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Comment by xienze | Hacker News Reader

Valid point, but there's something to be said for the Asian American community's obsession with education. Is it any surprise that they are the most successful minority group in America?

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Self-selection bias. The Asian American community is immensely diverse and consists of many different immigrant (and native!) waves. Wealthy, well-educated Taiwanese semiconductor engineers from the '70s and '80s are not the same as LA Korean grocers are not the same as Vietnamese boat people are not the same as Hmong refugees are not the same as recent mainland Chinese nouveau riche are not the same as Nisei and Sansei who have been in the U.S. for decades are not the same as Pacific Islanders or South Asians or Middle Easterners.

Yes, thanks for pointing out that important distinction.

Anecdote: The only Hmong people I ever met were at an Ivy League school.

Well, German Americans are not the same as Irish Americans are not the same as Italians who've just gotten their citizenship are not the same as... but they all get lumped under the category "white people", so it is what it is. Any way you slice up "Asian American" they still far exceed their minority peers (and even whites), so I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

Not all of those groups were considered "white" at the same time. A century ago, a hypothetically accurate census would have distinguished between more assimilated, older arrivals (WASPs, Scots-Irish, Germans, etc.) with Catholic immigrants.

Point is, different immigrant groups have different origins. Some have a leg up over other ones in terms of socioeconomic and education backgrounds, leading to different results. Asian-American isn't a monolithic bloc, regardless of what activists might say.

Not even close to the success of Indian Americans

Who don't have as many PhDs per capita as Nigerian Americans (tops in the US!).

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