The New Whiz Kids

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The term Asian American covers a variety of national, cultural and religious heritages. In only two decades Asian Americans have become the fastest-growing U.S. minority, numbering more than 5 million, or about 2% of the population; in 1960 the figures were 891,000 and 0.5%. Then in 1965 a new immigration law did away with exclusionary quotas. That brought a surge of largely middle- class Asian professionals -- doctors, engineers and academics from Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, India and the Philippines -- seeking economic opportunity. In 1975, after the end of the Viet Nam War, 130,000 refugees, mostly from the educated middle class, began arriving. Three years later a second wave of 650,000 Indochinese started their journey from rural and poor areas to refugee camps to the towns and cities of America.

As the children of these immigrants began moving up through the nation's schools, it became clear that a new class of academic achievers was emerging. One dramatic indication: since 1981, 20 Asian-American students have been among the 70 scholarship winners in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search, the nation's oldest and most prestigious high school science competition. One of this year's 40 finalists -- out of 1,295 entrants -- was Taiwan-born David Kuo, 17, of New York City. The name is a familiar one to the competition's organizers: David's brothers John and Mark were finalists in 1985 and 1986. "My parents always equated a good education with doing well in life, so we picked up on that," says David.

Such achievements are reflected in the nation's best universities, where math, science and engineering departments have taken on a decidedly Asian character. At the University of Washington, 20% of all engineering students are of Asian descent; at Berkeley the figure is 40%. To win these places, Asian-American students make the SAT seem as easy as taking a driving test. Indeed, 70% of Asian-American 18-year-olds took the SAT in 1985, in contrast to only 28% of all 18-year-olds. The average math score of Asian-American high school seniors that year was 518 (of a possible 800), 43 points higher than the general average.

This inclination for math and science is partly explained by the fact that Asian-American students who began their educations abroad arrived in the U.S. with a solid grounding in math but little or no knowledge of English. They are also influenced by the promise of a good job after college. "Asians feel there will be less discrimination in areas like math and science because they will be judged more objectively," says Shirley Hune, an education professor at Hunter College. And, she notes, the return on the investment in education "is more immediate in something like engineering than with a liberal arts degree."