The stereotypical Asian-American youth is studious and dedicated toward getting into college. This article from the Mercury News describes an Asian-American who had to be coaxed to go to college and later went on to win the Pulitzer prize. Jose Antonio Vargas moved from the Philippines when he was 12 to live with his grandparents in Mountain View. No one in his family went to college, and he was planning to get a job with a local weekly after high school. A mentor encouraged him to go to San Francisco State. After working for the San Francisco Chronicle and Philadelphia Inquirer, he won a share of a Pulitzer writing for the Washington Post on the Virginia Tech massacre, a subject covered here at 8Asians. He is now covering the Presidential elections.
You can see from his web site that he writes on a number of interesting subjects, specializing in Politics and the Internet. Vargas has also written a number of fascinating (IMHO) profiles. “White Girl” talks about what it is to be white in the emerging in situations where whites are no longer the majority. Are “white clubs” okay in an environment where there are ethnic organizations of all sorts? This article is personally interesting as some of the kids to I used to coach go to the high schools mentioned (Independence and Piedmont), and a number of friends and relatives graduated from there.
Interesting guy and interesting writing – check him out.
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