Vietnamese Education Paradox: Education Attainments of 1.5- and Second-Generation Ethnic Vietnamese and Chinese Vietnamese

• In Event: 3241 - Educational and Labor Market Outcomes among Asian Americans

Abstract

Vietnamese Americans have long been considered as an ethnically monolithic group, but in fact there is a sizeable minority of ethnic Chinese refugees from Vietnam, who share a strong linguistic and cultural connection with the Chinese community in the United States. Although previous research finds remarkable intergenerational mobility among the 1.5- and second-generation Vietnamese Americans, also known as an “Asian American education paradox”, what remains unclear is whether Chinese-Vietnamese and ethnic Vietnamese equally contribute to the academic excellence observed at the group level, or one subgroup is driving the result. Using the1980, 1990, 2000 censuses as well as the 2010 American Community Survey, we contribute to the literature by systematically documenting intra-national educational heterogeneity among Vietnamese refugees and their descendants for the first time. We achieve this goal by disaggregating and comparing ethnic Vietnamese and Chinese Vietnamese across three cohorts—first, 1.5 and second-generation. We also complement our analysis with an intergroup comparison with corresponding cohorts of Chinese Americans for a more comprehensive overview. Our results consistently show that first-generation Chinese Vietnamese have much lower levels of education compared to ethnic Vietnamese, but their children’s education achievement is no different from 1.5- and second-generation ethnic Vietnamese. Our findings bear significant implications for the Asian American education paradox.

Authors

• Jie Min

• Jing Li