Managing Partner @ Hyphen Capital | Co-founder and President @ Expo | Co-founder of Stand With Asian Americans | Producer of Emmy-winning 38 at the Garden | Smithsonian APAC Board
San Francisco is 34% Asian, 5% Black, and 15% Hispanic. The largest population of any minority below poverty is Asian (33,000). Lowell High School is 52% Asian, 3% Black and 18% Hispanic. These are inconvient facts and apparently having too many Asians is a lack of diversity and a blemish. We need to lift up all communities without tearing others down. The San Francisco Chronicle wants to push the racist model minority narrative that all Asians are rich already. That couldn't be farther from the truth. Asians have the widest income gap of any race. It is a monolith that includes many ethnicities and stories. From third or fourth generation Chinese Americans to Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees. I personally know the story of many Asian immigrant families that have lifted themselves out of poverty because of Lowell High School. The kids graduated from Lowell and went on to colleges like Berkeley and Stanford, and supported their families when they became successful in their professional careers. But that story doesn't matter, because the media wants people to believe that Asians are successful and don't need any help. They ignore the fact that there are immigrants living 10 to a 100 square foot room in Single Resident Occupancies (SROs) in Chinatown and Tenderloin, packed like sardines. They ignore the fact that there are elderly Asians picking up plastic bottles and cans all around the city to make ends meet. They ignore the fact that many of the small business owners and homes that are being burglarized and robbed in the city are Asian immigrants. Instead of trying to build up the broken schools around San Francisco, people want to tear down the school that has been most effective in making generational impact for countless families. That’s scarcity mindset. It's easier and lazier to just point the finger at schools like Lowell for being the problem because there are too many Asians, instead of figuring out how to improve the school system at-large to help others become more like Lowell. We need to do better than that.
Dave Lu
1mo
Thank you Han Li for telling these stories. https://sfstandard.com/2023/05/25/after-9-years-this-chinatown-family-moved-out-of-their-100-square-foot-home/
Dave Lu
1mo
Notice that none of the stories I share are from the San Francisco Chronicle. https://sfstandard.com/2022/10/17/asian-seniors-struggle-with-hunger-in-san-francisco/
Tisa Vo
1mo
This really got my blood boiling—I’m so tired of this narrative being directed at Lowell. My family immigrated to the US from Vietnam when I was 6, and at one point our entire family of five lived in a single room, in a house we shared with other immigrant families. No resources, and no way we could have afforded a private high school education. Lowell provided me a launching pad to get into Harvard, and ultimately to reach where I am today. I hate that an institution like the SF Chronicle would perpetuate the disconcerting and increasingly pervasive viewpoint that Asians do not count as minorities. For those people: please check your own privilege before minimizing the struggles of others, and refrain from whitewashing our entire race—what this amounts to is an attempt to erase traces of the adversity we’ve faced, all because it’s difficult for folks to admit their discomfort with the extraordinarily high number of Asians who have broken through the socioeconomic barrier. Hoping we can find a way of lifting up one minority without the insidious, lowkey social suppression of another.
Joe Hsy
1mo
Dave Lu , while I always applaud your efforts to advocate for the Asian American community, I do think this is an example where if we focus too much on just racial %, it can backfire. In this case it was used to the detriment of the AA community. Unfortunately, we often use the same approach of using racial percentages to point out issues of racial injustice. It is hard to justify focusing on just racial % when it benefits us but then point out that % don’t tell the whole story when it doesn’t. I was at a talk by David Henry Huang at Stanford recently and he point out the irony of Asian Americans suing Harvard for reverse discrimination using affirmative action. He makes a point that we should not support affirmative action only when it benefits us, but then complain about it when it doesn’t. It is kind of a light bulb moment for me that sometimes as an advocate for a particular community, we should not forget about balancing the needs of other communities. Getting back to Lowell - I do 100% agree with your point and Wendy Nguyen‘s point that we should work on creating more “Lowells” vs focusing on splitting an unnecessary scarcity.
Robert Hite
1mo
You laid it out so well. Leave Lowell alone and improve all schools here in The City. I see some of the hard working, tough old men and women of East Asian descent lugging huge bags of cans and bottles to earn a few dollars. I see them on my street in Upper Noe and on Muni. I marvel at and admire their tough spirit. I never see people of other ethnicities doing this kind of work and I smile, because growing up in the Midwest in a poor family, my siblings and I walked along streets and highways looking for bottles to sell for 2 cents each. It was fun but most people, I think, see this as embarrassing work beneath their dignity. To me all work is dignified. Personal friends of mine who immigrated from Việt Nam did menial hard labor to get ahead—one to get through law school and another to earn a Master degree AND to send some money to relatives in Việt Nam. God, when will we, especially educated people, get past the stereotypes and know that there are rich, poor, intelligent, not so intelligent, hard working, lazy in all people regardless of ethnicity or origin or whatever!? Thanks for your post.
Wendy Nguyen
1mo
In meeting after meeting I’m having about SF public schools, parents and teachers are also tired of the media fixation on Lowell. Can we stop talking about Lowell and start talking about how we build more Lowells? That’s what we’re doing at Stand with Asian Americans’ political advocacy org - Asian Americans Rise. We’re sitting down with SF mayor candidates and asking them how they plan to fix SF schools so there isn’t this scarcity mindset. And then we’re going to broadcast who has a coherent plan and who doesn’t so we all can help build more Lowells for all kids.
Julie Soo
1mo
How were the higher admission standards fair to me? They weren't. I was just determined to work harder. Life isn't fair and I was not going to wait. I am a mathematician turned reporter turned attorney. You can read my stories about SFUSD and all the machinations ofthe Board of Education from 1998 - 2009 in the AsianWeek archives. My undergraduate degree from Cal is in pure mathematics and statistics (double major) and my graduate degree from UC San Diego is in applied mathematics. I started a named scholarship at UC San Diego for a master's level student using mathematics or statistics toward civic engagement and social responsibility, combining my love of mathematics, law, and politics. As we debate about bringing algebra back to 8th grade curriculum (with some calling math racist because too many Asians are in the field), one of my scholarship recipients who is from Sudan will soon be entering a Ph.D. program. She tells me that in Sudan, students study calculus in the 7th grade! We can all rise without holding people down! Speak and act with integrity. There is no substitute for hard work. Someone will be there to help. You need to take the initiative!
Janet Choup
1mo
San Francisco and Lowell play a major part in my upbringing. My Cambodian refugee family faced unimaginable levels of adversity in every aspect of life. This absolutely hit home and is heartbreaking. We must do better.
Managing Partner @ Hyphen Capital | Co-founder and President @ Expo | Co-founder of Stand With Asian Americans | Producer of Emmy-winning 38 at the Garden | Smithsonian APAC Board
1mohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH44TRTz24k