The Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka prohibited racial segregation in public education, driving a national effort toward equity and integration previously unseen in American society. However, Chief Justice Earl Warren’s push for a unanimous decision resulted in an exceedingly narrow directive that allowed for less overt discrimination to remain unaddressed. The limitations of this policy are apparent in a concerning phenomenon taking place in high-income California suburbs, where a recent study shows the entry of Asian families is directly correlated with the relocation of white families. Researchers have identified this phenomenon as a form of “white flight” and proposed varying explanations — the most plausible, they say, is the academic competition that Asian students bring, to the disadvantage of white students. This generalization and drastic reaction regarding Asian aptitude raises important questions about the status of Asian people in America and what it means for a perpetual foreigner met with constant skepticism to truly belong in an unwelcoming society.
While researchers studied white flight in the context of Asian immigration, the phenomenon is not restricted to these conditions. In a separate paper, Leah Boustan, co-author of the California study, notes a similar occurrence following World War II: an influx of Black migrants from the rural South prompted white flight from the downtown areas to the suburbs. In this case, the movement was both motivated and facilitated by racial prejudice. Discriminatory housing practices prevented Black families from accessing homes in the growing American suburbs, making ethnic groups further stratified across geographic and socioeconomic lines. The Asian-targeted white flight Boustan observed in modern-day California found similar scales of relocation. Using enrollment data from the California Department of Education between 2000 and 2016, she found that the arrival of each Asian student resulted in the exit of 0.6 to 1.5 white students, on average.
However, these findings diverge from previous cases of white flight in a key way: the movement was not significantly correlated with the entry of students from other ethnic groups, such as Hispanic or African American. It appears to have been a reaction to Asian families specifically and not a general prejudice against minorities. Interestingly, Boustan doesn’t believe anti-Asian sentiment played a significant role in these results. Responses to the General Social Survey administered by the University of Chicago indicate that highly educated respondents are more tolerant and less distrustful of Asian Americans, and the suburbs Boustan used in her study were mainly populated by people who fit this category. She concludes that the white flight observed in the study can be primarily attributed to parental concern that white students couldn’t keep up with Asian students academically, thereby disadvantaging them in college applications to elite institutions. What the study fails to realize is that this very fear regarding Asian students, to the point of self-segregation, is anti-Asian prejudice. It reveals a deeply-rooted misconception about Asian families and culture that alienates them from societal acceptance. Despite their different eras, both observed instances of white flight have insidious effects on the social status and well-being of the minority groups they target.
Conceptions of Asian achievement, while overly generalized, aren’t baseless. Asian Americans are the fastest-growing racial group in the U.S. and have the highest median annual household income. Asian American students have the highest rates of AP class enrollment and make up a near majority of top scorers on standardized tests, including the SAT. Explanations for their success often rely on unscientific assumptions about family dynamics, such as the Tiger Mom stereotype, which depicts Asian families as unloving and solely achievement-driven. Asian success has also been utilized to perpetuate the model minority myth, the misconception that Asian Americans are universally successful academically and economically in comparison to other minority groups.
The harm perpetuated by such a stereotype isn’t obvious at first glance, but becomes apparent when we consider the many exceptions. While Asian Americans are the highest-earning racial group, they also experience the most severe income inequality. From 1970 to 2016, the wealth gap widened in five of the six major Asian ethnic groups in America. Ten percent of Asian Americans experience poverty — a rate similar to the national average — but this number fluctuates when we narrow our scope to specific groups within the Asian American community. Burmese and Hmong Americans in particular experience poverty at much higher rates: 19 percent and 17 percent, respectively. The model minority myth ignores these nuances and treats Asian Americans like a monolith, discouraging awareness about the inequities that they face to this day.
Perceived cultural differences supported by such prejudices serve as the driving force behind California’s new form of white flight. In response to Asian Americans moving into a community, white people are more likely to perceive a threat to their cultural heritage and traditions than members of any other group. The warped lens of prejudice has reduced society’s perception of Asian Americans to foreign, high-performance statistics instead of independent human beings.
Featured Image Source: Amanda Mills
