An article seen on Wednesday's Canadian newspaper the Toronto Star has aroused Chinese Canadians' strong dissatisfaction for what it calls "too Asian" in Canadian universities and those "Asian" students lack of the "independence or social skills" necessary for university life。
In the controversial story, Toronto Star cited a report in the latest Maclean's university guide titled "Too Asian?" that quotes some non-Asian students' concerns that some universities have a largely Asian student body. The story also promoted gross stereotypes about Asians, who are posed as learning machines that won't interact with anything but a book。
"I can find you white parents who are pressuring their kids to go to university too - Canadians all tell their kids, 'Don't smoke, don't do drugs, stay in school' and they encourage them to go to university; what's wrong with that?" asked Victor Wong, the executive director Victor Wong of the Chinese Canadian National Council, which was formed in 1980 in response to a television documentary that warned students of Chinese background "taking over" some university campuses。
Recent York University sociology graduate Chase Lo warned this kind of story "creates a moral panic but oversimplifies the issue. The push to university is reflective of society in general; it's unfair to say only Asian immigrants are focusing on university."
Now Maclean's reporters have renamed the report as "The enrollment controversy", claiming they "do not defend imposition of parental values and expectations on children", and arguing that they should "draw connections between the drive towards university education and the fact that racialized populations still remain at the bottom of the professional ladder."