Beyond the First Success: Asian Americans and Lifelong Growth
Why are Asian Americans often described as “model minorities”? Asian Americans, as a group, have achieved the highest educational attainment of any racial demographic in the United States. According to Pew Research (2021), 54% of Asian American adults hold at least a bachelor’s degree, compared to just 33% of all U.S. adults. Even though Asian Americans make up about 7% of the U.S. population, they have historically been represented at much higher rates in Ivy League institutions—between 22% and 30% in 2022–2023. Asian Americans report higher median household incomes than the national average. U.S. Census Bureau (2022 data) confirms that the median household income for Asian Americans was $100,572, compared to $74,580 for all U.S. households. Also, Asian Americans tend to have lower rates of incarceration and reported criminal activity than other racial groups.
Why is this the case?
My interpretation of why Asian Americans are more highly represented in higher education enrollment and higher income is based on a combination of focus and hard work. They are focused because the definition of success among Asian Americans is much narrower than in other cultural groups. Underneath the hard work, there is a strong drive to achieve goals, fueled by pressure from parents and the community.
One of my leadership coaching clients, a second-generation Chinese American, shared that growing up she felt she could not fail at anything she did—academics, sports, and other extracurricular activities. Not doing well in any of these seemed unacceptable. Not achieving the highest mark at school could cause her family to lose face. When I was preparing for the Korean SAT in the early 1990s, there was a common saying: “Four hours of sleep, you pass; five hours, you fail.” It captured the extreme pressure placed on students, implying that only those willing to sacrifice sleep could hope to succeed. In Korea, even nowadays, the SAT exam is one of the biggest life events for individuals and their families. By government order, planes are not allowed to take off during the SAT exam hours, which happens in early December each year. Numerous parents visit Buddhist temples and churches day and night for an entire year to pray for their children’s good results. The pressure is so high. Kids who do not do well on the test are considered bad. People spend significant amounts of money on their kids’ extracurricular education.
Why do Asians feel this kind of pressure to study and get into the best colleges? There is a strong connection between the inner pressure we feel and the obligation to honor filial piety. It works in both directions—making your family proud by being accepted to a great school and avoiding the shame of losing face. Asian Americans, though perhaps to a lesser degree, also feel this pressure during their school years.
Unlike the U.S., where most people believe there are many great universities to choose from depending on your interests, almost the entire high school population in Korea, Japan, and China believe, or they will say they know, which is the best, second best, third best, and so on. For example, in Korea, if you are at the top of your high school class, there is no discussion about which school you would apply to—it is clear you will go to Seoul National University. I was like that. I went to Yonsei University because that was the best one I could afford based on my academic ability. I have no doubt I would have gone to Seoul National University if my SAT score had been better. This narrow definition of “best” or “success” also applies to the selection of majors. If you were the best, you would choose law, business, certain engineering fields, or medicine during my school years. It was rare to choose something else, such as literature or other social sciences, unless you wanted to go to a higher-ranking school with a less popular major. Now that I look back, it was more that I followed the perception of everyone around me about what I needed to do based on my academic ability. And it was like that for most students. To extrapolate this, this narrow definition of success strongly influences job selection and the way most Asian Americans live.
Looking at the positive side of this group-based thinking and meeting expectations of filial piety, it provides clear direction for people’s work and removes much hesitation and distraction. Personally, focus and hard work led me to a great school and to become a good professional at a large corporation early in my career. I was happy about it. As a society, Asian countries responded remarkably well, compared to other countries, to government directions during the early stage of the COVID outbreak.
What’s wrong with this story?
Satta no Kaijō (View of the Sea at Satta, Suruga Province), from the series Famous Places in the Sixty-odd Provinces (Rokujūyoshū Meisho Zue). Artist: Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858)
I don’t know. What do you think? I am very proud to be an Asian American. I value the virtues of hard work and focus.
In the book that I am writing, I’d like to offer a different perspective about Asian Americans and leadership. At its core, the book explores how self-authoring, a concept from Robert Kegan’s Adult Development Theory, is essential to effective and sustainable leadership. I intend to connect that to how deeply rooted Asian cultural values, such as filial piety, group-based thinking, and deference to hierarchical norms, often stand in the way for Asian Americans to become self authoring. I’ll also offer experience based suggestions on how we can move through and beyond those internalized constraints.
Without my experience of exchanging ideas with diverse groups at MIT during my business school days and deep reflection and courage following a memorable failure in the middle of my career, I would probably have continued on the same hierarchical ladder, trying to climb up even though the track was not aligned with my values, talents, and purpose.
Asian Americans make up 23.3% of computer and math professionals and 36.4% of computer hardware engineers (USAFacts, 2023), despite comprising only about 7% of the U.S. population. In the medical field, Asian Americans account for 17.1% of all active physicians (AAMC, 2018) and over 43% of medical scientists (USAFacts, 2023). By contrast, Asian Americans are underrepresented in fields such as federal law enforcement (about 3%; Pew Research Center, 2021), Congress (4.5%, 24 AAPI members in the 119th Congress of the 535 member U.S. Congress%, and arts and entertainment, where they comprise only 5.3% of major film and television roles (Smith, S. L., Choueiti, M., & Pieper, K., 2023).
Also, despite high rates of educational attainment and technical expertise, Asian Americans are significantly underrepresented in executive and decision-making roles (Chang, 2021).
Overall, Asian Americans are highly represented in higher education and excel in professional fields that reward individual expertise. However, despite these achievements, Asian Americans remain significantly underrepresented in leadership and executive roles across most industries
I understand the argument behind the “bamboo ceiling”, a structural, cultural, and racial barrier that limits Asian Americans’ visibility and influence in leadership positions. Perhaps this is why so many Asian parents encourage, and we so often follow, conventional professional paths such as medicine, engineering, and science, where individual capabilities are more appreciated.
In my book, I’d like to provide a different narrative and suggestions for experimentation. From a self-authoring perspective, I believe many Asian Americans are not reaching their full potential, particularly after early career success, because we often haven’t fully discovered our own values, talents and purposes influenced by deeply rooted Asian cultural forces. Also, too often, we lack the courage to pursue what matters most to us even if we found them. And we may overreact and isolate ourselves, not seeing a possibility that we can do both, be loyal and be courageous.
References
AAMC. (2018). Percentage of all active physicians by race/ethnicity. Association of American Medical Colleges. https://www.aamc.org/data-reports/workforce/data/figure-18-percentage-all-active-physicians-race/ethnicity-2018
Smith, S. L., Choueiti, M., & Pieper, K. (2023). Inequality in 1,600 Popular Films: Examining Portrayals of Gender, Race/Ethnicity, LGBTQ & Disability from 2007 to 2022. USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative. https://assets.uscannenberg.org/docs/aii-inclusion-list-2023.pdf
Chang, A. (2021, October 16). Tech’s Asian American workers are the most likely group to face the ‘bamboo ceiling’. Axios. https://www.axios.com/2021/10/16/tech-asian-workers-racism-equity
Hyun, J. (2005). Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling: Career Strategies for Asians. New York, NY: HarperCollins.
Pew Research Center. (2021, May 11). 6 facts about Asian Americans in federal law enforcement. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/05/11/6-facts-about-asian-americans-in-federal-law-enforcement/
Pew Research Center. (2021, May 1). Key facts about Asians in the U.S. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/05/01/key-facts-about-asians-in-the-us/
Pew Research Center. (2022). Income inequality in the U.S. is rising most rapidly among Asians. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/07/12/income-inequality-in-the-u-s-is-rising-most-rapidly-among-asians/
U.S. Census Bureau. (2022). Income and poverty in the United States: 2022. https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2023/demo/p60-279.html
USAFacts. (2023, May 18). Which jobs have the highest representation of Asian Americans? https://usafacts.org/articles/which-jobs-have-the-highest-representation-of-asian-americans/