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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, 06:09:58 PM)
miss lady
Sorry if you do not class yourself as Oriental, and sorry if I have offended any other race that is on this site. I meant Orientals as in Oriental Asian.
Oriental is not offensive and means of Eastern or Asian, or even native of the East.
What I mean about Asian mixing is the mix of Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysian Chinese, Filipinos, Vietnamese, and other Asians. That is from my experience of living in Boston.
Ok, Boston is not this greatest of Chinatowns, but at least its there, and a good one.
W&Y
Monday, June 24, 2002 at 15:43:18 (PDT)
KC,
I think that, sooner or later, everyone falls into a subcategory of sorts. The categories you mentioned pretty much sum up all the asians I know (myself included). It's kind of like one of those career testers--you score more points in one area, and that's your general path. Not to say no one can change. But hey, you can divide any ethnic group into the same categories or others.
toto
Friday, June 21, 2002 at 21:56:06 (PDT)
I disagree, there are tons of asians in Boston. I work downtown, where I see asians every day, I live just outside of Boston, where there is a big asian population, and I often go to Cambridge, where I see quite a few asians, (Harvard, MIT). Also at the malls, and the towns right around Boston- Somerville, Brighton, Allston, etc. Boston has a huge asian population.
bostonian
Tuesday, June 18, 2002 at 12:03:33 (PDT)
Boston is no mecca. There are Asians here sure, but the city still lacks in diversity. As soon as you leave the downtown core there are few Asians to be seen.
PS. W&Y We arent ORIENTALS. If you don't know, I'm telling you now. How exactly do "we orientals seem to be mixed?" please clarify, this is quite confusing.
miss lady
jungle188@hotmail.com
Monday, June 17, 2002 at 11:41:36 (PDT)
Moonshineprincess,
Sorry about that misinformation. At any rate it was a horrible and tragic event. Who knows if it has to do with the immense pressure kids at these schools face or whether the girl was just very sick.
pressure cooker schools
Monday, June 10, 2002 at 08:37:21 (PDT)
I think reaction is due to where you are from. I live in London, England, and have lived in Boston for a year. I've also been to the other cities in the States and Canada . NY has to be my favourite. But I like Boston too. The China town is small, and the Orientals seem to be pretty mixed. If your an overseas student from Asia, then obviously they will feel that there is little choice in Oriental produce, and compare things with their home town.....but thats quite natural.
But Boston is great! Good mix of culture! I would not mind living there long term.
W&Y
Sunday, June 09, 2002 at 10:55:05 (PDT)
Correction, there are no Filipino restaurants in Chinatown. There basically are no Filipino restaurants in Boston period. I graduated last year and am still living here. As far as Boston being the intellectual mecca for AA, look at the numbers, those people comprise very few of that group. And yes the steretypes are highly prevalent down here, especially when you can classify the majority of Asians as being either white washed, FOB, rich and international, or thugs.
kc
Saturday, June 08, 2002 at 21:41:31 (PDT)
Hi "pressure cooked schools":
just wanted to tell you that the person who killed her roomate (at harvard) was arabian and she killed her asian roomate, so it was the asian that got killed.
Moonshineprincess
Friday, June 07, 2002 at 15:05:25 (PDT)
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