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Race at the Top: white and Asian Americans and the push for equity in education
Natasha Warikoo, the author of a new book on suburban schools and the competition for elite university spots, discusses the lessons she learned
Why did you want to study Asian Americans in an affluent community?
Asian Americans are doing remarkably well academically, in some instances even better than the majority group in the US, whites. Conservatives, such as those behind the SFFA v Harvard lawsuit claiming affirmative action in admissions amounts to racial discrimination toward Asian Americans, are using Asian American academic achievement to further their anti-racial justice agenda. Liberals often respond to this logic by rejecting the possibility that Asian Americans ever experience racial discrimination, as if we have to deny the possibility of anti-Asian racism in education in order to defend affirmative action. I wanted to tell a more nuanced story about Asian American academic achievement and how whites respond. I spent three years visiting a well-off suburb with a large and growing Asian American population, observing at the high school and at community events and interviewing school staff, parents and high school kids. I call the town “Woodcrest”.
One of my daughter’s friends, she got a 1560-something on the SAT …[but] her parents had her retake it. I was saying that to somebody and one of my friends said, “Let me guess. Her name isn’t Sally Smith”… They’re from Korea … They didn’t go on vacation because she had to study for the SAT 2s.
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