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And yes, leaving out the Asian American side of it is waaaaay bad... like that should be obvious to include...
this is what happens when you have an economist doing an anthropologist's job ;-)
You know, in an earlier draft of this post, I was ruminating on the same thing you raised-- isn't this a *general* issue among *all* kids?? Like I started out writing in my own draft "inverse relationship between a 4.0 GPA and popularity..." and thought.. um.....this is a *race* issue?? But there it states in that paper - apparently, it's "less" of an issue among white kids, somehow, though I haven't quite figured out the precise path of rationale arriving at that conclusion. I guess basically, the difference is in what name you're being called by your immature peers. If you're white and have a 4.0, you're a nerd. If you're Asian, period, you're a nerd. If you're Black or Latino and have a 4.0, you're acting white. Hum.
Me, I always got high grades. But I hid it. I acted like I didn't go home and study every night; I acted like I didn't care about classes during school. In my foolish, confused, adolescent mind, I thought this was the way to coolness, since that's how all the cool kids acted. Go figure.
I guess my question is: did your high grades affect how many Asian friends you had? My intuitive response would be probably no. Don't you wonder why that is? Even for Asians who went to, say, Lowell High or Stuy or Brooklyn Tech, I have a hunch that their GPAs also didn't affect the number of Asian friends they had.
So if the Fryer-Torelli paper is right in its assessment of the White, Black and Latino communities, why are Asians more like the White trends mentioned in the paper than the Black and Latino trends?
Seems to me if Fryer and Torelli considered the Asians in the equation, they might find their ultimate conclusion moot because "acting white" by their definition doesn't decrease an Asian's popularity among Asians...or does it?
Uh, not enough of a sample size. Remember, many of us, like Mike and I, went to high schools that was 98% non-Asian. There were like three or four other Asian-Americans that I was aware of in my class of 400 and to seek out these three or four people for friendship based on skin color seems utterly ridiculous.
Hmm, good question. Here's a different way at looking at this (and sorry if I'm going off on a tangent here):
What seems to be at the basis of friendships & cliques in high school are commonalities, be they proximity (living on the same block), interests (into the same video games), culture (practice the same traditions), etc.
I could see grades correlating to some of these factors. Teens who have similar interests in playing chess may tend to have similar grades or studying habits, for instance. So do grades effect the number of friends you have (Asian or otherwise)? I think they could.
If you were to apply popularity to these same factors, there may be loose correlations too. I'm no sociologist, but I tend to think that what's popular in one school is different than what's popular in another - and perhaps what's popular is somewhat defined by what the local society believes & reinforces as popular. Or maybe it's all the media.
The New White Flight
The Wall Street Journal. NOVEMBER 19, 2005.
In Silicon Valley, two high schools with outstanding academic reputations are losing white students as Asian students move in. Why?
http://wsjclassroom.com/teen/teencenter/05nov_w...
I was merely noting that, for people who attended high schools without a statistically significant amount of Asian-Americans, answering your question is impossible.
Your last comment raises a really good point that I wonder whether the authors of that paper considered. What about the Blacks and Latinos living in the suburbs? Class probably plays a significant role here, as significant if not more so than race. I'll admit I didn't read all 60-something pages word for word, but from my skimming of it, it doesn't look like the class issue comes up in any depth.
Let's consider Indians (like, from India) in the United States. (I'm not going to get into the "Are Indians considered Asian" debate, because it's asinine) I've known a lot of Indians growing up and at work, and never have I heard of Indians accusing other Indians of acting White. Many Indians, even second or third generation Indians keep traditional names. To date, the Indian weddings I've been to have been traditional, complete with the groom riding on a horse, women and men in traditional Indian dress, and feet washing. Lots of feet washing.
I'll end on the note that Asians want to move out of Chinatown not to be White, but to get away from the bullshit that is Chinatown. Chinatown in San Francisco is run by dirty Kuomintang backed Cantonese (who have no business in Taiwanese politics, I might add) and wealthy old school families who built their fortunes land speculating, who use their money to exploit newly immigrated Asians in America rather than helping them achieve success. I can't imagine Chinatown in any other major city being too dissimilar, and based on what I have heard, I am right. The people who move out and stay out are the ones that share my attitude towards Asians that cannibalize their own people: fuck that shit.
That's how we "act" white.
I also find it funny that Asian Americans make fun of FOBs but get angry when non-Asians make fun of FOBs.
This reminds me of when people used to act so surprised when I tell them I'm not American...