from Hacker News

White Flight from Asian Immigration: Evidence from California Public Schools

by langitbiru on 7/27/23, 2:51 AM with 63 comments

  • by tsunamifury on 7/27/23, 4:20 AM

    Since Asians on average are both wealthier and earn more than average Caucasian families isn’t using the term “White flight” a bit incorrect due to its connotations?

    Wouldn’t the better term be “Asian gentrification of lower income white communities?”

    I’m half joking here and half serious. In reality I see what the paper is saying and I tend to agree. It’s hard to say there is a “white” culture but at the upper end the is a shared sort of blue blood set of values that this paper addresses. Those values strongly lean into diverse and well rounded child rearing and wholistic development. The likely hood that Asian families create academic focused game theory problems by beating out students who focus on more wholistic education feels believable. However ultimately those values i think disappear by the second generation.

    On the whole I think this paper is trying to point out that white upper class culture finds Asian cultural definitions of success mildly offensive, and to protect their ways move out.

    I’m the product of white and Chinese heritage and this feels true to me.

  • by Solvency on 7/27/23, 4:06 AM

    "These patterns cannot be fully explained by racial animus, housing prices, or correlations with Black/Hispanic arrivals. Parental fears of academic competition may play a role."

    This is utterly insane. As if the average white family are completely and utterly mobile and financially robust enough to whimsically change their kids schooling over fear of "competition" from Asians.

    This is so outrageously reductionist it has to be agenda driven.

  • by abeppu on 7/27/23, 4:20 AM

    A direct link to the pdf: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w31434/w314...

    "the enrollment of one Asian student leads to 1.5 white departures on average"

    "Another simple explanation for white flight could be a direct distaste for interacting with Asian peers. However, this account is not consistent with the fact that white flight is only observed in high-SES school districts, given that high-income and more-educated respondents are less likely (rather than more likely) to express negative attitudes toward Asian Americans on surveys."

    They claim to "rule out" "direct racial animus", but they don't really back that up with anything. They don't even cite anything supporting their survey claim, they just throw out that comment. But maybe high-SES white people have just learned not to express "negative" attitudes towards racial groups on surveys?

  • by et-al on 7/27/23, 4:23 AM

    Here's the actual paper: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w31434/w314...

    DOI 10.3386/w31434 (not on sci-hub yet)

  • by fwungy on 7/27/23, 4:04 AM

    Whites move in = gentrification Whites move out = white flight
  • by Dig1t on 7/27/23, 6:20 AM

    I moved out of the Bay a few years ago and I do feel out of place in Cupertino when I go back to visit. It feels like Chinatown, literally every single restaurant is Chinese, Japanese, or Korean and most businesses I used to visit have been replaced with boba shops and after school tutoring centers.

    I don’t hate Asian people, my best friend is Chinese, but I do feel like I do not belong when I hang out there. Their culture is pretty insular, rather than assimilating with American culture it feels like they just keep their own and the sense of being an outsider is strong when I spend time with my friends there.

    On the whole I am glad I moved out to a place where I have more in common with my neighbors and we share more cultural similarities.

  • by wang_li on 7/27/23, 4:25 AM

    If there’s a school that can enroll one thousand students and you enroll fifty additional Asian students they will displace other fifty other students. If the majority is white it seems to reason that the majority of those displaced will be white.

    Also one would have to considered the policy around admissions regarding things like affirmative action and equity.

  • by motohagiography on 7/27/23, 4:59 AM

    A lot of this could be explained by americans just selling their properties to people who made their money in less progressive societies and economies. Coming to the US means you are in an upper income and education percentile in your home country, which may have over a billion people. Compared to someone from India who was educated internationally or is the child of a party member in China, the average american is a bumpkin. Wealth from more unequal societies across the pacific is on a level most westerners can't comprehend.

    Why shouldn't it be the case that middle class americans use the money from much wealthier newcomers to move to places they know they can thrive outside the main cities, but where newcomers would have thinner networks and fewer opportunities?

    It was white flight when immigration rates were much lower and cities like Detroit needed a business tax base but exiled it by electing marxists in the 70s and 80s, where now, wealth comes from overseas and cities don't need "white" people to fund them. Whether Asian immigrants will also leave cities as they collapse under similar policies remains to be seen, as no matter how chaotic SF gets, it will never approach anything on the level of a BRIC megacity. Racism seems like the simplest explanation, but that's all it is, and it's getting boring.

  • by faeriechangling on 7/27/23, 4:24 AM

    Honestly sounds like a group of people who got paid money to spread speculative racist theories. They in no way established the argument they were proposing, they just eliminated other arguments and just speculated as to what the explanation could be. In this case white jealousy of Asians.

    This all being said, if we see a huge surge in white flight after the end of affirmative action I guess I'll have to eat crow. If their theory is correct and facts > my feelings that's exactly what we will see. If their theory is just racist bunkum we'll see no such thing.

  • by sfmike on 7/27/23, 5:42 AM

    a wise parent right now would certainly be having their child learn some mandarin in youth