Position of APC contains contradictions

  Andrew Jones Jones, the great racial
unifier, has struck again. E-mail him at [email protected]. Click
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The fascination many minority groups have for affirmative action
may be dangerous, but at least it’s understandable. What
isn’t understandable is why the Asian Pacific Coalition is a
member of the Affirmative Action Coalition.

By inference, any Asian group under the APC umbrella is
therefore a supporter of racial preference. But know this, too:
During the black days of affirmative action, Asians suffered as
much as whites, if not more. The UCLA Office of Academic Planning
and Budget records state that in 1995, when Proposition 209 was
approved, Asian freshmen boasted an average 4.07 GPA and 1200 SAT.
That same year, average scores for African Americans and Chicano/
Mexican American were dramatically lower ““ 3.57 GPA/989 SAT
and 3.64 GPA/984 SAT, respectively.

Had academic achievement been the sole measure for admission,
this vast divide would not have existed. But affirmative action
held Asians to a higher standard, rejecting many highly qualified
applicants simply because of their race.

Given these facts, it’s unfathomable that APC supports the
return of a system which, just a few years ago, was discriminating
against them. As it turns out, the answer is both much more simple,
yet also more complicated, than might be anticipated.

The short answer is that “Asian” is an overbroad
classification encompassing a wide variety of nationalities and
ethnicities. On the issue of affirmative action, there is a split
into two groups – I’ll call them the Old Guard and the New
Guard.

The Old Guard is composed of two groups ““ the first are
Japanese and Chinese immigrants who arrived in the late 19th and
early 20th centuries. This group achieved their current success
strictly on the basis of time. Japanese and Chinese immigrants took
the worst jobs for the lowest pay, and endured a hostile social and
political environment for many years. Yet today many of them are
undeniably prosperous. This group suffered under affirmative
action.

The second group of the Old Guard achieved more rapid success
owing to a more receptive American environment and a more selective
composition. This group was the famous post-1965 “˜brain
drain’ of the Cold War era ““ selected professionals
like scientists and engineers who would aid American defense
efforts.

In many cases, success and assimilation was almost immediate.
Many already spoke English, and all had marketable, high-paying
skills ““ both attributes which had taken the first group much
longer to acquire. This group also suffered under affirmative
action.

The New Guard is composed of the post-Vietnam War flood of
refugees from Southeast Asian countries. Many were peasants, few
were highly educated, and almost none of them spoke English on
arrival. Their short time in America has so far not produced the
affluence or success that the modern world falsely leads them to
believe is their birthright. This group, the New Guard, is the
group which understandably wants the governmental leg-up of racial
preference.

Given the highly divergent Asian demography, it would likewise
be foolish to assume that APC is a cultural, political and social
monolith, all its members having the same ideas on all relevant
issues. By simply accounting for real diversity ““ that is,
differences of opinion ““ it’s fair to assert that
members of the APC have disagreements on affirmative action.

But disagreements or not, it’s still a mystery as to why
Old Guard groups, who suffered under affirmative action, would
cooperate with the New Guard and follow their political agenda
which, if successful, would again decimate the Old Guard’s
numbers.

The following answer is the result of both personal in-depth
conversations with politically minded Asians, and several years of
observing campus politics.

The first and highest priority for most Old Guard groups is
preservation of group funding for cultural activities, not
adherence to political principle. APC, by its size and clout, makes
itself indispensable in student politics, assuring a steady supply
of funding. Therefore, leaving APC means leaving your funding.

In a more anthropological (and perhaps offensive) vein, there is
also a cultural component to our question. Asians, on the whole,
depend on their merit more than their ethnicity when applying to
the UC.

Asians, on the whole, associate as a group for cultural
purposes, but these ties are weaker in political matters. This
explains why the Old Guard would allow themselves to be associated
with the APC, whose political goals are nothing but detrimental to
their more successful groups. Simply put, the cultural, and
monetary, advantages of belonging to the APC far outweigh the
political contradictions.

In terms of Asian applicants to the UC, a fatalistic
self-reliance replaces political action. That is, if affirmative
action cuts in half the number of Japanese-Americans UCLA will
accept, an applicant becomes that much more determined to be in
that select few, rather than fighting the discriminatory system.
Such individuality is an admirable trait ““ but it is an
impediment in rallying political support against a racist system
like affirmative action.

Certainly this examination does not settle the issue of why
Asian groups would support a personally harmful quota system (no
issue of race is ever settled), but it does raise questions about
the nature of racial identification.