The Melting Pot

ooops early morning after the night before blues.....

that #91 should have read


Thank you MASADA Complex. Thank you for being succinct and very lucid.

Those two posts were very informative compared to the ones previous to this (posted by you (on all threads) and many other others on this thread).

Thank you once more for not going hyperbolic!

#90 #89

MASADA Complex. Thank you for being siuccint.
Those were very informative and carried more weight the posts previous to these -

Thank you once more for going hyberbolic!

Sometimes crude (aggregated) numbers given out to show "model minority" status of the Asian Americans are highly misleading, when you disaggregate them the true picture emerges. For example you might have numbers showing parity of family incomes between white and Asian families but Asian families on average have more people working per family or they might reside in clusters in higher income/cost of living areas than whites which reside all over the country:

Read this section from


The Model Minority Myth


http://www.totse.com/en/ego/literary_genius/modelmin.html

(Quote) Their comparisons of incomes between
Asians and whites fail to recognize the regional location of the
Asian-American population. Concentrated in California, Hawaii, and
New York, Asian Americans reside largely in states with higher
incomes but also higher costs of living than the national average:
59 percent of all Asian Americans lived in these three states in
1980, compared to only 19 percent of the general population. The
use of "family incomes" by Reagan and others has been very
misleading, for Asian American families have more persons working
per family than white families. In 1980, white nuclear families in
California had only 1.6 workers per family, compared to 2.1 for
Japanese, 2.0 for immigrant Chinese, 2.2 for immigrant Filipino,
and 1.8 for immigrant Korean(this last figure is actually higher,
for many Korean women are unpaid family workers.) Thus the family
incomes of Asian Americans indicate the presence of more workers in
each family, rather than higher incomes.
Actually, in terms of personal incomes, Asian Americans have
not reached equality. In 1980 the mean personal income for white
men in California was $23,400. While Japanese men earned a
comparable income, they did so only by acquiring more
education(17.7 years compared to 16.8 years for white men twenty-
five to forty-four years old) and by working more hours(2,160 hours
compared to 2,120 hours for white men in the same age category).
In reality, then, Japanese men were still behind Caucasian men.
Income inequalities for other men were more evident: Korean men
earned only $19,200, or 82 percent of the income of white men,
Chinese men only $15,900 or 68 percent, and Filipino men only
$14,500 or 62 percent. In New York the mean personal income for
white men was $21,600, compared to only $18,900 or 88 percent for
Korean men, $16,500 or 76 percent for Filipino men, and only
$11,200 or 52 percent for Chinese men. In the San Francisco Bay
Area, Chinese-immigrant men earned only 72 percent of what their
white counterparts earned, Filipino-immigrant men 68 percent,
Korean-immigrant men 69 percent, and Vietnamese-immigrant menu 52
percent. The incomes of Asian American men were close to and
sometimes even below those of black men(68 percent) and Mexican-
American men(71 percent).
The patterns of income inequality for Asian men reflect a
structural problem: Asians tend to be located in the labor
market's secondary sector, where wages are low and promotional
prospects minimal. Asian men are clustered as janitors,
machinists, postal clerks, technicians, waiters, cooks, gardeners,
and computer programmers; they can also be found in the primary
sector, but here they are found mostly in the lower-tier levels as
architects, engineers, computer-systems analysts, pharmacists, and
schoolteachers, rather than in upper-tier levels of management and
decision making. "Labor market segmentation and restricted
mobility between sectors," observed social scientists Amado Cabezas
and Gary Kawaguchi, "help promote the economic interest and
privilege of those with capital or those in the primary sector, who
mostly are white men."
This pattern of Asian absence from the higher levels of
administration is characterized as "a glass ceiling" -- a barrier
through which top management positions can only be seen, but not
reached, by Asian Americans. While they are increasing in numbers
on university campuses as students, they are virtually nonexistent
as administrators: at Berkeley's University of California campus
where 25 percent of the students were Asian in 1987, only one out
of 102 top-level administrators was an Asian. In the United States
as a whole, only 8 percent of Asian Americans in 1988 were
"officials" and "managers," as compared to 12 percent for all
groups. Asian Americans are even more scarce in the upper strata
of the corporate hierarchy: they constituted less than half of one
percent of the 29,000 officers and directors of the nation's
thousand largest companies. Though they are highly educated, Asian
Americans are generally not present in positions of executive
leadership and decision making. "Many Asian Americans hoping to
climb the corporate ladder face an arduous ascent," the Wall Street
Journal observed. "Ironically, the same companies that pursue them
for technical jobs often shun them when filling managerial and
executive positions."
(end quote)

HP writes "Interracial marriages are so far and few that drawing any conclusions at this time would be too early and too ridiculous"

True, that is exactly what the numbers show but some self-deceived people here think its free for all, because in the West according to them, deeds matter more than race- not so. Actually out of the 2% of married couples in the UK that are interracial, the largest chunk of that 2% is made up of "mixed race" marrying the white and not an exclusive ethnicity which further shows that even interracial marriage in the puny percent is acceptible when the other has some "white" in them.

Regarding ejazharoon's post, the kind of university you will attend is skewed by race and class itself and the kind of university you attend determines your life chances and chances of success in the power structure thereafter. Except for Japanese Americans no other "Asian Americans" have reached par with the white population in income and employment, and except for white Jews no other minority is proportionately represented in the US power structure . Race is still very much a factor in the "life chances" available in the US and the Caucasians are fully incharge of power positions disproportionately in both corporate, military and the political arena...

Re: # 85

Thinkingstorm:

I'm out in the bayou backwaters of Louisiana, near Nawlins. I have lived in various states over the last 11 years, but with middle age approaching one tends to grow nostalgic about the country of origin. So here I am. Louisiana is the armpit of America and is a lot like India and Pakistan (corrupt politicians, racial and religious bigotry, potholed roads, spicy food, even a guy named Jindal running for governor).

Who says you can never go home?

Much respect,

Ejaz

sorry, the last one was for kulharee
with much respect,
thinking storm

Kaal-

you said:

"However interesting the discussion over inter-racial relationships is, what is more pungent is the missing of Arbi-Paki relationship. Pakistanis have been living in their Ummah Lands for at least 3 decades, but it is rare (impossible is more like it) to see any, e.g., Saudi-Pakistani couples (65 year old sheikh marrying 12 year girls don’t count). Why that might be the case? "

There are 2 very simple reasons for it. The saudi arabs are very race oriented (i.e. racist), and do not marry outside thier race, and especially not with the brown muslims...who they often do not consider to be real muslims.

Actually that was only one reason :)
with much respect,
thinking storm

Ejaz...

"my idea of how God manifests himself (and you can all laugh at this one) is that he is the homeless guy on a cold winter's night on skid row, with nothing to his name but the jacket on his back"


beautiful.


Are you in LA? The mention to Skid Row got me wondering.
with much respect,
thinking storm

Ejaz...

"my idea of how God manifests himself (and you can all laugh at this one) is that he is the homeless guy on a cold winter's night on skid row, with nothing to his name but the jacket on his back"


beautiful.


Are you in LA? The mention to Skid Row got me wondering.
with much respect,
thinking storm

Interracial marriages are so far and few that drawing any conclusions at this time would be too early and too ridiculous.

From a personal pov and the people I know; One Pakistani girl via karachi, Bahrain and Chicago is married to a white artist. Her sister is married to a black dude and they both are engineers. Both girls are my nieces. When the first one married a white guy people said, "Haan!". When the second one married a black guy, people said Hoooon! Last I heard both are happily married and have kids.

One Pak girl that I knew of in Wash,DC married a white dude after ten years and two kids they are now divorced. One Indian woman I know was married to a white guy twice her age. I asked, what gives? She said, "Green Card"! I don't know if they are still married or he is dead!

Re: # 59 no, none of the above except Australia...no chowkies have met me either,so they are in no position to comment, and one chowkie thinks I am actually a man, but I would rather be single than be with a lot of the people around and on chowk. However, my question was relevant to your carrying on about women abusing the law. You seem scarred?

jang#80:

Interestingly, I know of two Hindu couples here who adopted an African daughter and raised her as a Hindu from childhood until her marriage.

DM is spot on but if the african is well educated, he is very much welcome. i know at least two couples with an african (does carribean background count?) american grooms. they show up for community events etc and seem very comfortable...sure initially there are some stares but no shunning. muslim is a tougher...hindu kids are explicitly asked not to chase muslim partners..they still do it anyways.

Re: # 78
I think it is some what in correct to compare performance of average Caucasian with post graduates of other color/race as it makes it difficult to isolate the impact of racial differences. For us to mke some judgement we have to compare people with similar education levels but different skin colors. If in a very large sample, post graduates of different skin color are performing the same than it is more accurate to say that racial differences do not matter much.

Re: # 60:

Masadi, you are right that there is not a level playing field here in the 'states. I think, though, that the dividing lines are education and initiative, not race per se. College educated and post-graduate professionals of any color and ethnic origin tend to do much better than the average Caucasian. These differences tend to persist as socially and financially successful parents open more opportunities for their offspring. The same holds true for immigrants who may lack formal education but more than make up for it in entrepreneurship and initiative. Bottom line, its not where you're from, its what you do that matters most.

#75, sorry- misunderstanding