Everyday Sociology Blog

Which Immigrant Groups Assimilate Faster?

By C.N. Le

A common theme among my posts on this blog is the ability of immigrant and racial/ethnic minority groups to assimilate into American society. Many Asian Americans, along with other groups of color, struggle to become assimilated as "Americans" in this country.

As we already know, immigration -- especially illegal immigration -- is a very controversial and emotional issue for many Americans. Among critics of illegal immigrants, one of their main complaints and basis for their fierce opposition is the perception that illegal immigrants are not interested in becoming Americans. Instead, critics fear, they are just here to exploit American society and its institutions or plan to turn the U.S. into a "colony" of Mexico.

Within this context, our job as sociologists is to again try to contribute some objectivity and empirical data to try to answer that question. To what extent do immigrants (legal and illegal) assimilate into American society? Diverse Issues in Education reports on a new study of assimilation among various racial/ethnic groups that finds that immigrants today assimilate faster than earlier immigrants, but that some groups inevitably assimilate faster than others:

Newcomers of the past quarter-century have assimilated more rapidly than their counterparts of a century ago, according to a conservative think tank. However, the report from the Manhattan Institute indicates that Mexican immigrants are not assimilating as fast as other groups. . . . 

In an article for The Boston Globe, [the study's author Prof. Jacob] Vigdor said many Mexicans do not have much incentive to assimilate because they strongly expect to return home and they can function in Spanish-speaking populations in the United States. In addition, those without legal status lack a path to citizenship and better jobs.

This new report is not likely to sway many opinions when it comes to the issue of illegal immigration because both sides can legitimately claim that the results of the study support their own positions. 

That is, critics of rights for illegal immigrants are likely to argue that since Mexican immigrants -- particularly those who are here illegally -- are less likely to assimilate, we should continue efforts to exclude them because ultimately, the results show that they aren't interested in becoming American.

On the other hand, supporters of more rights for illegal immigrants will contend that there's an important cause-and-effect issue here -- many illegal immigrants can't assimilate because they don't have the resources or rights to do so.

In other words, their "illegal" status and the institutional barriers and social restrictions in front of them as a result of their status make it extremely difficult for them integrate into the American mainstream. With that in mind, if we allow them to become citizens, they will eventually assimilate.

I belong to the latter group and favor giving illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship, although not at the expense of others who have been waiting for a immigration visa for years and even decades. In fact, this is one of those instances in which I have agreed with Republicans who favor comprehensive immigration reform, and not just a total focus on just barricading our borders.

We need to expand the levels of immigration to the U.S., especially considering that immigrants produce many tangible benefits for American society and its economy. I realize that this is a controversial idea and you will find plenty of statistical data that will support both sides of the argument over whether immigration constitutes a net benefit or a net loss for the American economy.

Nonetheless, even while Americans argue about the economic impact of immigration, there is no doubt that American society is becoming increasingly diverse (even without immigration), globalized, and transnational as we move forward into the 21st century. Based on that fact alone, immigrants have the potential to contribute significantly to American culture and its global competitiveness.

Ultimately, that may be the kind of assimilation that can unite Americans from all backgrounds.

Colorblindness and the Martin Luther King Jr. Statue

By C.N. Le

You might remember my previous post that described criticisms over the upcoming Martin Luther King Jr. memorial statue in Washington DC. That initial controversy centered on the fact that the sculptor was not African American, or even American -- he was Chinese. Critics charged that King's legacy was being "outsourced" to China.

Well, a new and different controversy about the statue has emerged -- as MSNBC reports, the federal commission that has final approval over the statue now wants the form of the statue changed: the current pose appears too "confrontational" and "totalitarian":

The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts thinks "the colossal scale and Social Realist style of the proposed statue recalls a genre of political sculpture that has recently been pulled down in other countries," commission secretary Thomas Luebke said in a letter in April. . . .

The centerpiece is to be a 2 1/2 -story sculpture of the civil rights leader carved in a giant chunk of granite. Called the Stone of Hope, it would depict King, standing with his arms folded, looming from the stone. At 28 feet tall, it would be eight feet taller than the statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial. . . .

Its general design was approved by the seven-member federal commission that year, based on drawings of the Stone of Hope that showed a more subtle image of King, from the waist up, as if he were emerging organically out of the rock, the commission said. . . .

The team wants to hold on "to the power and inspirational image" of the current version, [the memorial's executive architect] said. The sense of confrontation in the sculpture is not a coincidence. "We see him . . . as a warrior," Chaffers said yesterday. 

"We see him as a warrior for peace . . . not as some pacifist, placid, kind of vanilla, but really a man of great conviction and strength."

It should come as no surprise that such national memorials are inherently prone to historical, cultural, and political disagreements and controversy. We only have to remember the initial storm of criticism surrounding Maya Lin's design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

In my previous post, I included a picture of the current sculpture. In my opinion, King’s pose in the statue is certainly serious rather than playful. And it is probably true that a lot of statues of totalitarian leaders through the years also strike a "serious" pose. But for me, that is where the similarities end. Dr. King's pose is a reflection of his legacy -- one of the most inspiring and important leaders in modern American history.

As such, I think it is more than appropriate that his pose symbolize the significance and weight of his accomplishments and the entire Civil Rights Movement. Isn't that one of the main reasons to create this memorial in the first place?

I see this latest controversy about Dr. King’s “warrior” pose as another example of a 21st century American society that is trying to be “colorblind.” As I recently wrote, the dominant discourse in American race relations these days seems to stress the virtues of a "colorblind" Society.

In theory, it's great to not treat people differently based on their racial/ethnic identity. But in practice, ignoring people's racial identity means ignoring their different histories, characteristics, and community needs and instead, relying on the simplistic idea that we now live in a true meritocracy where racism no longer exists and everyone is on a completely level playing field. 

In that context, I am not surprised that the federal commission (perhaps composed predominantly of whites?) found the current pose too "confrontational." Apparently, they do not want the statue to remind people that the Civil Rights Movement was a struggle and that many people actually died in the process of "confronting" racism.

They would rather pretend that everything is perfectly fine now and that as a "colorblind" society, we don't need to dwell on the past and be reminded that a little over 40 years ago, it was perfectly legal and normal to treat people of color as inferior, subordinate, second-class citizens.

In other words, the commission’s desire that Dr. King's statue look less "confrontational," reflects a desire to avoid confronting the racism that Dr. King fought against and that still subtly pervades the mind set of American society today.

Like I said, that is what it means to be colorblind these days.

Racial Tensions and Living In a Colorblind Society

By C.N. Le

In many ways, Asian Americans have achieved notable levels of socioeconomic mobility and success in American society. Nonetheless, despite (or perhaps because of) these successes, Asian Americans still confront ongoing instances of hostility, exclusion, and discrimination.

I've previously written about how Asian American students continue to face various obstacles in being treated fairly and justly on college campuses, whether it relates to dealing offensive "satire" or being violently attacked.

Some might be tempted to say that these were isolated incidents but as New American Media summarizes, these kinds of incidents are actually quite commonplace on college campuses around the country:

In recent months, incidents have proven this is not the tolerant and highly-evolved society we thought. Hate crimes against Asian students, racial remarks masked under the term “satire,” and institutional discrimination — are just a few causes triggering racial tension on college campuses. . . .

On Jan. 21, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Kyle Descher, a Korean American, headed out to a bar with his roommate after a Washington State University football victory over Oregon. Minutes after hearing a racial slur from one of three unknown men, Descher is “sucker-punched” in an unprovoked attack. Doctors add three titanium plates to Descher’s broken jaw and it’s wired shut. . . .

In [UPenn's quarterly student magazine "The Punch Bowl" winter 2008 edition's] “Where Asians Don’t Belong” section, staffers listed Math 104, in a panties drawer, on the basketball court, at a frat party, and behind the wheel. Imagine why the staff didn’t make jokes with the same glee for all the places African Americans “don’t belong.” In their defense, “Punch Bowl” editors said some of the writers of the “satirical” issue were Asian Americans themselves, even posing in photos poking fun at APIs.

The article goes on to list several other racially-charged incidents around the country involving a broad range of groups of color. 

It would be great if I could just focus on discussing the positive aspects of how American institutions such as higher education have made progress in alleviating racial inequality. Alas, these incidents only highlight what many scholars have been saying all along -- as we move forward into the 21st century, racism and racial prejudice are still alive and well in American society.

One difference between its nature today versus that of one hundred years ago is that in many ways, racism is now expressed in "colorblind" terms. That is, racists now apparently think that racial equality has been achieved (they'll point to Asian American socioeconomic achievements as one example), so it's perfectly fine to make fun of Asian Americans and other groups because we're all equal now -- we're all on a level playing field nowadays, so everybody is fair game.

In other words, this is what it means to live in a colorblind society these days-- historical legacies of systematic racism are completely ignored or "whitewashed" and we all pretend that all racial groups are perfectly equal. Or alternatively, racists act on their resentment that minorities have apparently achieved "equality" and physically attack those minorities. 

Unfortunately, I predict that this climate of "colorblind" prejudice will get worse before it gets better, especially as globalization continues to reshape the American society, the American economy, and as a result, the assumption of American superiority around the world.

As Americans, particularly many white Americans, continue to economically struggle as we enter a recession, and as demographic and cultural shifts take place all around them, their fears, frustrations, and anger will inevitably boil over. It’s likely that verbal and physical attacks on convenient scapegoats such as Asian Americans will continue.

I want to be optimistic and hopefully I'm wrong, but as these recent incidents show, racial tensions seem to be on the rise, not on the decline.

Problems with the 2010 Census

By C.N. Le

For many sociologists and other scholars like me, the Census data that is compiled every ten years is the most reliable, comprehensive source of data on the American population. We rely on it for us to not just do our research and publish papers, but to help us understand the world around us better.

It's with that in mind that I was rather frustrated to see this article by CNN—an accumulation of mistakes and glitches will apparently cost the Census Bureau several billions of dollars in wasted funds, not to mention the trust of scholars and the American people in general:

[T]he government will scrap plans to use handheld computers to collect information from the millions of Americans who don't return census forms mailed out by the government. The change will add as much as $3 billion to the cost of the constitutionally mandated count, pushing the overall cost to more than $14 billion. 

This was to be the first truly high-tech count in the nation's history. The Census Bureau has awarded a contract to purchase 500,000 of the computers, at a cost of more than $600 million. The devices, which look like high-tech cell phones, will still be used to verify every residential street address in the country, using global positioning system software.

But workers going door-to-door will not be able to use them to collect information from the residents who didn't return their census forms. About a third of U.S. residents are expected not to return the forms. . . . Interviews, congressional testimony and government reports describe an agency that was unprepared to manage the contract for the handheld computers. 

Census officials are being blamed for doing a poor job of spelling out technical requirements to the contractor, Florida-based Harris Corp. The computers proved too complex for some temporary workers who tried to use them in a test last year in North Carolina. Also, the computers were not initially programmed to transmit the large amounts of data necessary.

In my previous life, I worked as a Research Associate for the Center for Technology in Government, doing applied research on how government agencies use information technology to improve their public services.

The most common and costliest mistake we saw was caused by exactly what happened with the Census Bureau -- a technological change was implemented from the top down, with little consultation with the actual workers who will use the technology on an everyday basis on what exactly they need and would like the technology to do.

This miscommunication and lack of consensus input from day-to-day workers led to poorly designed and inferior technology, which led to its ultimate failure, costing American taxpayers billions of dollars. Time and time and time again, this continues to happen.

I suppose this would be the textbook example of the negative connotations of bureaucracy that many of us have -- inefficient, little communication, lack of coordination, and incompetence that leads to public funds being wasted and public outrage.

So it will benefit all of us if the Census Bureau gets their act together, and soon. Rather than simply another form to fill out, the Census helps us understand who we are as Americans. As the response rate declines, the Census data that we as academics rely on becomes less reliable and more prone to sampling error, and that can lead to diminished confidence in our research.

Ultimately, scholars like me end up paying a double penalty for the Census Bureau's mistakes. The first is having our money as American taxpayers wasted. But even more important, the second penalty is that instances like this make Americans less trusting of the Census Bureau and also perhaps less likely to eventually fill out and return their Census forms. What other factors do you think prevent people from returning their Census forms?

Wal-Mart and Muslim Americans

By C.N. Le

As globalization continues to effect American society and the world in general, I've been asking the question, how will these political and economic changes affect the cultural landscape of race relations?

While the final verdict is still being debated, I'd like to discuss one recent example of globalization that caught my eye -- as the Associated Press reports, Wal-Mart is catering to the Arab and Muslim American population in the Detroit area:

Aisle 3, which also features Eastern European and Hispanic food, represents many of the 550 items geared toward Arab-American shoppers in the store that opened last week.

It might be statistically tiny in a store with more than 150,000 items, but it's symbolically huge for the world's largest retailer as it seeks to change from a cost-is-everything monolith to one that customizes its stores to meet neighborhood needs.

Managers say they seek peace with the neighborhood's merchants — and vow not to undercut them on Middle Eastern specialties. . . . the modifications go beyond merchandise: It has 35 employees who speak Arabic — noted in Arabic script on their badges. The store also  has hired a local Arab-American educator to teach the staff cultural sensitivity.

Is this another sign of the power of capitalism, or a sign that an icon of "traditional" American society and culture is increasingly accepting of Arabs and Muslims, or both?

To be honest, I'm not quite sure myself what Wal-Mart’s motivation is. On the one hand, we might say that since Arab and Muslim Americans are increasingly becoming integrated into the American mainstream, it makes sense for companies like Wal-Mart to recognize this demographic pattern and, at least in the Detroit area, to reflect the makeup of their surrounding community with culturally-appropriate products and services.

On the other hand, cynics might say that Wal-Mart did not become the world's largest corporation by accident -- it knows by now how to make money. Therefore, Wal-Mart is simply milking the Arab and Muslim American community for as long as it takes them to drive out local small business competitors. After all, that would be the "capitalist" way  to do things, something that Wal-Mart has been known to do in the past.

I applaud Wal-Mart for taking this step to make at least one of their stores more appealing to Arab and Muslim Americans and to reflect the demographics of its surrounding community, even if their ultimate motivation is to make more money.

For me, the alternative -- ignoring the changing demographic and cultural changes in the local community -- would be worse than acknowledging these changes for the sole purpose of trying to rake in a little more money. As we should know by now, American society and American capitalism are not perfect but they are a practical reality of the society in which we live. I don't believe that it has to be an either-or" proposition -- I think both sides can benefit from this development.

I support ways of coexisting and engaging all sides in any particular question, issue, or debate, rather than taking a take-it-or-leave-it approach that only breeds more distrust. What do you think?

Globalization and Higher Education

By C.N. Le

Sociologists and other scholars around the world are increasingly talking about how the world in general and American society in particular is becoming increasingly globalized. But to many students, these concepts are rather vague and abstract. With that in mind, I'd like to use two examples that relate to my areas of specialization -- Asian/Asian American culture and higher education -- to illustrate how globalization works in our society these days.

The first example concerns a Chinese-born immigrant who was educated in the U.S., became infatuated with American culture, then went back to China to start an American-style college for Chinese students:

The school has more than 16,000 students and nearly 50 buildings -- including a Roman amphitheater, French and Italian restaurants and an administration hall with a domed Capitol-like facade on one side and a Forbidden City tableau on the other. A swimming stadium, with an Olympic-size pool, is rising amid lotus and wheat fields.

The school's faculty of about 700 includes 119 foreign instructors, mainly from the U.S. They teach English, history and literature and help students with debate club, cheerleading and marching band -- things unheard of in this country. 

[Shawn] Chen went to the United States in 1985 and got a master's degree in education at Linfield College in Oregon. After attending a typical no-frills, monochrome college in China, he basked in campus life in the Pacific Northwest. . . . Chen was so taken by American culture he named his children Brandon and Brenda, after the two characters in the early 1990s TV hit "Beverly Hills, 90210."

In illustrating one example of globalization, this story is a great example of the kind of new Asian American identity that I've been doing more research on -- Asian Americans using their cross-national cultural ties to achieve success for both sides of their identity -- Asia and America. In the process their "foreignness" is an asset, rather than a liability.

The second example also involves Asian Americans, higher education, and international migration -- but in the opposite direction. We know that the competition to get into the top colleges and universities is quite intense these days. With that in mind, many Korean American students have decided to skip the U.S. entirely and instead, attend top universities in South Korea. 

A year ago, 19-year-old Korean-American Choi Joo-eun chose Korea's Yonsei University over the prestigious University of California system in her home state. Having gotten into both UC San Diego and UC Irvine, she had earned a place in two schools even many California teenagers dream of entering.

So far she has no regrets. On campus, she takes classes taught entirely in English while spending her spare time learning Korean culture and language. Off campus, Choi, who had never visited Korea before deciding to study here, keeps busy building a new network of friends and pursuing her dream of working for the United Nations one day. 

While it is well known that many Koreans opt out of the highly competitive race to get into a top local university like Yonsei for an American university, an increasing number of Korean-Americans and overseas-educated Koreans are heading in the opposite direction.

Still, regardless of Korea being the land of their parents, it is far from home, and the students have to overcome their share of hardship and difficulties in adjusting to a new country and culture.

The article highlights the many advantages associated with such a process -- reconnecting with one's ancestral ethnic roots, exposure to an international climate, and becoming bilingual in English and Korean. But as the last line of the quote above reveals, there can also be loneliness and cultural adjustment issues for those studying overseas.

This particular trend of Korean Americans "going back" to Korean schools is likely to accelerate in the coming years, as globalization continues to evolve and permeate more of American society.

But as the article points out, being Korean American does not automatically mean that you will have an easy time in Korea; being Asian and Asian American are two different things.

Nonetheless, being Korean American does provide another avenue of personal and academic enrichment, and that can be seen as an asset rather than a liability as we move forward into the 21st century.

Criticizing China and the Olympic Torch Protests

By C.N. Le

As the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing draws near, countless news organizations and bloggers have been covering the controversy over protests surrounding the Olympic Torch relays that have taken place all over the world, including its only U.S. stop in San Francisco.

I have previously stated my position on this complicated issue by trying to take a moderate approach: I do not support calls for a blanket or total boycott of Chinese goods or other products, but I wholeheartedly support keeping the pressure on China (and the corporate sponsors of the Beijing Olympics) to improve its record on human rights, environmental protection, safe products, and freedom for Tibet.

This particular issue has become rather prominent here at UMass Amherst recently, where there was a demonstration on campus that pitted pro-Chinese graduate and undergraduate students against pro-Free Tibet and other students opposed to China:

"We're in support of peaceful coexistence and against the violence and media distortion in Tibet," said Gorge Liu, a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts. "It is reported as if the Chinese police are creating the violence, when in fact it is the civilians."

Waving the Chinese flag and chanting, "One China," and "Go Beijing," the participants handed out leaflets with what they described as educational material on Tibet to passing students. . . .

Members of the Students for a Free Tibet group circulated in the crowd, handing out bags of candy with informational leaflets attached to stopping students.

"We're talking about current issues in Tibet, where people are getting killed for speaking the truth," said Lhakyi Lokyitsang, vice president of the student organization. "Tibetans in Tibet are not only protesting, but they're risking their lives to do it."

I was not on campus that day and therefore did not witness the protests, but I understand that this is an emotional issue for members of both sides. This is also an issue that deeply divides the Asian American community in general, particularly Chinese Americans.

Helen Zia, author of Asian American Dreams and an icon of social justice and activism in the Asian American community, wrote about why she will participate by carrying the Olympic Torch when it reaches San Francisco:

Unfortunately the calls to boycott the Olympics and to label everything about China "evil" can only isolate China and the United States from each  other. China is not a monolith and blanket condemnations of China and its people are as simplistic as blaming all Americans for the U.S. human rights violations at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

Such rhetoric, however, is driving many Chinese bloggers into a nationalistic response. Attitudes like these hark back to the Cold War days, when the U.S. and China were completely shut off from each other. . . .

Someday China will join the United States as a world superpower – but the American and Chinese people do not have to retreat back to those Cold War corners. The world will be safer if China, the United States and other countries can address human rights and other critical issues in the community of nations and peoples, not in isolation.

This article includes comments from readers who support Helen Zia's position and from those who are critical of it. These reactions sum up the range of opinions that many Asian Americans and others have on this issue, and reflect the level of emotion that is involved.

One of my favorite quotes of all time is one attributed to Bill Cosby: "I don't know what's the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody." At the risk of contradicting that maxim, I again will try to assert a moderate position. I deeply respect Helen Zia and agree with her stance that isolating and a mass boycott of China is not the answer -- I believe that the best change happens through engagement and inclusion, not separation and discrimination.

At the same time, I support and defend the rights of China's critics to express their opposition and to use protests against the Olympics and the Torch Relay to urge China to improve its human rights abuses and to allow Tibet to become independent. I support their use of the Olympics as a legitimate forum within which to engage and criticize the Chinese government.

However, expressions of opposition have a limit -- I have no problem with mass protests and demonstrations, but I do not support threats of violence or physical attacks against people like Helen Zia who disagree with them and have chosen to participate in the torch relay.

This is clearly an emotional issue for many of us, but I hope that members from both sides remember that freedom of expression also entails responsibility of expression. People can have any opinion on this issue that they want, but participating in a democratic society also means exercising these freedoms appropriately.

This is also what sociologists can contribute to the debate: a balanced -- but not necessarily a completely impartial -- look at many sides of an issue in order to create proposals that can help to bridge those divides.

Cultural Symbols, Assimilation, and Freedom of Expression

By C.N. Le

One of the main themes in my research as a scholar in Sociology and Asian American Studies is the process of assimilation. As I've written about in various posts on this blog, assimilation can take many different forms.

One form that I've recently started to follow more closely concerns anti-communist political activism among Vietnamese Americans. In fact, I've just completed a chapter entitled "'Better Dead Than Red': Anti-Communist Politics Among Vietnamese Americans" in a book titled Anti-Communist Minorities in the US: The Political Activism of Ethnic Refugees, edited by Ieva Zake (Palgrave-MacMillan Publishing) that will be published early next year.

In that chapter, I write that while the forces of assimilation are likely to result in a moderation of fervent anti-communist sentiment among younger Vietnamese Americans, there is still a strong level of ethnic solidarity within the Vietnamese American community. Combined with continuing incidents of human rights abuses in Viet Nam, I conclude that anti-communist activism among Vietnamese Americans may evolve into different forms but is unlikely to be eliminated or even notably lessened any time soon.

Recent examples illustrate the power of symbols and visual images to illuminate the legacy of the Viet Nam War.

The first incident, as the Orange County Register reports, involves a community college in Irvine, California (located only a few miles from Little Saigon) that recently decided to remove the Vietnamese flag from public display after local Vietnamese Americans threatened to demonstrate:

The 144 miniature flags have hung from the second-floor atrium for many years without controversy, in a gesture designed to symbolize the diversity of the college's student body. On Thursday, college officials removed the display in the wake of threats that busloads of protesters could arrive to disrupt the campus if the Vietnamese flag were not removed. 

Westminster Councilman Andy Quash and Garden Grove Councilwoman Dina Nguyen said they met with college officials Wednesday after receiving calls from numerous constituents about the flag display. "We reminded them that in 1999, in the city of Westminster, that flag hung in a video store led to a 49-day protest peaking at 50,000 people," Quash said. . . . "It's offensive because this flag represents a regime that is very dictatorial and does not respect human rights," Nguyen said.

The second incident, described by the San Mateo County Times, involves artwork created by a young Vietnamese American that was intended to pay tribute to the refugee experience of Vietnamese Americans but instead has been interpreted by many as pro-communist.

The offending photo was of a piece of art by a University of California, Davis, graduate student and Vietnamese immigrant who saw the creation — a yellow-and-red foot-spa tub — as a salute to Vietnamese refugees like her mother-in-law who toiled in a nail salon after the family came to America.

But the protesters saw something far more menacing.

The tub was yellow with three red stripes, which the protesters said must be a reference to the flag of the fallen country of South Vietnam. And the spa's yellow power cord was plugged into a red outlet, which seemed to resemble the flag of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, now under communist rule.

"Why is the South Vietnamese flag on a thing that people wash their dirty feet in?" asked Uc Van Nguyen, 70, who attended some of the rallies, which began in late January. . . .

Meanwhile, the artist said she had no intention of offending anyone when she bought a foot spa from a nail shop, painted it yellow and red. . . . She saw the art creation as a way to honor Vietnamese women who have "toiled and sacrificed enormously for the future of their children and family," she wrote.

It would be easy for many Americans to criticize the Vietnamese American protesters and to say things like, "You may find the images offensive, but as Americans, you should respect the right of people to freely express themselves however they want. If you don't, you're just replicating the same kind of authoritarianism that you blast the communists for committing."

While there is some truth to this particular argument, I would point out that first, in the same way that the artist or school has the freedom to express themselves however they want, so too do others have the right to criticize such expressions. In other words, freedom of expression is a two-way street -- express yourself however you want, but be prepared to receive potentially critical expressions in return.

This is not to say that I always agree with the protesters. In fact, I do not share their interpretation that the "foot tub" artwork shown above is offensive and an insult to the Vietnamese refugee experience. There are other instances in which I disagree with many anti-communist opinions. At the same time, though, I respect and defend their right to express their interpretations that may be counter to mine. 

In fact, it is this right that allows historically marginalized groups to criticize recent media portrayals that many of us find offensive, including a college newspaper column meant as "satire" or the anti-Filipino Desperate Housewives episode.

Secondly, when people (particularly non-Vietnamese people) criticize such protests, in many cases they have little or no connection whatsoever to the refugee experiences that form the basis of such strong anti-communist sentiments. In other words, it is easy for others to say, "Come on, that was 30 years ago -- just let it go already" without truly understanding the level of suffering that many Vietnamese endured and still endure in the form of friends and family who have been killed or made into refugees.

In the same way we need to acknowledge and respect the historical impact of past experiences of injustice and suffering experienced by other racial/ethnic minority groups, so too should Americans be careful not to minimize the impact of the Viet Nam War and the forced exit of the Vietnamese people from heir ancestral.

At the same time, Vietnamese Americans should understand that there is a limit to their protests. Verbal criticisms and mass demonstrations are perfectly legitimate expressions of dissent, but threats and acts of violence are not. In those cases, the laws of this country are clear and there are no exceptions, regardless of how angry one feels or how much one has suffered in the past.

Political activists have the right to freedom of expression. We have broad opportunities to express our experiences, our grief, and our anger, but there are limits that we need to keep in mind. This is ultimately part of what it means to become assimilated, to become Vietnamese American.

How Effective Is Diversity Training?

By C.N. Le

The conventional thinking among sociologists and, I would guess, many corporations is that diversity training is ultimately beneficial for their company or organization -- that it results in greater workplace harmony, more opportunities for advancement for women and racial/ethnic minorities, and more productivity for all their workers.

However, as the Washington Post reports, a new study by Alexandra Kalev, a sociologist at the University of Arizona, shows that when attendance at diversity training is mandatory, rather than voluntary, it is likely to lead to counterproductive results:

A comprehensive review of 31 years of data from 830 mid-size to large U.S. workplaces found that the kind of diversity training exercises offered at most firms were followed by a 7.5 percent drop in the number of women in management. 

The number of black, female managers fell by 10 percent, and the number of black men in top positions fell by 12 percent. Similar effects were seen for Latinos and Asians.

The analysis did not find that all diversity training is useless. Rather, it showed that mandatory programs -- often undertaken mainly with an eye to avoiding liability in discrimination lawsuits -- were the problem. When diversity training is voluntary and undertaken to advance a company's business goals, it was associated with increased diversity in management.

Several experts offered two reasons for this: The first is that businesses are responding rationally to the legal environment, since several Supreme Court rulings have held that companies with mandatory diversity training are in a stronger position if they face a discrimination lawsuit. 

Second, many companies -- with the implicit cooperation of diversity trainers -- find it easier to offer exercises that serve public relations goals, rather than to embrace real change.

I am disappointed but not completely surprised to hear that most diversity training programs are actually counterproductive. In fact, one might be tempted to say that this finding reinforces the argument that greater diversity actually leads to less trust and civic cooperation among Americans, which I blogged about earlier.

Nonetheless, it's important to understand that the main reason diversity training doesn't seem to produce many benefits in corporations is not because of the increase of diversity itself, but because the underlying motivation and support for increased diversity in the workplace is fundamentally superficial and weak to begin with.

In other words, when diversity training in corporations fails, it is almost always because the company in question is motivated by fear of lawsuits rather than by a genuine desire for greater diversity. They are often just going through the motions and putting on a public relations show that has very little true commitment to the underlying principles involved in diversity training.

In contrast, other scholars’ research reinforces the notion that greater diversity can and often does lead to benefits for an organization or society in general. For example, I have blogged about how a mediating institution such as religion can be used as the "social glue" to bring diverse groups of people together.

In fact, Prof. Kalev's research on corporate diversity training compliments the work of Scott E. Page, a professor of complex systems, political science, and economics at the University of Michigan, who wrote The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools and Societies. In this book he argues that programs which increase diversity in any organizational setting are ultimately beneficial for society: 

Diverse groups of people bring to organizations more and different ways of seeing a problem and, thus, faster/better ways of solving it.

People from different backgrounds have varying ways of looking at problems, what I call “tools.” The sum of these tools is far more powerful in organizations with diversity than in ones where everyone has gone to the same schools, been trained in the same mold and thinks in almost identical ways.

The problems we face in the world are very complicated. Any one of us can get stuck. If we're in an organization where everyone thinks in the same way, everyone will get stuck in the same place. . . . [Affirmative action is] a flat-out good because, as I said earlier, it makes everything we  do more powerful.

Prof. Page's argument is that diversity and heterogeneity in any organization, facilitated through programs such as affirmative action, leads to innovation and ultimately benefits the entire organization. He also argues that diversity can come in many different forms, not just simple racial/ethnic identity.

Prof. Page's arguments for diversity through programs such as affirmative action support the ideas expressed in Prof. Kalev's research. In order for diversity training programs to be successful in corporations, there needs to be a fundamental commitment to and embrace of its core principles.

The take home message here is that the goal of diversity (and therefore diversity training) is fundamentally sound. It's just that in order for such goals to be realized, organizations need to accept and internalize them as part of their mission rather than just use the training to satisfy legal requirements.

Asian American Voters: Does Race Matter?

By C.N. Le

I assume that many people are following the Presidential primaries, especially the race between the Democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. As I write this Obama has more pledged delegates and has won more states, but Clinton has more “super delegates.” Clearly the race is still very tight.

Since my expertise is in studying racial/ethnic minorities, particularly Asian Americans, and to follow up with my last post on racial attitudes between racial/ethnic minorities, I'd like to discuss what the Super Tuesday results in California a few weeks ago say about Asian American voters in the largest state in the union and the one that contains the largest population of Asian Americans.

According to an MSNBC report, in California Asian Americans voted for Clinton by a surprisingly large margin of 3-to-1. These results have led many to ask to what extent racial prejudice against African Americans (and therefore, against Obama) played in the decisions of Asian American voters in California to overwhelmingly support Clinton.

In Does Obama Have an Asian Problem? Time magazine writes,

[Asian Americans] are the one ethnic group that has voted most consistently — and overwhelmingly — for his rival, Hillary Clinton. . . . [CSU Long Beach Sociology professor] Wang also suspects that race lurks among the possible reasons behind Asian immigrants' reticence to back Obama. "The images of African-Americans that get exported to other cultures is not often positive," says Wang, who teaches about pop culture and race. "It's not unusual to find new immigrants who have never had a meaningful, personal encounter with an African-American. So there's a very uninformed bias," says Wang.

It's certainly true that there has been a history of tension and even conflict between some African Americans and some Asian Americans. Some obvious examples of this tension include the murder of Latasha Harlans by a Korean store owner during the 1990s in Los Angeles; public boycotts against Korean store owners in Crown Heights, Brooklyn; and perhaps most famously, the destruction of dozens of Korean American-owned small businesses during the Los Angeles Riot in 1992. While many scholars argue that the media has exaggerated and sensationalized such tensions, others note that cultural misunderstandings have contributed them.

To what extent do such tensions between African Americans and Asian Americans still exist some 15 years later after the incidents I mentioned above? Are they still intense enough to cause three-quarters of Asian American voters in California to vote for Clinton rather than Obama?

Others have argued convincingly that there are most likely factors other than racial prejudice that can account for why Asian Americans in California voted in large numbers for Clinton.

Specifically, Asian American voters may be more familiar and comfortable with "establishment" candidates who are more associated with being powerful and influential. In that respect, based on her close association with her husband and former President Bill Clinton, Hillary personifies being part of the "establishment" more than Obama does.

For example, another Asian American political blogger Jeff Chang writes:

Clinton's main advantage is that she has the access to power and the party structures that deliver promises to officials and operatives. Obama doesn't. Emergent politics favors individuals seeking power. Think of it this way: Hillary, the woman candidate, is bringing Latino and Asian American leaders into the old-boy's network.

These leaders, in turn, deliver votes via their community's structures of power: business groups, labor unions, voter groups, community organizations. Those groups tend to deliver an older voter who is already "in the game", who can directly benefit from the opening of the old-boy's network. "Experience" really is a cover for "access."

Also, as the Time magazine article cited above also notes, 

Like other new immigrants, Asian-Americans are more conservative in their choices for leaders, and therefore likely to go with the known entity — which in this race, thanks to her husband and her time in the White House, is Clinton. Many Asians are business owners who prospered under Bill Clinton. . . . Perhaps most significantly, the Clinton campaign had long ago locked up support from local politicians, who hold unusual sway over their ethnic communities. . . .

What's more, there's the gender factor. Many Asian cultures are patriarchal, and Clinton is the only female candidate in the field. But despite their cultures, many immigrants from those countries may in fact be more familiar than Americans with a female leader: Indira Gandhi in India, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in the Philippines, Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan. And many of those leaders, like Clinton, were married to or descended from former leaders.

Confirming my own read of the Democratic landscape, Jeff goes on to note that since Obama's strength seems to lie more with younger and U.S.-born voters rather than older ones, it's likely that he did much better with younger Asian American voters in California as well, while less successful with their parents, or with first-generation Asian immigrants.

For now, what we do know is that Obama and his campaign have some work to do to win over Asian American (and Latino American) voters. While Obama appeals to younger members of both groups’ distrust of the establishment (particularly among young Latino and Asian American bloggers who disproportionately support him), that message does not play as well with older members or first-generation immigrants.

As the Asian American community continues to become younger, Obama’s appeal is only likely to increase among Asian American voters. This demographic shift probably won’t occur in time for him to win the Democratic nomination, but if he does get the nomination it will be interesting to see how much support he receives from the Asian American community in the general election.