Compelled to Excel: Immigration, Education, and Opportunity among Chinese Americans (review)

Despite the fact that Asian American scholars and activists have debunked the model minority myth since it came into favor in the late 1960s, it continues to enjoy a substantial following among academics, the media, political pundits, and the American public. Regardless of the parading of statistical data or personal testimony contesting its validity, it is a powerful entity that has become more entrenched, even to the point of being embraced by Asian Americans. Vivian S. Louie, in her book Compelled to Excel: Immigration, Education, and Opportunity among Chinese Americans, challenges this mythical construct in the educational context, namely at the college level. Her research is based on interviews with eighty-six 1.5 and second-generation Chinese American students from Hunter College of City University of New York (CUNY), a public commuter institution, and Columbia University, an elite private school.

The strength of this comparative study is that it counters the simplistic model minority stereotype of Asian Americans through meticulous examination of intersecting cultural and environmental factors. Louie combines aspects of the ethnic-culture argument and the structural argument to formulate her explanations of upward mobility. She argues that the ethnic-cultural argument, such as Confucianism transplanted from the homeland, does not account for ethnic or generational variation. The structural argument, which is based on labor market opportunity or segmented assimilation theories, does not seriously consider social components, like the role of parents. She analyzes multi-layered class stratification, family and neighborhood influences, and gender practices within one ethnic group to explain why some children fare better than others.

Louie challenges major misconceptions about immigrant success by disaggregating the ethnic groups within the Asian American category. She provides information specifically on Chinese Americans who come from mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, as well as ethnic Chinese, such as those from Burma, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. This approach could use even more systematic differentiation, since there are distinctions between Chinese who arrived from varying homeland countries. Some within the groups do not like being lumped into the "Chinese" category, nor do they identify or associate using this classification. Although Louie is more interested in their socioeconomic status and residential dispersion within the United States, she could elaborate on how specific homeland origin can impact the educational aspirations of the children.

These select voluntary immigrants, regardless of their class origins, chose to come to the United States because of the educational and occupational opportunities it could bring their children. They do not represent a cross section of the homeland Chinese population, but embody those who are remarkably more determined and willing to make sacrifices to start life anew. In their new homeland, she emphasizes how racism plays a central role in reshaping the children's educational aspirations. It is precisely because the parents recognize the existence of structural racial discrimination that they push their children to do well in school. They believe that educational attainment provides their children with an avenue through which to circumvent the barriers of the prevailing racial hierarchy.

Louie is most interested in comparing children who were raised in two different environments. One group was raised in middle-class, white suburbia from various sites across the country, while the other group is from working-class urban ethnic enclaves, mainly Chinatown in New York City. In her sampling, the former is more likely to attend Columbia University and the latter to be enrolled in Hunter College. Her focus is on social mobility, so she also interviews some children who grew up in ethnic enclaves, but defy the expectation by attending Columbia. In her sample, she does not directly address children from the suburbs who go to Hunter College or who are not college bound.

She explains how middle-class suburban families use their socioeconomic status to provide their children with the tools to succeed by investing in educational resources. These parents are more likely to be well-educated in their homeland and in the United States, working as successful professionals...