ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an alternative theoretical analysis which will hopefully provide a more comprehensive critique of the 'model minority' thesis. In particular, by more closely analyzing the available socioeconomic data. It demonstrates that a basic contradiction exists between the educational attainments of Asian Americans and their incomes. Social scientists who have studied the upward mobility of Asian Americans have forwarded various theories in attempting to explain it and have arrived at different positions concerning the 'model minority' thesis. Asian Americans also appear less autonomous and less independent from parental controls and authority figures. Cultural conflicts frequently break out between the immigrant parents and their American-born and educated offspring, despite the best efforts of the parents to maintain traditional cultural values. Even greater employment discrimination against Asian Americans appears to exist in the private sector. The upward mobility of Asian Americans has been limited by the effects of racism and most of them have been channeled into lower-echelon white-collar jobs.
