Recently, in
Race and Ethnic Relations 215, I came across an interesting statistic, followed by common stereotypes of the American contingent. The most interesting statistic I came across was the average salary earned by Asian-Americans. Although white males are the dominant group in America, Asian-American males on average earned ten percent more than white American males, and Asian-American females on average made about ten percent more than white American females. This statistic, to me, is astounding. I was under the common belief that the majority, white people, earned the most money in America.
Below the section of statistics, there were a few paragraphs on the different stereotypes of each ethnic class. Overall, the stereotypes on Asian-Americans were actually pretty positive. Generally, people believe that Asians-Americans were good at math, disciplined in their studies, owned all the cosmetic businesses in America (entrepreneurial people), etc. Nothing that was stereotyped of East Asians was very negative.
In our class there is a theorem that we go by and that is ‘if you perceive something to be real, it will be real in its con sequences.’ So if we go by that, and most of the perceptions of Asian-Americans are positive and consider them to be hard workers, I guess I can see why they have a higher salary on average in comparison to the majority.
[posted for Nick by CH]
