The Price of Success for Asian-American Children

The Promise of the American Dream

As a wooden ship glides slowly into New York Harbor, a sea of hopeful faces looks up from the deck to behold the lady of their dreams. Before them stands a statuesque symbol welcoming them to a land where all dreams can be realized. Here, in the land of equality and opportunity, lives a promise that great rewards can be achieved through hard work and perseverance. Among all those coming to this country from distant shores — and among all the generations born here afterward — there is one group of young people that will embrace the concept of hard work, perseverance, and self-sacrifice more notably than any other. Among all who seek the American Dream, it will be Asian-American children who achieve that goal at a disproportionately high rate of success. This success does not come without a price. It comes at the cost of personal dreams that are set aside and ignored. For Asian-American children, the dreams they strive to fulfill are the dreams of their parents.

Parental Involvement and Academic Achievement

Asian parents are traditionally very involved in the lives of their children, beginning in infancy and continuing well beyond the age that Western standards consider adulthood. This involvement is particularly evident among first-generation immigrant parents, who previously lived in countries where the promise of a better life was reserved for only a select few. As Fox Butterfield notes in his essay "Why They Excel," the achievements of Asian-American children are both remarkable and apparent from an early stage: "The differences in performance are showing up in kindergarten — it suggests something is happening in the family, even before the children get to school" (260).

As parents reinforce goals and obligations throughout a child's years of development, performance levels that were once remarkable become extraordinary. "Although Asian-Americans make up only 2.4% of the nation's population," Butterfield observes, "by 1990 they had come to constitute 17.1% of the undergraduates at Harvard, 18% at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and 27.3% of the University of California at Berkeley" (258). These figures reflect a pattern of academic overrepresentation that has continued to attract scholarly attention.

Confucianism, Guilt, and the Drive to Excel

According to the individuals interviewed by Butterfield, a consensus indicates that at least a portion of the motivational force behind this extraordinary drive to achieve stems from a strong sense of indebtedness the children feel toward their parents, as well as an equally strong sense of guilt. "It is a strong force, like the Protestant ethic in the West" (260). Adding to the obsession with achieving perfection is the ancient heritage of Confucianism, which encourages self-sacrifice for the honor and betterment of the family.

Conclusion: Caught Between Two Worlds

There is a growing sense of contradiction in the lives of young Asian-Americans: they are both obligated to obey family expectations to succeed, while also drawn by a simple yet powerful human desire to fit in and feel accepted by peers. Parents who push their children to succeed sometimes allow no distractions to stand in the way of reaching their goal. The children, coming from a social tradition of strict obedience, feel they have no other choice but to comply. Growing up in a country that not only offers endless possibilities of choice but also embraces the concept of personal freedom has, understandably, deepened the sense of hopelessness in some young Asian-Americans. Some feel trapped between two worlds.

Adding to this frustration is an underlying social distinction that sets Asian-Americans further apart. Young Asian-Americans living in the land of opportunity have arrived — or are living — with an overwhelming debt. Their particular debt is not payable in American currency. It is instead a conceptual debt owed to their parents, payable only through the sacrifice of the children's own personal dreams and desires. The debt remains unpaid until the dreams of the parents are achieved. It is along this road to ultra-achievement that some young Asian-Americans have paid the highest price of all.

Works Cited

Butterfield, Fox. "Why They Excel." American Voices: Culture and Community. Ed. Delores LaGuardia and Hans Gruber. 4th ed. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield, 2000. 258–263.

Louie, Nguyen. "A Daughter's Story." American Voices: Culture and Community. Ed. Delores LaGuardia and Hans Gruber. 4th ed. Mayfield, 2000. 60–63.