Unfortunately, no. Asian Americans (AAs) are not accorded equal opportunity presently.
Equal opportunity means: "For every man, woman and child to go as far and rise as high as their ambition and ability will take them." Statistics, mostly gathered by government studies, show that AAs have only 1/3 the opportunity of all other Americans to rise to the top in the academic world, corporate world, the federal government. There seems to exist an invisible resistance to AAs' developing to the maximal of their potentials -- A Glass Ceiling.
Let's look at a concrete case. A lot of our best people are employed in universities. Their average performance has been outstanding. What's their chance of rising to the top?
University administrators are recruited almost exclusively from the ranks of faculty and professionals already employed in universities. Hence the ratio of [administrators / (faculty + professionals)], broken down to races, is a measure of the opportunity enjoyed by American citizens of different races. Nationwide, that ratio for blacks (non-Hispanic) is 0.21. That is, for every 100 black faculty and professionals there are 21 black administrators. The ratio for Native American is 0.20; for white (non-Hispanic) is 0.16; and for Hispanic is 0.15. However, it is only 0.06 for Asian American. Get on the Web and check it out for yourself! Source: Dept. of Education - , Table B-1f.
The above dismal picture emerges from the supposedly "enlightened" academic world. The situation in the corporate world, state and federal governments is worse.
In E-Mail 3 & 4, we present a strategy to induce the two major political parties to help us fight for equal opportunity and help make our beloved nation "a more perfect Union." If you can't wait, visit our Web site: <>.
Sincerely (members of Steering Comm., titles for ID purposes only)
Alex Esclamado, Nat'l President, Filipino-Am. Political Assoc.Kenneth Fong, C.E.O., Clontech Laboratories,Yu-Chi Ho, Harvard Univ., member of Nat'l Acad. of Engineering, Stephen S. Ko, MD, Founder of Asian Am. Political Coalition N.J. Michael Lin, former Nat'l President, Org. of Ch-Ams (1994-98), Henry Tang, Chair , Committee of 100, Chang-Lin Tien, Chancellor, Univ. of Calif., Berkeley (1991-97), Dennis Wong, former Chair, San Francisco-Taipei Sister City Comm., Charles Woo, President, Magatoy, and S. B. Woo, Lieutenant Governor of Delaware (1985-89)
