Where Does Affirmative Action Leave Asian-American Students? - NY Times Magazine

Name: Alex Chen, 18.
Education: Yale University, class of 2023.“I believe the existence of affirmative action reflects the countless historical injustices that have led to such a complex situation, and any single person or perspective, much less a short photo caption, can’t possibly capture its nuances. But I absolutely think that our generation’s willingness to discuss the hard topics of race and class and privilege will eventually lead to a satisfactory solution for everybody, even beyond college admissions.”

Despite this annoyingly long lead the article is a very thoughtful discussion of the complex issue of who gets into Harvard, the challenge posed by Edward Blum -  the architect and funder of many successful lawsuits designed to eradicate affirmative action.
I find myself asking in the odd position of skepticism about whether high SAT or other standardized test scores should create any rights at all. - gwc

Where Does Affirmative Action Leave Asian-American Students? - NY Times Magazine

By Jay Caspian Kang

Photographs by Ronghui Chen

• Published Aug. 28, 2019Updated Sept. 1, 2019

For the purposes of this article, Alex Chen, an 18-year-old senior at the Bronx High School of Science in New York City, is the “typical Asian student.” Alex has a 98 percent average at one of the city’s elite public high schools, scored a 1,580 on the SAT and, as far as he knows, has earned the respect of his teachers. Alex is also the vice president of technology for the Bronx Science chapter of the National Honor Society, the director of graphics and marketing for TeenHacks L.I. (“the first hackathon for teens in Long Island”), a member of the cross-country team, the vice president of the school’s painting club, the president of the Get Your Life Together club (visitors from various businesses come talk to students) and the senator for his homeroom. In his free time, he plays Pokémon and goes on long jogs through Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. His parents, Qiao and Su, emigrated from China in the ’90s and worked their way through commuter colleges in Queens. They live along with Alex’s little brother in a modest apartment in outer Queens. In the specific yet ultimately abstracted and perhaps inhuman calculations particular to selective college admissions, Alex is a first-generation (considered a plus), middle-class (minus) Chinese-American (minus, arguably) with two college-educated parents (minus) from a major American city (minus) with aspirations to study either computer science (minus, given all the Asians who want to go into STEM disciplines) or political science (plus).

When I first met him in early August 2018, we struggled to find a time to meet up to talk about his thoughts on affirmative action and its effect on Asian-American students. Deep into the summer vacation before his last year of high school, Alex had been interning in the office of Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou while also completing a study on congressional legislators with a professor at New York University. There just was no time.

After Alex canceled our first agreed-upon date, I told him that in addition to writing for The New York Times Magazine, I was also writing a book, ran a small production company and had an 18-month-old daughter. And yet, despite these various jobs (as well as the fact that I wasn’t on summer vacation), I could meet him on any day and at any time for however long he pleased. My flexible schedule wasn’t a favor to him but simply a reflection of the life of a relatively productive adult.

“Well, that’s you,” Alex said, a bit scornfully.

We finally settled on a meeting in the financial district. Alex suggested a Dunkin’ Donuts exactly one door down from his internship office. When I arrived, I saw that it had no tables or booths, just three stools pushed up against the front window. I was hungry and slightly irritated, so I texted him and said I’d meet him at a Cuban lunch counter nearby. He walked through the front door a moment later — thin, with short-cropped hair, a neatly tucked button-up shirt and creaseless pants. He had a look of mild agitation about him, one that never really subsided. We shook hands.