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GOLDSEA |
ASIAMS.NET |
ASIAN AMERICAN ISSUES
Is Boston the AA Intellectual Mecca?
he significance of the greater Boston area's AA community derives not from its position as the nation's 13th largest (250,000, accounting for 6% of the area's 4.1 million) but from its unparalleled concentration of elite academics and scholars. The gravitational pull of institutions like MIT, Harvard, Brandeis, Northeastern, Tufts and Wellesley acts more compellingly on Asians than on other segments of the American population. They account for a stunning 20% of the 250,000 students attending the area's 60 colleges and universities.
AA Intellectual Mecca?
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A local Asian icon is the late An Wang, a Harvard alumnus whose 1951 invention of magnetic core memory enabled the computer revolution. Wang Laboratories has now faded into a cautionary tale of the perils of arrogance and ill-conceived family succession, but downtown Boston's gleaming Wang Center for the Performing Arts remains a magnificent memorial to the possibilities of Asian academic elitism. Rival MIT has the highest concentration of Asians (30%) outside of California and Hawaii -- as well as academia's highest suicide rate (10 since 1990).
This intellectual pressure cooker has spawned a culture of technological innovation and risktaking that has produced many of the seeds for the global tech sectors, including the vast corridor along Boston's own Route 128 comprising 5,000 tech companies employing over 200,000.
The Boston area's love-hate relationship with Asians began in 1875 when a small number of Chinese began pitching tents on land created several decades earlier by a land fill of the old South Cove mud flats. By the turn of the century several hundred Chinese had established a budding Chinatown of over two dozen businesses. In 1902, after the Chinese Exclusion Act was extended, police and immigration agents arrested 250 Chinese for not carrying alien registration papers. Despite sporadic hostility, Boston's Chinatown received steady patronage from locals. By 1931 it had grown to nearly a hundred establishments supporting 1,200.
Today Chinatown occupies 32 acres along Harrison Avenue between South Station and the Boston Commons. It has become one of Boston's most vibrant areas, with over 200 businesses that spill out into the theater district. Its several dozen restaurants are operated not only by Chinese from Hong Kong and Taiwan, but also Vietnamese, Coreans, Thais, Filipinos and other Asian nationalities. Thanks to social and cultural activism emanating from the local universities, Chinatown enjoys support from many energetic organizations dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for its mostly recent-immigrant residents. It has become a centerpiece of Boston's efforts at cultural preservation and urban renewal but for most of the area's AA residents, Chinatown is a hot meal and an occasional touchstone to a heritage that is invisible in their suburban neighborhoods.
The young Asians drawn to Boston by the reputations of its elite colleges have mixed feelings about the area's post-graduation hospitality. Some suspect the area's businesses of discriminating against Asians. Others are less than comfortable with the perceived attitudes of locals. Few Asians who attend college in Boston settle there.
Is greater Boston the Asian American intellectual mecca? Or is it just third-base for ambitious heavyhitters?
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WHAT YOU SAY
[This page is closed to new input. --Ed.]
(Updated
Tuesday, Apr 1, 2008, 06:09:59 PM)
I dunno abut an intellectual mecca, but I work at the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center's Red Oak After School Program where 80% of the kids are Chinese (-American?). I was adopted and have been in the US and Massachusetts for 27 years. But I didn't have a lot of contact with other AAs because there weren't any living in the suburbs. I love my job and working with the kids. They're funny and creative. If you have time to volunteer w/ my kids (140+, ages 5-13), they like meeting new people who can play board games and build w/ Knex, LEGOs, and of course homework help, please drop me an e-mail.
Tran
roakdir@bcnc.net
Wednesday, May 22, 2002 at 04:46:19 (PDT)
Hated
Asian
Race
Victimized
And
Ridiculed
Daily
...just kidding?
Asian Blue Blood
Monday, May 20, 2002 at 16:30:03 (PDT)
There was also that psycho asian girl at Harvard that killed herself and her roommate, about five years ago.
pressure cooker schools
Monday, May 20, 2002 at 08:49:07 (PDT)
The article says MIT has had 10 suicides since 1990. I wonder what the racial/gender make-up of those suicides is. I know there was an Asian girl who died by setting herself on fire a couple of years ago.
Made In Taiwan
Thursday, May 16, 2002 at 19:44:09 (PDT)
"In other evidence, while in New England I've been shot down three times with the line "It's because I think you're too Asian for me" (both in just asking for a second date and in a serious "define the relationship" talk)."
God damn! That is cold! Was it whitewashed Asian or white girls who said that to you? You are right. Something like that would rarely happen back in CA. I guess you could categorize the people back home like this: 1.) They don't care about race, so they won't ever mention it; 2.) They don't know much about your race, but are fascinated by it, so would get with you to explore; 3.) They don't identify with your race, but they won't flat out say it in your face!
Well, "You're too Asian for me" might have many connotations. It could be that they don't care about Asian culture, or it could be that they are buying into the stereotypes that Asian guys brainy wimps with small winkies.
TSJ
Eric@KristinKreuk.net
Wednesday, May 15, 2002 at 00:56:52 (PDT)
T.H. Lien,
"I think you're too Asian for me"
That's funny I always score within one or two dates after hearing that line. But then again no one will not know I'm chinese (or asian) when they look at me.
Usually from more American Asian girls will say that line. But I never interpreted as a rejection. I just continue to show them a good time that I think most American Asain girls enjoy, and it all works out.
As for FOB and ABC friends I mean it's not a big deal you just have to throw in enough bilingual people in there to keep the group cohesive. Like when a bunch of mandarin speaking and cantonese speaking FOB get together, you need a few people to keep translating and make sure everyone arrives at the the same Dim-Sum or KTV bar. You gotta be the glue to hold the party together sometimes.
AC Dropout
Tuesday, May 14, 2002 at 11:08:13 (PDT)
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