In a NYT story they say Chinese/Americans have a lot of questions about the death of Private Danny Chen. It seems he either killed himself or another soldier ended his life. This came after his superiors had repeatedly used ethnic slurs and dragged him across the floor. It seems he was repeatedly demeaned.
It's a paradox. In higher education in California you can't count Chinese Americans as a minority because many of them work much harder than the average Caucasian and get admitted to the prestigious University of California in large numbers. There have been quotas, and although they allegedly don't exist now, admissions people aren't exactly impressed by good grades if the person is Asian.
So are they just people who work harder: or as this Army incident shows, are they part of a minority in America. The Times points out that Marine Lance Cpl Harry Lew killed himself in April in Afghanistan. Before he died he'd been the subject of brutal hazing. The marines who did the hazing have been ordered court martialed.
I have language exchanges every week with three UCLA doctoral candidates from China. They work incredibly hard, denying themselves a lot of the fun I enjoyed in graduate school. They are achieving at a high level because of their extra efforts.
Our society can't have it both ways, making them non minorities for college admissions, while they're being treated like dirt as they voluntarily defend our country.
As for being bad soldiers, I guess the superiors of Danny Chen never heard of Korea.
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