The Asian-Latino Educational Divide

An interesting article was just published in the LA Times which covers the educational divide between Asians and Latinos. The hoopla was created by a newspaper column in the Alhambra High School paper. It explored the different cultural views that Asians and Latinos have in regards to education, and why Asians, as an ethnic group, consistently score higher on state exams when compared to other ethnic groups.

Growing up in Montebello and attending a high school that was 90% Latino, I have to agree with most, if not all, of the points brought up in Robin Zhou's column. It reminds me of an incident in my junior year of high school in 1991. The Montebello School District was in a budget crunch, and several programs were considered being cut, namely many sports and music programs in addition to several honors classes. There was a huge outrage from the parents over the sports programs being cut, but NO outrage when the honors biology class was cut. What's going on?

On a related note, there were no Asian parents expressing outrage at anything, including the honors classes being cut. Probably because we Asians are submissive and are always bending over and taking it from THE MAN.