when you identify as white to get a diversity edge.

Even today at work,I regularly get ignored for diversity metrics. Being an Asian American is so weird.

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This is true about one of my workplaces. Diversity this, diversity that. As a Director, I remind them that I'm not white. They seem to handwave it away and not count it despite Asian-Americans being underrepresented in this line of work. Such is life.

EDIT: If you're an Asian-American you get used to this kind of "model minority" discrimination / racism. It just is what it is. My guess is it is similar for Jewish people.

Interesting thought. Is it racism if you feel minority but are counted among the majority?

If I would immigrate to the US I would count as white, even though I would be a clueless foreign stranger and would have difficulty connecting culturally with many. Still I wouldn't count as "diverse".

According to critical race theory, the identity group you fall into has systemic power over others. That means that no, you would not be considered disadvantaged or part of any oppressed group. Therefore it's not possible to be racist towards you.

Of course, there are still plenty of people who don't see white immigrants through the prism of Woke ideology so you'd likely find some sympathetic to considering you as a diverse hire, despite not checking any boxes on the Woke identity list. It would be an unofficial acknowledgement though.

> Therefore it's not possible to be racist towards you.

I do wonder occasionally, when did institutional racism become the only flavor of racism?

About the time that descriptive studies departments in the mid 1980's decided that narrative telling was more important than making falsifible claims.

I know you're not saying it, but not sure when Asian-Americans ever had systemic power over others in this country. Korematsu v. United States is one explicit example of the opposite...

This is fully in line with Woke ideology. It seems a lot of people still don't understand it, and it's extremely important to read up on critical theory, postmodern theory, and social justice if you want to understand why things like this are happening to you.

Essentially, Woke ideologists believe that identity groups are in a constant struggle for power, and they describe two main classes: the oppressed, and the oppressors. They are also rooted in Marxist ideology, believing in the emancipation of the oppressed by seizing the means of production - except where Marxists strictly focused on economic means, critical theorists focus on narrative and cultural means.

In terms of economics, trade and industry, Asians are considered part of the oppressor group along with Whites and Jews. Asians are part of a narrative where they are known to be high earners and hold powerful positions in a wide array of industries. That's why they don't care about your ethnicity, because it's irrelevant to their stated goals of emancipating the oppressed.

I really think you're making a decent contribution here, except for the part where you blame Marxists. Marxists hate these people.

I mean they incorporated a lot of Marxist theory, and it is essentially Neo-Marxism. I don't know how much these schools of thought differ, but I do hear about OG Marxists feeling that they're ruining it, or turning it into a mockery of the true philosophy.

First - just to clarify I actually believe in many aspects of modern democratic socialism RE: Nordics, and I think 2020 anti-racism is well-intentioned and doing a lot of good work.

That being said, you really have to download some actual coursework from critical race programs at modern universities and actually read through it. And then go on a wikipedia spree to understand the cultural evolution of them and where they came from.

Modern economic Marxists may or may not like these ideas, but certainly the original leaders of critical race theory were Marxists, the same academic language and ideas used by Marxists are ubiquitous in critical race texts. It's in the DNA.

It's not about blaming Marxism, casting some kind of cold war boogey-man, it's just...a strange or somewhat alien or foreign type of thought to many people in the year 2020 but it is a big part of the intellectual underpinnings of this branch of education/academia that is growing in cultural importance.

Seconded. Read Lasch (Revolt of the Elites) to make sense of what dyed-in-wool Marxists think of the Woke "ideology" (if we can even be charitable enough to use that word, for most of what they say lacks coherence). In fact, even the widely recognized coiner of the term "intersectionality," Dr. Kimberle Crenshaw, wouldn't explicitly subscribe to many of their positions.

Marxists hating people is not evidence of anything. Very similar groups of people hate each other all the time. The catholics vs. protestants in the middle ages comes to mind.

If you have been paying attention you may have seen the term “BIPOC” pop up overnight. This is a less handwave-y way of excluding Asians when it is convenient.

I was confused by the B in BIPOC. I thought African-Americans were people of color?

I'm trying to be earnest here because if that's the term that should be used I will use it, but I'd like to know its genesis. It feels wrong to refer to entire, disparate groups of people (indigenous peoples and Latinos in the Dakotas probably have very little in common) by an acronym that seemingly double-counts a particular group seems odd.

it essentially just means “the black and indigenous subset of people of color”. Some definitions say it is to emphasize them more but includes all POC, but the former definition is effectively what it means in any context where one would find it necessary to use it at all.

Oh wow I completely misunderstood it then. So BIPOC is a subset of POC, got it. Thank you.

This is exactly why people say "all lives matter", because there has been a significant focus on black, female, and LGBT lives, but not for disadvantaged people in general. There are many of them.

>EDIT: If you're an Asian-American you get used to this kind of "model minority" discrimination / racism. It just is what it is. My guess is it is similar for Jewish people.

Oh yes, with a similar side-dish of people claiming we're spies who control the world.

Ctrl+F "globalist" is an absolute cesspool of this kind of thing.

My brother-in-law is half Vietnamese and half Chinese. He asked me to review his personal statement and help him with college applications a few years back. I encouraged him to self-identify as Vietnamese instead of Chinese. He was accepted to multiple Ivy's (but ended up staying in state in the end) where his Chinese friends were all rejected. They are otherwise indistinguishable. Even their personal statements were all more-or-less on the same level, at least the few that I helped out and recall. They all learned a pretty valuable lesson there.

Why is Vietnamese the right kind of Asian?

It's not that Vietnamese is the "right kind" of Asian. It's that Chinese-Americans dominate the landscape compared to Vietnamese-Americans. So here you have a Vietnamese-American who has excelled (just ever so slightly, in his case) beyond his immediate Chinese-American peers, which made him a standout in that regard.

True, but Vietnamese Americans are well represented in undergrad at least. In fact about double the white representation in UCs (https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/disaggrega...)

What's the representation at Yale, I wonder. Without checking I just assume that (from living in SoCal for a long time) California has most of the country's Vietnamese-Americans.

I just assume that (from living in SoCal for a long time) California has most of the country's Vietnamese-Americans

There's a very large Vietnamese population in Houston. Probably other cities.

I'm finally off my phone, so I had a look. There's a Wikipedia on it here [0].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._cities_with_large...

By that logic, what about Taiwanese?

Well that's complicated. I believe that it's been made deliberately confusing (the geopolitical issues between the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China are at least known to exist today) and it's pretty hard to talk about. I wanna tap out of this conversation before I even say anything about it because I feel like it's way over my head.

But, in the very specific context of what I was saying regarding university admissions in 2017, I don't think there was a lot that a Taiwanese-American person could do to distinguish themselves from being labeled or otherwise considered Chinese-American.

It's like finding a rare Pokemon, except human.

Vietnamese Americans: 1.3M[1]

Chinese Americans: 2.5M[2]

It's almost double, but is it really on a rare pokemon level?

1 - https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/vietnamese-immigrant...

2 - https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/chinese-immigrants-u...

I'm curious to see how many applications they get from ethnically Chinese and Vietnamese students.

My guess is there's much more ethnically Chinese applicants (which includes international students).

For a light-hearted take, Google Ali Wong's bit about Jungle Asians. The gist is that different waves of immigrants from different countries ended up with wildly different average socioeconomic outcomes in the US. Even different waves from the same country. Sadly, cohort matters.

Note that Vietnamese here is good, because in other situations, it ain't good. The college admissions context is a confounder that flips the desirability of being a particular ethnicity.

Average household income, Vietnamese American, 2018: $67,331

Average household income, Chinese American, excluding Taiwanese, 2018: $91,944

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...

There are simply more Chinese so brain drain will be more pronounced. But I would also speculate that a larger percentage of Vietnamese are second generation or more. Very true in little Saigon. Poor Vietnamese who were born in the USA live in east San Jose, Chinese live in Cupertino. Very different levels of privilege.

You see this in Orange county, too. Garden Grove and Westminster vs. Irvine.

That would only be true if the US allowed only the same number of immigrants from each country. I don't think that's been the policy historically. I'm not familiar with the current policy.

People immigrate for different reasons at different times. The causes combine with changing US immigration policies and the dynamics of preferential attachment to diaspora clusters to create distinct cohorts that have similar socioeconomic outcomes.

I was accepted by a graduate program at one of the more selective UCs. An alum of my college who was a current student at the UC contacted me to invite me to a recruiting shindig for accepted minority students (she knew I was Asian from the club activities on my resume). But when she found out what my specific racial background was (half white and half Chinese), she said I would not be invited. The only people who were invited to the recruiting trip were those from other Asian backgrounds (anything but Chinese/Korean/Japanese), or students who were black or hispanic.

Instead of an all-expense paid visit spanning from Thurs-Sun and including sitting in on lectures, I was allowed to come for a single Sunday-only event. I spent more money on that trip than I had ever spent on anything in my life, except for my college computer. I was pretty ticked that the school was treating different minorities differently, and that for all the money I spent I couldn't even visit a class in session (since I was only allowed on Sunday). I remember meeting a half-Chinese / half-Vietnamese guy there, who regaled me with tales of the wining and dining that the favored-minority students had enjoyed.

I should note that this was way after Prop 209 (barring affirmative action at the UCs) was passed. I ended up attending the UC, and I asked an administrator about how recruiting trips like this were legal (he happened to be a lawyer). He gave some hand-wavey answer about federal pre-emption that, if true, would have completely gutted Prop 209.

European here, is stating your ethnicity normal on uni applications? What is the reasoning behind that? To me it seems very odd as being female in IT I try to hide it when I can (having resume without photo etc) and I would be outraged if we had to state our ethnicity/religion/other on resume.

Yes, it is fairly normal. US universities attempt to control the percentages of each ethnicity using a short list of ethnic buckets.

I believe certain government universities are not permitted to do this (the UC system?)

EDIT: Found it. The UC system can't do it because Prop 209 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_California_Proposition_20...

There is a referendum (prop 16) to repeal that, and allow for discrimination based on gender/race/orientation again. Up for vote this year.

I will notify friends. Thanks for heads up.

> Yes, it is fairly normal. US universities attempt to control the percentages of each ethnicity using a short list of ethnic buckets.

This is outrageous. Inasmuch many people do not fall neatly into these idiotic "buckets". Moreover, people with exceptional academic records and belonging to the categories that are biased positively have legitimate reasons to be incensed by this. How on earth anybody thought it to be a sensible policy?

We've gotten to the point in US culture where many view it as sexist or racist to rally against affirmative action policies that are blatantly sexist and racist.

I'm as left wing as they come, and I'm all for affirmative action. I think that a lot of state money should go to help impoverished neighborhoods, and to specifically aid their people to attain a higher education. But directly biasing the admission process seems bigoted and risks tarnishing the reputation of the very people it should be helping. I do not understand the rationale behind that.

"Education is a common good, and a right to be enjoyed by all."

This is not a statement that accurately represents current American politics, and that is....

Astonishing.

>is stating your ethnicity normal on uni applications?

Yes

>What is the reasoning behind that?

Affirmative action requirements. Students can check the box for "prefer not to answer" if they wish. Though I don't know if that gives you better results than admitting to be white or asian.

> I'm half Asian, and half "white" (which is weird in itself because it's technically a bunch of different races bundled into one light skinned bucket).

Do you see the term "Asian" as having the same weirdness? It's even more geographically & ethnically overbroad than the word it replaced, as well as compared to 'white/european/caucasian'.

To my recollection, a big part of the reason the former term was shunned is because it verbally homogenized distinct ethnicities from south-east asia that would prefer to identify distinctly... only to now double down in literally including the entirety of the largest continent in the world! (which I guess just returns to the more historical use of the former term, but whatever) :)

Valid point.

Weird in its own way. White is a skin tone, Asian is a geographic location.

Defending either definition would be an exercise in absurdity and I'm not even going to try.

>Weird in its own way. White is a skin tone, Asian is a geographic location.

Asian is also a skin tone: the Middle East is in Asia, but counts as White for the US Census.

Yep. All of it is just emergent shorthand, and none of it makes literal sense. :) If we had some specifically correct terminology, it would likely be quite a mouthful, either including genetic terminology or some mix of geography and time period, but both of those would probably still be insufficient. Race basically doesn't really exist in any clean delineation.

>Do you see the term "Asian" as having the same weirdness? It's even more geographically & ethnically overbroad than the word it replaced

This was the point I was ham-handedly trying to make earlier; White is broad, European is broader but neither are as broad as Asian in terms of population or even geographically.

> "white" (which is weird in itself because it's technically a bunch of different races bundled into one light skinned bucket).

Nowhere near as weird as "black". Not only is there more genetic diversity within Africa than anywhere else, anyone who has a single drop of black in their lineage is considered black, unless they have completely white skin. It's a ridiculously broad bucket.

"Black" is not just Africa. It also encompasses many Caribbean nations, and probably some others that escape my mind at the moment.

Also, portions of Africa have white populations. South Africa, for example. And North Africa is Arab.

Ethnicity ≠ geography.

People don’t know what to do with Asians because, as a group, they achieve better than white people. However, this shouldn’t be possibly in systemically racist white America.

But they don't achieve better than white people, they just have that perception based off school grades. When it comes to life, that is career, they tend to not get promoted as much or be in much executive positions.

Asian median income is quite a bit higher than whites.

https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizat...

Median and average income for Asians is significantly higher than any other race or group in the US.

Source?

> "white" (which is weird in itself because it's technically a bunch of different races bundled into one light skinned bucket).

No, it's not. There aren't “technically” multiple light-skinned races. While there are a few different models of race, they tend to descend from the old three-race (Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Negroid) model and tend to have only a few more categories than those old models, which are now more commonly labelled White, Asian, and Black, with Native American typically added and, in the case of the US Census, “Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander” also added as a distinct category. (Both of the latter would generally have previously been considered part of the Mongoloid category.)

Replace White with European and it's comparable to saying Asian.

It's not. Spanish and Portuguese people are European, but in the US they're "Hispanic", and so not really "white". Conversely, people from Turkey, the Middle East, and North Africa frequently get lumped in as "white".

Caucasian is an odd term...

Honestly, most race/culture terms seem weird to me: Caucasian (random geographical area), white (tan-pink), black (brown), African-American (regardless of being from Africa, or being American in some cases), native American (as opposed to immigrants?), Asian (sure, the biggest continent can be lumped together)... I assume it's from trying to describe a very complicated combination of factors in a single term, but the results do not make my programmer's brain happy.

A truly non-racist policy would be to remove these ridiculous categories from any official documentation. European countries do not need to rely on these stupid labels to implement social welfare.

It's not because you've got a programmer brain. It's because these categories are truly stupid but academics and other people in a position to challenge then will not out of fear of ostracization.

That's not universal. I have Brazilian family members of Portuguese descent who think of themselves as non-hispanic "white" and have Brazilian Portuguese as their first language. And a few others in the same side of the family with darker skin who I believe identify as black.

Yet I would probably have made the same classification you did without knowing them.

The large diversity in culture, race and even language of "Hispanic" makes it worthless as any kind of rational grouping.

Brazilians are Latin and definitely not Hispanic. Latin is not a racial term (and that's why Brazilians tend to find the racialized term "Latino" as used in the US repellent), and has nothing to do with your appearance or genes: it means you speak a language that was derived from Latin as a first language. Angolans are Latin, the French are Latin, Romanians are Latin, etc. Some Swiss are Latin, some are not. So, Brazilians can be Latin, White and non-Hispanic all at once.

Hispanic is something related to Spain. Spaniards are definitely Hispanic, Colombians, Argentines, etc. are (in a more distant sense) Hispanic.

"Hispanic" is not considered a racial term by the US government. It's an ethnicity that can be applied to any race. It is, however, considered a minority group for various purposes.

I know many South Americans, Brazilians in particular, don't like the label as used by the US government. I also know native Spaniards who have embraced it.

Latino/Latina/Latinx is it's own brand of controversial in the communities it is applied to. Regardless, in the US it has never been applied to people unless their heritage traces back to the Iberian peninsula.

No they are not. The Hispanic category is usually explicitly clarified to be "Non European Origin".

Portugal is a fuzzy area, but according to the OMB definition and for the purposes of the US Census people from Spain are Hispanic:

> The OMB defines Hispanic or Latino as “a person of Cuban, Mexican,Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race.

This is the definition generally used by all US federal agencies.

See https://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/cenbr01-1.pdf

Where? UC doesn't handle it that way

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