When High-Achieving Asian Families Move in and Affluent Whites Move Out: A Narrative of Suburban Identity

• In Event: 303 - Regular Session. Asians and Asian Americans

Abstract

This is a case study one demographically changing suburban community that is shifting from predominantly white to Asian. Caught in the middle of these contemporary suburban migration patterns are middle- and lower-middle-class Whites who have not fled the demographically changing suburbs for more racially homogeneous suburban areas or gentrifying pockets of cities. In many instances, these White suburbanites now find themselves racial minorities in communities that look, but do not feel, much like the predominantly White suburbs in which they grew up. What happens in these moments of demographic desynchronized teaches us much about the future of a nation on its way to becoming a true melting pot with no White majority.
Our research focuses on the high school – the only one in this small suburban school district – which has shifted demographically from predominantly White as recently as the mid-1990s to predominantly Asian by 2008. Our focus on this school district and its high school – a place we call “Wellington” – allows us to illustrates what happens when White students are no longer “on top” academically after massive demographic change occurs and Asian families move in. Much like Jimenez and Horowitz’s (forthcoming) research on Cuppertino, CA, we learned that in Wellington, the racial encoding of academic achievement in predominantly Asian schools provides both impetus for and continuation of a construction of whiteness as having “lesser-than” status.

Authors

• Amy Stuart Wells, Columbia University

• Lauren Fox, Columbia University

• Allison Roda, Columbia University