LOS ANGELES – California Filipino students are likely to graduate from high school but only 30 percent go on to a four-year university, a new report revealed Thursday.
“The report is telling,” said Melany De La Cruz-Viesca, assistant director of the UCLA Asian American Studies Center (AASC). “We’re not going on to graduate programs or doctorate programs. I think in a way Filipinos are getting stuck and I’m curious to try and find out why that is. Are more Filipino students going to community colleges first before transferring, or are they being tracked into these high school programs that do allow them to go to a four-year university? More and more, I think we’re getting stuck at community colleges or they just finish with an AA degree before getting a job.”
“It’s really telling because if you see Koreans and Taiwanese, they are going on and receiving their graduate and doctorate degrees,” added De La Cruz-Viesca.
The purpose of the report, “The State of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Education in California,” released at a press conference Thursday, is to debunk the myth that Asians are the model minority group in the US.
The report reveals that with many Asian American and Pacific Islander subgroups like the Hmong, Laotian, and Cambodians, education problems are often masked because they are lumped into “general Asian” or “other category” when it comes to data collecting.
Generally, Asian Americans as a whole have the lowest high school dropout rate and highest proportions of Bachelor’s and Graduate degree earners among all racial and ethnic groups. But when broken down, certain Asian American subgroups have lower levels of education attainment.
Assemblymember Mike Eng said this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of data-collecting among Asian Americans.
“If you ask for information in Sacramento about how Asian Americans do in terms of health needs, education, prisons, how many juvenile youths we have or how many Asians take the mass transit or freeways, you will find the shocking fact that they don’t have information about that. We are part of the ‘Other’ category,” said Eng, who is spearheading a bill AB 1737 that will require state agencies to breakdown data into additional ethnic groups.
“They have information about other groups like Latinos, African Americans and Caucasians, which they should, but they have no information on us or our communities.”
Eng added it’s these kinds of data information that non-profit and community organizations rely on so they can seek certain state agencies help or resources when it comes to serving their community.
“When data is lumped together it can become dangerous. Not many people know that the highest rate of offenders in the probation system are Asian American, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders,” he said.
“But if you were to go to an official or head of a church or the person in the street and ask them if they thought Asian Americans are in jail or rank the gang problem in terms of ethnic group, the last group they would say are Asian Americans… They don’t know and this is dangerous.”
“If we don’t address the problems, there will be more victims,” he added.
Filipino education
According to the report, Filipino students in California graduate from high school but are more likely to enroll in a community college than a four-year university.
Two thirds of Filipinos and 62 percent of APIs are enrolled in a California community college. The study reveals that Filipino students, with the exception of whites, are successful in community colleges overall compared to all other racial and ethnic groups.
But it’s unclear whether these students went on to transfer and earn a degree at a four-year university, according to De La Cruz-Viesca.
The report states that in 2008, more Filipinos received associate degrees from a community college than a four-year-university.
The study also reveals that Filipinos who do receive a bachelor’s degree don’t go on to graduate school. Of the 625 medical degrees awarded at the University of California in 2008, only two percent were awarded to Filipinos. Of the 825 law degrees from a UC school, only 1 percent was Filipino in 2008.
De La Cruz-Viesca said more studies are needed to find out why Filipinos don’t go on to pursue higher education. She said that finances might hinder many of them from going to a four-year university or graduate school.
(www.asianjournal.com)
(LA Weekend Dec. 4-7, 2010 Sec A pg.1)
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