Subverting the American dream

Left to right: Abhijay Kodali, Saketh Sundar, Christopher Serrao and Rishik Gandhasri, four of eight co-winners at the Scripps National Spelling Bee, 2019

Alex Wong · Getty

The migration of African Americans from the South to the industrial cities of the north and mid-west of the US, from the second world war on, provoked a white flight of working-class families from neighbourhoods that were perceived to be less safe, declining in economic status, and with worsening schools. Whites rejected charges of racism and claimed they were protecting their financial investment and the safety of their children.

Today a new white flight is taking place. This time upper-middle-class white families are leaving neighbourhoods with increasing house values because Asian American families have moved in, whose children have become top achievers in public schools. Fleeing a neighbourhood with low crime, great schools and high prestige may not be a good financial strategy, but whites are again protecting their children by preserving their place at the top of the meritocratic hierarchy.

Far from celebrating the superior academic achievements of Asian American students as the culmination of the American dream, white parents discredit these accomplishments as an excessively narrow focus on education

This new flight was first recognised in a 2005 Wall Street Journal article about the city of Cupertino, home to Apple and other tech companies. Similar dynamics have been seen in other northern California suburbs with sizeable Asian American populations and in Maryland, New Jersey and New York. These areas are all solidly middle-class with steadily appreciating housing values and very good schools. In a decade, many have doubled their Asian American second-generation population (mostly from Taiwan and India, with tech education), which are now 15-40% locally. At Silicon Valley's Mission High School, ranked the number one comprehensive high school in the state, 84% of students were white in 1984, falling to 10% by 2010, while Asian American students rose to 83%. White families often leave for nearby suburbs (…)

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(1) Willow S Lung-Amam, Trespassers? Asian Americans and the Battle for Suburbia, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2017.

(5) This and the following quote are from Jerome Karabel, The Chosen, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, 2005.

Source: mondediplo.com