AMERICAN immigration policy changed basically in 1965 from the National Origins Formula

AMERICAN immigration policy changed basically in 1965 from the National Origins Formula to one favouring skills and family ties (goodbye English, welcome Latinos and unexpectedly, Asians).

Since the sweep of the Industrial Revolution, wave after wave of immigrants arrived, to find menial jobs — and prejudice. Maybe first the Irish, who found signs all over Boston “No Irish need apply”. In a generation, the Irish Americans ruled the city.

In 1960, welcome John F. Kennedy. Then the Italians, with all the “wop” jokes, followed by the Poles and so on.

You can’t expect lower-class people anywhere in the world from feeling threatened by new folks coming who might threaten their jobs. But a melting pot, even if it doesn’t melt too quickly, is just that: in the end, the nation provides, or they wouldn’t have risked all to come. And by the way, this ability to acculturate newcomers is one of America’s finest achievements.

What happened with Asians is the most extraordinary of all. I confess to wholehearted enthusiasm given the pro-Asian sentiments with which I grew up.

I watched the awards passed out at prestigious Andover with fatherly pride — as my son got the best of the 13 top ones; but Asians and Asian-Americans got the rest.

When I went to Stanford there was one Asian-American. By the time my son graduated in 1997, the university was half “non-white” and the joke was that if acceptance were by merit alone, it would have only Asian students.

I am puzzled by prominent articles talking now of existing bias against Asian-Americans. For starters, if that’s so, why has there never been such mania as over Jeremy Lin?

I read that there’s more bullying of Asians in schools than of blacks and Latinos. But there’s more bullying in schools than anywhere else. That’s what acculturation is about. When I was in a Los Angeles library for a book launch, there were hundreds of computer stations and Asian-American kids occupied almost every one.

So there’s resentment by the left-behinds — who apparently choose to lag? This is solved over time by melting, if I’m not mistaken, the president of my country is an African-American. And yes, the Tea Party probably has as its base racial prejudice. But Barack Obama is president, not one of them.

As someone who reads books rather than watches sports, I see Linsanity as a broader phenomenon. He studied economics at Harvard, which admits only a tiny percentage of applicants.

And his Christianity is seen in value terms, that he believes, that he is a rounded man. True, even I can see that his performance in the game is almost unbelievable, and will no doubt be hard to sustain.

There’s been crude stuff tweeted instantly, the worst of which (you can quickly find it) appealed to an appallingly incorrect and even more stupid perception of Asian physiology.

If I may slip into a grey area, may I remind readers of the astonishment when it came out, during a period of Kobe Bryant’s trials-by-accusations, that the great and tall (mostly African-American) basketball players find line-ups of willing white gals eager to please (and paying the concierge for the privilege).

One great player could recall 5,000 “visitors”. But the distinguished anthropologist Jared Diamond put paid to any allusion to racial differences of the type inferred: men are “equal” physically across races (but tall men are taller than short men, from which things follow).

I recall in Washington, pre-Internet, that the equivalent of “social sites” were ads in papers. There was already a tendency to say “Asian a +”.

It almost seemed as if America were going to be caste like India, where the weekend papers have sections for marriage, and it starts at the top with Brahmins, and the further down you go the more people said “caste not important”, and emphasise academic achievement.

Asian-Americans are by far the best educated ethnic group (“whites” are also an ethnic group), with more than 50 per cent holding BAs, 20 per cent graduate degrees. It seems like Asians in America are fast on the way up; sorry, they’re already up.

Meantime, Lin has gone from a teammate’s sofa to a US$14,000 (RM42,000) a month condo. But I suspect he’ll buy his parents a better house and his church an endowment before he buys his Southampton summer cottage. And by the way, a new study shows he didn’t just “emerge”. In the last year he worked for it. Adding it up, as the writer didn’t, it seems like he practised what Malcolm Gladwell calls the necessary extra 10,000 hours that creates a star.

I’d cool it on racial prejudice in the US. Asian-Americans are now the richest ethnic group, and no doubt not too far out from now, they’ll take their place on the top political rungs as well.

Read more: Is anti-Asian bias in US just Linsanity? – Columnist – New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/is-anti-asian-bias-in-us-just-linsanity-1.53310#ixzz1npxApjM2