Asian-Americans dominating tech?

12/21/2012 1:59 PM EST

Yep. My other degree is in Cognitive Science with an emphasis on the neural correlates of general human intelligence.

Northeast Asians (Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese) tend to have disproportionately strong visual-spatial and symbolic reasoning at the expense of verbal and conceptual reasoning.

Consequently, you would expect Northeast Asians to be over represented in engineering and other technical fields that emphasize visual-spatial and symbolic reasoning.

However, the disparity in visual-spatial & symbolic reasoning between Northeast Asians and Northwest Europeans (from whom the majority of white Americans are descended)is too small to explain the workforce demographics at play in Silicon Valley.

Rather, I suspect the *over over* representation of Asians in Silicon Valley is due to proximity to Asia, the collectivist nature of most Asian cultures and the fact that Asians are viewed (rightly or wrongly) as cheaper employees.

It's this latter point that probably, mostly explains their representation in a very high cost state like California.

12/21/2012 1:34 PM EST

The report certainly raises more questions than it answers...

12/21/2012 5:59 PM EST

'Tech companies, Lewis said, "do not want to employ Americans. They import labor from overseas, pushing for H-1B visas. Check the job boards. They basically say, 'H-1B Visa. Americans need not apply.' For years, women, blacks and Latinos have been kept out of the tech job market. Now white men are being forced to train their replacements.'

WOW!!! That is a VERY provocative statement and is balanced by very little in the piece. I would say that the SJMN put together a piece that really has a lot of elements of racism in it... :(

12/21/2012 1:44 PM EST

In Silicon Valley or in the US in general?

I went to an engineering school in the Midwest (late 90's) and then an engineering grad school on the east coast (2007 - 2012).

Most of the white engineers were native born US citizens. Some were first generation Americans (mostly the descendants of Russian Jews who were allowed to leave the USSR a la Sergey Brin).

It bears repeating that California is *very* unrepresentative of the US as a whole particularly in workforce demography.

The remainder were Eastern/Central European who came over for late high school, undergrad or grad school. This second group impressed me the most in terms of technical talent especially with respect to other non-native engineers.

12/21/2012 4:59 PM EST

Danny is certainly correct. MOST of us don't live in the bay area, and a large proportion of us don't live in California. And California is most certainly not representative of anyplace else in the whole world. Possibly they have been out in the sun a bit too long.

12/21/2012 1:33 PM EST

My insinuation is that the first thing nearly every Asian engineer does when he /she gets settled in the Valley is to import his/her aged parents and extended family most of whom end up suckling on California's generous (by US standards) welfare state.

Even with the engineer earning good to great money and paying California income tax it is not enough to offset the burdens imposed by the rest of his/her clan.

12/21/2012 3:34 PM EST

To test this out, CA in fact can balance the budget and cut the welfare. This will lead to a win-win situation. The budget will be balanced, and the AsianAmerican will still stay in STEM because I think the root-cause is the culture.

12/21/2012 3:52 PM EST

Danny, you should really consider a career change, from engineering to politician. You certainly have the quility, Crooked and Incompetent.

California state government & local government collected record amount of tax. The government employee salary & benefit is more than doubled the past decade. In San Jose, city employee cost alone is more than 80% of the city budget.

Asian made up 10% of california pupolation. They also have the highest household income, which uaually translates into more tax dollars. BTW, in the current immigration system, it's nearly impossible to bring the extended family here. How could they suck up the welfare of CA?

It's really your second cousin or third niece, those who worked at all level of government, sucked CA dry.

12/21/2012 4:53 PM EST

ummm...excuse me? Are you bating folks here or do you really believe what you type? Are you further insinuating (assuming your assertion is valid) that this is somehow BAD behavior? A lot of people in our great country could take a lesson from our Asian friends and show a LOT more respect for our elders then we do. I think this is noble behavior. How is partaking of a rightful benefit in any way wrong? If there is some societal motion that says this is "bad" behavior then change the laws but until then... The USA is STILL a land of unbridled opportunity...it is a shame more of us who are born here don't reach out and take advantage of that. In many ways those who come here from Asia to find opportunity and benefit are quite courageous. We should be thankful that many of these engineers are willing to come to the USA and share their greatest assets of time, energy and brain power.

I certainly hope that you realize the wonderful asset that they truly are to the engineering companies they work for.

12/21/2012 5:09 PM EST

Amazing. This conversation is going down a very racist/generalist path.

The State of California spends much more on illegal immigrants than legal ones - something like 1.25 times as much. The top of every list in that category are people from Mexico, Central and South America.

I've spent most of my life traveling all over the world (mostly for work), and have spent nearly an equal amount of time studying human physical anthropology. Not only have I seen and read plenty of evidence that the small variance in genetic-driven tendencies (when those tendencies even express as behavior, which is very rare) between folks from different regions is vanishingly unimportant, statistically; I've also noted that in almost every culture that migrates, the parents of the culture go out of their way to provide for the children - not the other way round. This is certainly true of East Asian cultures. The absolute last thing anyone from China, Japan or Korea wants to do upon arrival in the US is to go on welfare. The numbers support this behavior.

So your comments are not only racist but mathematically challenged.

12/21/2012 8:03 PM EST

"Do we consider a former Spanish citizen a Latino?"

No, of course not.

This type of conversation, in the US and increasingly in Europe now, but not much yet in other cultures, becomes a magnet for politically correct obfuscation. Other cultures seem to be a lot more straighforward about these things.

When people say "white," I think they really mean "of European extraction." When people say "Latino," what they really mean is "of Latin Americal extraction," but possibly excepting Argentina and Chile. Because pretty clearly, Argentines and Chileans are largely "of European extraction" too.

When people say "Hispanic," seems to me they are really referring to a native-American and Spanish mix, as you see more of in Mexico, Central America, Bolivia, Peru.

12/25/2012 3:49 AM EST

Perhaps, but before you go too far with your line of thinking, you might also want to read this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/education/international-students-pay-top-dollar-at-us-colleges.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

This is a racket too, don't be fooled. Universities make more money from foreign students whose governments pay full tuition, than from Americans who count on scholarships. So between that and so-called "bragging rights," white American males are getting the short end of the stick. As the admittance stats show.

Especially true at the most prestigious universities, such as Ivy League. Look it up.

12/27/2012 3:19 PM EST

Bert:

Perhaps it would help if you became more sensitive to the discrimination faced by Asian Americans in college admissions and the workforce.

To start with read this detailed article from the American Conservative about the admission bias against Asian Americans in America's top schools:

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-myth-of-american-meritocracy/

In the top private schools of the US, Asian American enrollment has been capped at 15% over the last decade. The average SAT scores of Asian Americans are significantly higher (140 points on a scale of 1600) than White Americans admitted to the Ivys.

I know of many well rounded Asian American students with 4.0+ averages from the most competitive schools, excellent leadership records, and strong community involvement who do not get in to private schools, while their non-Asian class mates who they outdistance on all metrics, get in.

Beyond a certain level, it is who you know which matters, and Asians get the short end of the stick. Effectively, Asians are being shut out of the truly lucrative professions in America, especially those which lead to political and economic power.

As a result they tend to go towards careers where what you know matters more than who you know. And the tech industry is one refuge, along with medicine.

But even in the Tech industry they hit the the glass ceiling. Can you count the number of Asian Americans in this meeting of Silicon Valley execs with Obama?

http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/president-obama-meets-with

Any thoughts?

12/27/2012 10:45 PM EST

I read bias against Asians in elite university admission before. These universities cap asians students admission in accordance with their policy, which nothing but racial bias.
Now if the silicon valley companies value meritocracy then high proportion of Asians in high skill jobs is not surprising.

12/26/2012 7:04 PM EST

Sorry, I don't know what you think you know, but the article I pointed out tells the story. Universities are actively recruiting foreign students who pay full freight, as well as actively recruiting any number of other demographic groups who have historically been under-represented (women and minorities). The result of which is that what was once over-represented, white American males, are now under-represented, especially in the universtities that are most aggressively targeting the different demographic groups.

That's what "bragging rights" means.

Again, if you look this stuff up, you'll see for instance that women are now over-represented in medicine and law, and even in universities overall, but not in STEM. Asian males are going to those STEM courses.

So in part that explains why Asians are talking the tech jobs. It's because they are actively being recruited, they are interested in and succeed academically in STEM programs, and especially in California, the absolute number of whites is declining. Need anything more to explain the shift?

Kids who really want to take STEM courses in college are not likely to choose law or medicine instead.

I think it's time to rethink the politically correct "bragging rights" orthodoxy. Things change.