Have you heard of Jennifer Pan? Her father, Hann, and her mother, Bich (pronounced Bick), were political refugees from Vietnam who immigrated to Canada. They eventually settled in Scarborough and had two kids, Jennifer and Felix. They were a fairly typical Asian immigrant success story. Through hard work and discipline they were able to accumulate a nice house, fancy cars, and a healthy savings. They were also able to provide their children with the sort of educational opportunities and advantages that they themselves were never given.
There was a great deal of pressure on the kids to succeed. Jennifer was enrolled in piano lessons and figure skating. Life was busy for her, too busy. It was also stressful, too stressful. As a way of coping with her stress, Jennifer began cutting herself, “little horizontal cuts” along her forearm. Jennifer wasn’t happy. The pressure was so intense that she felt like a total failure for not being selected as the valedictorian of her 8th grade class despite her best efforts. She didn’t show the pain, though. She put on what she referred to as her “happy mask” and pretended like everything was fine.
She went on to attend Mary Ward Catholic Secondary school in north Scarborough. The pressure from her “classic Tiger dad,” Hann, and his accomplice, Bich, didn’t let up. I wonder if she ever considered just being honest with them about the fact that she was averaging 70% in all of her classes. I wonder if she ever considered asking for help and informing them that the expectations they were placing on her were actually not helping her succeed. I’m guessing this would have been unthinkable to her. That isn’t what they wanted to hear. So, instead, Jennifer used “old report cards, scissors, glue and a photocopier” to fabricate a new report card with straight A’s. The scam worked, but Jennifer knew it was a temporary bandage. At some point she’d have to turn things around in order to get accepted into a major university, a university with name cache, Hann and Bich would settle for nothing less.
But she could only bring her grades up to B’s, which was not good enough to get into the University of Toronto’s prestigious pharmacology program. In fact, she was barely accepted to Ryerson and even this admission offer was rescinded when she failed calculus her senior year. Time to confess to the parents, right? Wrong. Instead, Jennifer lied. She told her parents that she was going to attend Ryerson in the Fall and then later would transfer to U of T. But she wasn’t attending Ryerson. Instead, she was packing up her bag and taking the train down town where she would study independently at the public library, tend bar, and teach piano lessons. This is what she was doing while her parents thought she was at school.
Two years later, Jennifer’s fictional academic career continued when she was accepted (fictionally) into U of T’s pharmacology program as a transfer student. Her parents were thrilled. When it came time to graduate she hired someone on-line to forge her transcripts. Her parents were eager to attend her graduation, but couldn’t, Jennifer explained, because there weren’t enough tickets due to the size of the graduating class.
It was inevitable that at some point the charade would collapse, and eventually it did. Jennifer’s parents found out. Her mother was mostly sad. Her father was mostly angry. They ultimately responded by placing her under a kind of house arrest. They demanded that she start over by going back to school to fix that bad calculus grade. Then she could get back on the path to success. I guess they were rationalizing at this point. I suppose they thought that all of this could just be an unfortunate detour from which their daughter could recover provided enough discipline and pressure.
They were wrong. The strict control eventually caused Jennifer to snap. On March 19, 2014 the trial began in New Market. It lasted nearly ten months. Jennifer was eventually found guilty of hiring hit men to have her parents killed. The hitmen succeeded in killing her mother but the father survived being shot in the face. Nevertheless, he feels like he is dead: “When I lost my wife, I lost my daughter at the same time,” Hann explained. “I don’t feel like I have a family anymore. […] Some say I should feel lucky to be alive but I feel like I am dead too.” Hann feels dead. Bich really is dead. Jennifer is serving consecutive life sentences. That is how the story ends.
Even though this story takes place in Canada, and even though it is an extreme example, it speaks to something that several Asian Americans can relate to and empathize with—the tremendous pressure that Asian parents often place on their children to be successful. What outsiders generally don’t understand is that this pressure is directly related to the Asian philosophy for responding to racial injustice. We’re not stupid. We know that we are victims of historical injustice. We know that we are one of the only groups of people that popular culture still regards as objects to be mocked. We know that the very important academic and public discourse that focuses on racial injustice tends to treat us and our experiences clumsily if at all. And we know that there are some people who just simply hate us for being different. So what do we do? We work hard. The idea is that by succeeding, by advancing up the ladder of a prestigious career and making a lot of money, we finally gain some level of acceptance. We ignore the racial injustice and demeaning treatment and succeed in spite of it, and here we finally find a dignity that has been long denied us, a belonging that always seems just beyond our grasp.
This philosophy would be a good one if it worked. Unfortunately, striving for academic excellence and career success does not gain us greater acceptance. In some cases, it actually works against us. Consider, for example, the results of a Princeton University study designed to determine “how race and ethnicity effect admissions by using SAT scores as a bench mark.” The study revealed that African Americans receive a bonus of 230 points. Hispanic Americans receive a bonus of 185 points. Asian Americans are penalized 50 pts. Apparently the mentality of those who design systems such as this is roughly the same as those who authored the Chinese Exclusion Acts: It is tolerable to have some Asians around as long as not too many. Such policies are doubly problematic for Asian Americans. In the first place, the policies themselves are an instance of racial injustice. Second, the policies problematize the Asian philosophy of responding to such injustice by working harder to receive an elite education.
These policies are unjust, racist, and should change. I think Asian Americans should find out which schools operate on the basis of a quota system like the one I just finished describing and simply refuse to attend those schools. Or, if they already attend such a school, they should transfer. Also, Asian Alumni and benefactors should refuse to contribute to the endowments of these schools until they change their racist policies. Also, anyone who claims to care about racial injustice, Asian or otherwise, should follow suit.
In the meantime, however, these policies provide us with an opportunity to rethink our response to racial injustice and, relatedly, the sacrifices we are willing to make in our efforts to gain a greater acceptance and sense of belonging in modern American society. It may just be that we are made in the image of God with unique gifts, talents, and personalities. It may be that God didn’t make us all to be doctors, bankers, lawyers, and engineers. It may be that we should seek happiness and a sense of belonging in other ways. It may be better to face racial injustice squarely and demand that it change rather than accepting it as an inevitable reality and placing what are often unhealthy and unrealistic demands upon ourselves instead. It is as though we are ashamed of the dehumanizing way that society views us and so work ever harder to show that we are capable and worthy of respect. The problem isn’t with anything we are doing or failing to do. The problem is with those who treat us differently because of the shape of our eyes. If they don’t accept us or respect us, then so be it. But we must demand to be treated fairly. And we must stop trying to achieve an impossible standard that in many cases doesn’t even fit our unique personalities so as to gain an acceptance and sense of belonging that is not there to be had at the end of that particular road. Perhaps, if Jennifer Pan and her parents would have realized this than things would have been different for them. Perhaps, if we as Asian Americans adopt a new posture toward racial injustice, then things will be different for our children. Perhaps they won’t feel so crushed if they don’t get into a prestigious university. Perhaps that university won’t treat them as 50pts less of a person because they are Asian.