Press Release:
Report Reveals Achievement Gap, Identifies Policy Recommendations for Southeast Asian-American Students

Contacts: KaYing Yang, SEARAC, 202-667-4690 Khatharya Um, Ph.D., University of California-Berkeley, 510-530-5548 Note: Documents on this page or in this section may be in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. In order to read them, you require Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is downloadable free from Adobe.

How to Obtain the Report A Dream Denied: Educational Experiences of Southeast Asian American Youth—Issues and Recommendations, — PDF format Printed copies of this report (ISBN: 0-9725637-0-9.) also can be ordered from SEARAC (202/667-4690). Copies are free for Southeast Asian American mutual assistance associations (MAAs), as well as people who answered surveys for the publication. For others, copies cost $5.00 plus $1.50 for shipping. An order form is also available.

Students whose families are from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam face difficulties with higher education that are unusual in many other American groups, according to a new report.

The report, titled A Dream Denied: Educational Experiences of Southeast Asian American Youth—Issues and Recommendations, identifies the following barriers to educational achievement, among others:

• Little or no access to information about higher education, while in high school;
• Little access to support from counselors, teachers, and others;
• Stereotyping and low expectations from educators;
• Racism; and
• Absence of language and history courses, active role models, and Southeast Asian teachers.

Despite the fact that Southeast Asian Americans are often thought of as part of the "model minority" and the fact that some of them excel in school, statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau and other sources demonstrate college graduation rates to be low among some of their communities - particularly those from Cambodia and Laos. High rates of school dropout are also reported in some communities.

"Many people don't realize that students from Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands don't tend to fit the stereotype of the educationally advanced Asian American. This publication should help policymakers and teachers get over some of those stereotypes and provide support to students," comments Robert Underwood, former U.S. Congressman from Guam and one-time Chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC). Mr. Underwood remains a leader in the fight for policy changes and funding to help Pacific Islander and Southeast Asian American students reach academic achievement levels comparable to Caucasian Americans. He is now working with colleagues on a publication focused on the status of Pacific Islander and Southeast Asian Americans in higher education.

As Philip Tuong Duy Nguyen, the Chair of the Board of Directors at the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC) observes, "As well as showing problems, the report includes new ideas for making things better." The following recommendations are highlighted:

• Mobilization and advocacy;
• Parent education;
• Strengthening community-based organizations and building family-community school collaboration;
• Development of a scholarship program and coordinating institution;
• Strengthening of the support structure in families and schools; and
• Addressing the lack of language and history courses, and of active role models.

Khatharya Um, Ph.D., is the report's author. Dr. Um, a Cambodian American, serves as Associate Professor in the Department of Comparative Ethnic Studies at the University of California-Berkeley, and produced the report in cooperation with the Berkeley Southeast Asian Student Coalition. Much of the report's information was gathered through a "Southeast Asian Youth Summit" in Berkeley in December of 2000, and through surveys conducted with students in California and Massachusetts. The publisher is SEARAC, the national organization for Americans from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Dr. Peter Kiang of the University of Massachusetts-Boston, Dr. Minh Hoa Ta of San Francisco State University, and Dr. Max Niedzwiecki of SEARAC also contributed to the report, as did the students of Dr. Kiang and Dr. Ta. State Farm® provided generous financial support.