Sunday marks the 10 year anniversary of the overturning of Proposition 209 in California. Thursday, here at UCLA students of all colors got together in the morning for a funeral procession for the Death of Diversity. Students dressed in black staged a silent “walk-in” by walking into law classes and standing in silence, in an effort to depict what a classroom should look like if it were representative of the population of CA. There were over 50% minorities enrolled in the law school in 1995, the year before Prop 209 took place, far more than there have been since that year. 
Ten years ago this Sunday, California voters passed Proposition 209, which banned the use of race, ethnicity, color, gender or national origin as a factor in hiring and admissions in public institutions….Since then UCLA has seen a substantial drop in the number of black, Latino, Chicano/a and Native American students who are admitted.Out of the 4,422 students in UCLA’s freshman class of 2006, 100 are black. The low enrollment numbers have incited criticism from the UCLA community as well as national media outlets…Alina Ball [in the UCLA Law School Class of ’08] …found herself to be the only black female student, and one of nine black students total, in her class of more than 300. [daily bruin]
At UCLA, Johnson and other speakers noted that African American, Latino and Native American students continue to be underrepresented at UCLA and other UC campuses, with their numbers at the schools well below their proportions in the state’s population. The numbers plummeted the year after the ban took effect, and although they have recovered since then for the UC system as a whole, they have remained low at its most competitive campuses, including UCLA and UC Berkeley. [la times]
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p>But what does this mean for desis? South Asian Americans were out at the rally in full force, with members of the South Asian Law Student Association (SALSA) and Muslim Student Association (MSA) making an appearance. If the law school were to directly reflect the 1.24% [p.48] South Asian American population that we have in California, that would mean of the 340 law students in the 2008 class, there should be at least 4 desis in the entering class. I’m not sure about the exact stats, but I believe last year’s class had 13 South Asians. To further complicate the matter in trying to get stats on how many South Asian Americans are in the UC system, as far as categorization in the UC system is concerned, ‘Pakistani’ and ‘East Indian’ are lumped in with ‘Other.’
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p>Last month, the satirical article written by Jed Levine at the UCLA Bruin caused some ruckus in the Asian American blogosphere…His main gripe? There are too many Asian Americans on UCLA’s campus and their numbers on campus should be limited to make room for other ethnicities…
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Yes, white people are an underrepresented minority here at UCLA; while they make up 44 percent of the California population, white students only constitute 34 percent of UCLA’s student population….Asian-Americans, on the other hand, make up only 12 percent of the state of California and 38 percent of UCLA students.I agree with the chair of MEChA that the UC Regents are using unfair means to admit UC students. Using grades and test scores as a measure of academic success is clearly just a way to show preference to Asian-American students, who are better at both, and thus promote the status quo.
By keeping the Asian-American student numbers under control and more accurate to their representation in California, we can free up 26 percent of the student body for members of underrepresented groups.
I hear some liberal arts colleges accept head shots from applicants, and I think a similar program at UCLA would be monumentally successful at helping us weed out the young Maos and Kim Jongs from potential Mandelas, Lincolns and Estefans. [daily bruin]
Sadly, this opinion of Asian Americans taking the seats of other underrepresented groups is not just Levine’s, but one heard in the murmurs at yesterday’s rally from some Latinas standing in the crowd behind me. I was offended at first — weren’t we here at the rally standing in solidarity together as a people of color fighting for equity? Was this just an issue to pit Blacks and Latinos against the Asians and South Asians? But in retrospect I had to question — Do desis even care about affirmative action? Though we had turned out it great numbers at the rally yesterday, I couldn’t help but wonder: if we as Asian American are currently being overly represented in the UC system, then does the reversal of proposition 209 even matter to us, or even worse, will it be detrimental to our enrollment? Is this an issue that needs to have South Asian American representation?
Plus, you know probably as well as I do, that one of the student populations that tends to study on a friday or saturday night are returning students who are older, and actually have life experiences, no?
entering the fray very late in the game… just wanna add one thing (apologies if its been said)
to admissions officers, well-rounded means you can sell yourself. between two people with similar stats, the better talker..err, essay-writer..will come out ahead.
tell a story about navigating between the immigrant enclave of jackson heights and HS in midtown and you’ll easily beat out the upper east side kid who spent a summer in the south of france.
unsolicited advice to those applying for schools… some of y’all are gonna hate me for this… self-exoticization is hypnotic. i wrote about my name–used it to weave a story about race, religion and gender–it worked magic.
You know that sounds way too familiar. 🙂
In junior high I was chronically late to first period. I wrote a story about it, the last line was something like, my grandmother says the british brought us many things, but time was not one of them.
Luckily my (pretty cool) teacher wasn’t buying it, and I got a big fat C in the class, totally deserved.
hah! that’s clever.. i never thought to use imperialism to get out of detention.
“time of the month” =)
🙂 haha
whatever works right?
For a brown middle class or lower class kid, a one off examination (SAT or variant) is the way to go. It neutralises the impact of lack of other resources. The school selects purely based on the score.
If the argument that sport is pure merit, then a high score on the SAT is also pure merit. To be running the 100 meteres in less than 10 seconds you have to train really hard – you also need some innate ability. And to get a high SAT score, you have to train equally hard (is innate ability required). Why is that not considered for college admissions.
Well rounded is just an euphemism for favouritism in whatever form it may be. I dont support legacy either – pure nepotism.
As I said in my earlier post, if a kid has not had a chance to play sport while young, should he not be given special treatment when applying for a football team. Even the soccer team of USA should get preferential treatment when they come to the World Cup.
Sport / Music are multi-billion dollar businesses. Why should physically / musically challenged folks be excluded from a piece of the pie. I wonder if anyone has filed a lawsuit on this basis? or has this argument been made in the Gratz vs UMich case. Incidentally, a similar proposition is on the ballot in Michigan.
In Victoria (Oz) the most important criteria is the VCE score – the rest is just cream. Really evens the battlefield.
Ya – just say you are black. Although having an Indian name can be a giveaway.
Ya – just say you are black. Although having an Indian name can be a giveaway.
i’m a black muslim. 🙂
If you were “black” in australia, wouldn’t you have had some serious oppression to counter? I heard Aboriginal people in Australia are treated very unfairly. If someone from a Aboriginal community was able to go to college I’m sure that would be quite a feat, and such a person seems like they would be pretty remarkable to overcome what appears to be many structural hurdles. 🙂
If you were “black” in australia, wouldn’t you have had some serious oppression to counter? I heard Aboriginal people in Australia are treated very unfairly. If someone from a Aboriginal community was able to go to college I’m sure that would be quite a feat, and such a person seems like they would be pretty remarkable to overcome what appears to be many structural hurdles.
since south asians look just like australian aboriginals they should definitely get bonus points for perception!
paging Macacaroach?
educate yourself! ask them what they think! offended and insulted even!
chinese and japanese love each other! educate yourself!
Razib,
Do you need some water?
I do have one odd anecdote about this sort of thing… My graduate program does not have an official affirmative action policy. Until recently the department was mostly white with a small contingent of African Americans. It was an open secret that management wanted a more diverse student body, and they eventually launched their own unofficial drive to recruit Hispanics and Asians, using generic grants and fellowships as incentives. In four years they ended up with six Latinos and me. The punchline was… that every one of us was light enough to pass as white. The whole thing has become a running joke around here. Maybe they’ll ask this year’s applicants for face shots… At least the Japanese-American guy they got looks very Japanese…
Kate Grenvilles Secret River charts the relationship between the aboriginals and the convict settlers. won the commonealth prize and was shortlisted for the booker – she was interviewed today on cbc.ca for those who may care to check out the audio transcripts.
BD — I wonder if the ‘light enough to pass as white’ helped the seven of you integrate better, thus learn to express yourself in a manner the admissions people could more readily appreciate…?
Maybe… but the application process is entirely written. There are no interviews. The first face-to-face contact most applicants get is during visitation weekend, which happens after they’ve already been acepted.
I understand…. I was suggesting that the way one integrates in society generally shows in the way they present themselves on paper. This is, perhaps, why AA tends to admit wealthy Blacks and Latinos when it was intended to help inner-city victims of systemic racism.
But such conjectures are nearly impossible to tease out….
BD, mebee you think you can “pass,” but you need to get beyond your self-denial, blackee! true white people would be insulted, offended even, at the comparison.
you are in rare form tonight, brotha….
Razib:
I did not realize till your comment that the issue Oneup brought up has a racial angle.
I did my undergrad in India, where both groups, those who were in the library on friday nights, and those were out partying virtually every night, were Indians(obviously). I spent the first two years hanging out with the latter group trying to be one of the cool dudes(not a great success unfortunately), but did not like the direction my life was going, and did a course correction as best I could.
Is it a stereotype that all desis/asians are in the library on friday night, or maybe it is true to some extent. But I do not see why the ABDs should not be a mixed bunch, like in India.
Maybe I sound stupid. Yep, I am still v ignorant about cultural issues here.
Is it a stereotype that all desis/asians are in the library on friday night, or maybe it is true to some extent. But I do not see why the ABDs should not be a mixed bunch, like in India.
the vast majority of asian american students would not study friday night. but, of those who would study friday night in the science library the vast majority were asian americans.
P(asian american|studying friday in science library) >> P(non-asian american|studying friday in science library)
but
P(not studying friday in science library|asian american) >> P(studying friday in science library|asian american)
ergo,
P(asian american|studying friday in science library) = (P(studying friday in science library|asian american)X P(asian american))/P(studying friday in science library) ~ 1 🙂
you are a CIS guy so i assume that makes it clearer?
i am reminded of the reading of brown (black) folk who went to england decades ago and how they were always shocked when they saw whites doing menial work. the thug-stylin’ culture of vancouver sikhs is pretty alien to the techie-brownz just 5 hours to the south in seattle. and the more working class brown culture of the south puget sound is different still.
😀 . espressa is right. You really are in rare form today.
I was referring to academic overachievers… asian americans (with the high scores and gpas) do tend to fall into that category more often than students of other races though.
I think people also need to note that many americans don’t just view college as a place to prepare for entering a career. It is regarded as a life experience that mediates between high school with parental supervision and the “real world.”
And in most jobs, being able to do the work is just one part of moving up. If employers do not like a person’s personality or feel that an individual doesn’t mesh well with the rest of the employees… well, they can and will fire you. Especially if you live in a state with “at-will” policies. Those kids who spend all their time studying miss out on the opportunity to network.
Oneup,
The people studying all night are mostly in science and engineering areas, where technical skills are more neccessary
Hey guys, the life of a science major is hard. I’m just a freshman, but even with the “bare minimum” of units, my organic chemistry and calculus classes suck enough energy out of me. Sure, I don’t study on Friday and Saturday nights (that’s my “me time”) but I just got back from a review session for our o-chem midterm on Wednesday, and let me tell you, I wasn’t the only one there! There were plenty of kids, and not just “overachieving Asians,” either. In fact, I hardly saw any brown faces besides mine; there were a lot more East Asian and white kids. Anyway, my point is, sometimes it is necessary to study on weekends (like when you have a midterm coming up the next week…), and while I think a decent amount of studying on the weekends while you’re in college should be expected, if not looked forward to, I think it’s wrong to generalize and say “All science majors live in the library” or “All Asian kids who are doing science majors live in the library on Friday/Saturday nights.” I don’t party, just cuz that’s who I am, but I’m not studying on weekend nights, either. There are other things to do on weekends besides getting mind-numbingly drunk and studying your brains out, you know.
maggi, i passed physical chemistry, so there! you’re just startin’ down the long road baby….
Yes – being an AB in Oz can really suck.
Yes – I can pass for an AB and other ABs often do take a second look ( men and women)
Australia never really had a civil rights movement and the bulk of the population is still White Anglo (British Ancestry) although the advent of the Mediterranean immigrants in the 50’s has made a difference.
Yes – ABs are heavily under represented in Australian society. Incidentally if you walked around in Melbourne and its suburbs you would struggle to see an AB. Yet coz of lack of aggressive AA, no whispers are heard when an AB or any other race does well. The only reaction is that of grudging respect. Of course, the tall poppy syndrome is quite ingrained and that works regardless of one’s racial origins. ( tall poppy = the tendency to pull down those who show off)
The flag of the AB movement is very similar to the flags of the Dravidian movement. Colours of Black / Red / Yellow. Coincidence or is there more ?
That kind of depends on what your future plans are. If you are planning on grad school, you better be top 5% of your class(or some such stupid statistic).
People need to deal with dissapointment a little better.
Blacks are “people” too.
“Overachieving” ain’t easy.
Razib’s ongoing “black” jokes are hilarious…..
Ah, memories of (South) Asian college life in London during the early 90s. Wonderful flashbacks to the sight of a bunch of sunshine-deprived British desis (mostly Punjabi & Pakistani) in full gangsta mode proudly proclaiming that they were “black”, while the group of West African students sitting on the next table gave them all murderous glares.
Okay I admit it. At the time, I was one of those wannabe-black gangstas too 😉
Good 🙂 That’s the first step… 😉
As someone who is desi, still at university, never been in the library on a Friday night (statistically improbable or impossible, Razib?), and not failing, addicted to E or ‘going down the wrong path’ as someone quaintly phrased it…
my experience at a NZ university has been that yes some Indians/Lankans hang out in big ‘study groups’ on such nights but that is mainly because:
a) they want to get away from their parents b) they’ve substituted Switzerland and running around the tree a la Bollywood with sneaking coy glances across the shelves c) they’re not allowed to go out much so they socialise in the librsary so if anyone wants to find out, hey they were in the library! d) the library is a mere preview before fob nightclub no. 1 and fob nightclub no. 2 where they can dance to black music and do the c walk wearing their nigga bling or e) all of the above.
What I don’t like is people dividing desi young people up into the ‘bad’ ones who don’t sneak around and the ‘good’ library people who get good grades. You don’t have to choose academia and nothing else, and from what I’ve seen most of the desis who spend a lot of time in university are not just studying…
…becuase I resent it when some fresh-off-the-boat chick who wears t shirts to uni that say things like ‘Sexy, Single and Ready To Mingle’, eye-fucks some random dude over her study notes, and cakes herself in make up just to go to class then looks down on people who go out on the weekend…
…same old shit, different locations 🙂
Jai, remember this song from the early 90’s gangsta period?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Tb5U22ADQ6Q
I like the kind that look like they’re going clubbing when they’re going to a 9am lecture.
The statistic was not pulled out of my ass. Further, your census statistic is not about current college enrollment, it’s about possession of a bachelor’s degree by “racial” subgroup. That includes immigrant communities, and among APIs (until the last 15 or so years), this is incredibly positively skewed. If you look at people of Asian descent in the U.S. currently enrolled in the higher education system at large today, the percentage is not as shockingly high.
Just a clarification. Also, if you are going to talk about AA for public school kids (which I strongly doubt exists), then you’ll have to get pissed at all the AA for legacy kids who coast on their asses at prep schools.
Eh?? What should desis hope to gain from Affirmative Action? Affirmative Action exists because it redresses the hundreds of years of discrimination that white americans have systematically imposed on American Indian, Black and Latino communities. Desis do not have a bone to pick in this fight.
Desis should be participating in Affirmative Action because that’s the right thing to do, irrespective of whether we will gain or lose seats. If you truly beleive in Affirmative Action, then we should have seats reserved for American Indian, Black and Latino communities, and Asian Americans should be competing with the general population for rest of the seats.
Amitabh,
I was more into Ice Cube & Ice-T, and Public Enemy before that (during the “Do the Right Thing” era, ie. Spike Lee’s film). LLCoolJ’s Mama Said Knock You Out was also popular amongst many desis here.
NWA’s song “Straight Outta Compton” was also used quite effectively during the drama Second Generation starring Parminder Nagra, which I’ve mentioned here a few times. The usage pretty accurately described many UK desis’ embrace of that song and its associated mindset too.
No von Mises,
Me too. I’d thought only desi girls in Britain did all that. Not that I’m complaining, of course (and we all appreciated it during our own college years here).
thats fun, and 0% change of getting VD…
Excellent point Pagla. This issue needs to be placed in the prpoer perspective.
I would have to agree with Pagla.
I have a dream. I have a dream when Peyton Manning and Reggie Bush and Muthukrishnan Srigopalaradhakrishnan will all play together(with the font on their jerseys changed to fit us desis ofcourse). I have a dream that people will be judged not by the height of their bodies or by how far they can throw a ball, but by their character.
I have a dream. I have a dream where Neeta Chinnswamy aka Nancy C from Eureka Ca will acknowledge the existence of Ganesh Gopalakrishnanan from Chennai when they pass each other in the hallway. I have a dream where Gayatri Patel aka Gaby P from Chicago won’t pull a ewww face when she sees Harinder Singh from Kapurthala behind the counter at the 7-11. I have a dream where brown galz will not always be with preppy ivy-league white boys.
I just saw the University of Michigan President address the campus community, on the successful state ballot proposal banning affirmative action. Only two counties in the entire state voted against it, Washtenaw county (Ann Arbor .. Those bleeding heart liberals ) and Wayne county (Detroit .. one of the most segregated cities in USA). It will be interesting to see how the university will deal with it. I am not a legal macaca, but may be they will take it to the courts again.
The ony way to make an inherently unfair system more fair is to spread the unfairness around in a fair manner. That’s this macaca’s take on affirmative action.
Tash, nigga bling? WTF?!
School admissions should be based on grades, activities, and “fit”. If this means 100% asians, then too bad for everyone else.
The only way I would retract the statement would be if the NFL and NBA were more race neutral. Don’t feed me that asians are less athletic bull either.
Peace