“Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders—Facts, Not Fiction: Setting the Record Straight”
Asian-American college students are not a monolithic “model minority” or overrepresented as an ethnic group in the so-called STEM disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and math, but rather a disparate group of students from diverse backgrounds and interests, says a report by the National Commission on Asian American and Pacific Islander Research in Education.
Published by the New York City-based College Board, the report cites data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Education, as well as the College Board. It seeks to refute any perception that Asian-Americans are “taking over” colleges in general or STEM classrooms specifically and argues that the label “Asian-American/Pacific Islander” masks a wide range of backgrounds and levels of educational attainment. For example, while U.S. students of Hmong and Indian backgrounds are both “Asian-American,” only 8 percent of adults in the former group had earned at least a bachelor’s degree in 2000, while 64 percent of adult Indians had at least a college degree.
