Debunking the Myth of the “American Dream” in Higher Education
When I immigrated to the United States with my five-year older brother, along with my mother and father, when I was just two-years old from South Korea, my family never really had the time or space to hold a formal discussion around pervasive racism and white supremacy culture before arriving to this country. Instead, we were forced to recognize how racism and white supremacy culture have impacted us in our daily lives here as first-generation East Asian immigrants to this day. We also soon realized that racism not only affected us but also other communities of color in vastly different ways as a result of America’s landscape of privilege and power. I must note that my parents, as healthcare workers, provided my brother and I the privilege of being able to attend extracurricular activities during secondary school in addition to classes, apply for college, and graduate with only a few loans. But at the same time, my parents often worked night-shifts with still no promises of retirement funds today as a middle-class family, and my brother and I were mostly left to be self-sufficient and independent in our studies, lifestyle, and work.
In a lot of ways, I am privileged to be where I am today not only due to my family’s hard work and loving support, but also unfortunately due to how systemic racism operates in this country. For instance, more than 35 percent of public-school revenue comes from property taxes that favor and stabilize funding in wealthier areas, and predominantly non-white school districts across the nation annually receive $23 billion less in funding (3). Black, Indigenous, and other non-Black students of color are reported to statistically be more likely to attend schools that are under-resourced, outdated, or hazardous to health (3). According to data from the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, Black, Hispanic male, and Indigenous students face higher rates of school disciplinary consequences (such as suspension and expulsion) than white students, and are subject to more interactions with police in school (3).
“I am now able to understand my experiences in the context of American racism and see both how they are unique and subjective to me but may also be relatable to others.”
US media establishments – and even school textbooks – emphasize the “American Dream,” highlighting examples of famous people idolized for their “boot strap” mentality, while simultaneously failing to address how systemic racism and intergenerational oppressions have played a role in the inequities that we see in the American education system at large. While I can still validate my hard work that led me to where I am now and validate my experiences of racism that presented obstacles in my life, I must also acknowledge that not every student of color has had the same opportunity to succeed in academia or has received the same structural support in higher education. In fact, to ignore the politics behind education is synonymous to being “colorblind” to the racial inequities that the US education system must grapple with.
Looking back to my upbringing, I am now able to understand my experiences in the context of American racism and see both how they are unique and subjective to me but may also be relatable to others. My parents would recall how when our family lived in Kansas, people in the supermarket would stare at my brother and I because we looked different from other children with our black hair and eyes. During elementary school, I remember that I was asked “Are you from North Korea or South Korea?” even before I had a grasp of my own heritage as a South-Korean American or before I had a deeper knowledge of the Korean War and how it split Korean families apart. Lunchtime in the cafeteria sometimes prompted discussions around how weird my lunch looked or smelled. There were times when my teachers would confuse me for another classmate, who also happened to be another East Asian girl. At the time, I did not believe these incidents to be particularly extraordinary or absurd, but these experiences definitely impacted my younger, impressionable self and also affected how I navigated my classes in school or how I interacted with my peers and teachers up until high school.
What frustrated me the most as a young student, however, was how I was frequently described and stereotyped as a quiet, studious Asian girl who focused on her studies and probably had “tiger” or “helicopter” (strict) parents. I think, more accurately, I felt more comfortable focusing on tasks at hand, whether that was homework or extracurriculars, rather than expressing how I felt or daring to disrupt a more politically conservative and not-as-diverse environment. I am unsure whether I can pinpoint the pressure I felt to succeed in academia to being a child of immigrant parents who sacrificed a lot for their family or pinpoint this to how I used to believe my value and worth would be determined by my productivity and the results I produced. In reality, my parents were often busy and unavailable due to work to take a direct hand in our education for my brother and I. Looking back now, I am able to recognize how I was subjected and conditioned in the education system to believe in the fallacy that success in academia is based on individual accomplishments and natural intellect. There was such a strong emphasis on how grades and rankings would determine and imply a student’s future success and a student’s behavior rather than an emphasis on how each student has various needs, learning styles, different upbringings, intergenerational wealth, and living situations and can succeed depending on the environment.
Attending UC Berkeley for college was a humbling experience in many ways. It forced me to reckon with my past experiences in education and deconstruct the myths and promises of higher education. While I was grateful for the opportunity to attend UC Berkeley and receive a bachelor’s degree in Sociology as part of the Class of 2020, I also witnessed and learned how academia failed to function as the “great equalizer” despite its claims. Even as a student in California with a middle-class background, tuition costs were high at UC Berkeley, leading me to take on a student loan, and tuition is even more expensive for out-of-state students and students who do not have the privilege of strong financial support. In fact, the UC administration recently proposed a five-year tuition hike in January of this year.1 On January 20th, some UC Berkeley students organized to speak out against the tuition hike, and Varsha Sarveshwar, president of the UC Student Association, argued further that students who do not qualify for financial aid, such as out-of-state students and students from middle-class families, would be greatly impacted (1).
UC Berkeley has also failed to address the inequities among its own student population, and according to a 2019 study by the USC Race and Equity Center, UC Berkeley ranked last among UC campuses in equity for Black students based on four factors, Black student-faculty ratio, gender diversity, numerical representation, and Black student graduation rate (2). Further, in a 2018 UC undergraduate survey, 58% of Black respondents at UC Berkeley felt that their race was disrespected (2). Although higher education and academia are often believed to be places of equal opportunities and chances, these spaces – even in public education – have demonstrated that systemic racism and intergenerational wealth still play a huge role in a student’s experience and provide structural barriers.
In my first year of college, I vividly remember watching the 2016 Presidential Election, near the steps of Sproul Hall, in front of a huge, inflatable screen that showed the official counting of electoral votes. I felt waves of fear, disappointment, anger for not only myself and my family, but for my friends and peers when the next four years would usher in the Trump Administration and another layer of political turmoil that America is still dealing with to this day. My decision to major in Sociology here at UC Berkeley was largely motivated by my desire to understand my position in relation to American society and its political landscape as well as my position as part of the 1.5 immigrant generation who must navigate two cultures. But I knew I must also delve deeper into learning more about American societal issues, the histories of the land, and social justice movements that have shaped the communities I inevitably engage in and emerge from in order to help me make sense of blatant inequities I continue to witness in my everyday life. I am continually working to un-learn the myths and false promises that higher education and academia are spaces “above” politics or systemic oppressions, and I now wholeheartedly reject the notion that a student failing is an individual failure rather than a failure of the education system. I wanted to reject the image of a “quiet, studios Asian girl” who is non-disruptive to the status quo and reject the “model minority myth,” a myth rooted in anti-Blackness and a myth that upholds white supremacy culture by pitting ethnicities and races in competition with one another rather than focusing on the task at hand: dismantling white supremacy and creating more equitable spaces. Being characterized as docile, submissive, and naturally hard-working not only disregards my agency, but being docile and submissive in face of continuing injustices also fails to serve my desire to realize a more just world for this generation and generations to come.
I was struck by the concern my parents shared to me at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and near the end of Trump’s presidency when they asked, “Did we make a good choice for you by immigrating to America?” Hearing my parents doubt their decision and invaluable sacrifice was undoubtedly heartbreaking. They continued to cite news outlets that have reported the rise of anti-Asian hate attacks and racism against the API community, especially in the Bay Area where there are higher concentrations of Asian communities (4). The recent anti-Asian hate crime in Georgia, leading to 8 deaths, 6 of whom were Asian women, has demonstrated to me that my family, friends, and loved ones are not safe as long as violence based on racism and misogyny still persists (6). While I was unable to respond to my parents for their question at the time, I knew that these instances of racism were not isolated incidents given the legacy of American racism. My experiences of racism in education and the inequities found in the American education system have convinced me that the road to dismantle racism and make education equitable for all is not a solitary journey – nor a competition – but a journey that will only succeed when the work is rooted in community and when changes are informed by those directly impacted by systemic oppressions, especially Black and Indigenous students, students of color, LGBTQIA+ students, disabled students, and others who have faced institutional barriers in education due to their identity, background, or social standing. Experiencing racism is also fundamentally different from being educated about racism, and academic as well as educational spaces must actively ensure that learning environments are accessible and empowering to all students.While it is often claimed that knowledge is power, knowledge without action is a betrayal in face of continuing injustices.
Articles as References:
1) https://www.sfchronicle.com/education/article/UC-proposes-first-tuition-hike-since-2017-It-14981019.php
2) https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-07-20/heres-how-uc-berkeley-is-repairing-its-reputation-as-the-worst-uc-campus-for-black-students
3) https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education-k-12/news/2020/07/08/487386/fighting-systemic-racism-k-12-education-helping-allies-move-keyboard-school-board/
4) https://www.kqed.org/news/11859965/700-anti-asian-hate-incidents-reported-in-bay-area-during-pandemic-true-figures-might-be-even-worse
5) https://www.thecut.com/2021/03/8-people-killed-in-atlanta-rampage-6-of-them-asian-women.html
