Thursday, January 11, 2007

Hispanics Should Do the American Thing and Copy the Chinese

Copying what works is the American way. Look at Bill Gates and Microsoft. Most of their success comes from copying somebody else's ideas. Microsoft copied Windows from Apple. They didn't bother copying DOS, they just bought it out-right and cheap from Seattle Software (where it was QDOS). Visicalc invented PC spread sheets and Microsoft copied. The list goes on. The key to success in America is spotting what works and copying it.

So if Hipanics want to copy from another ethnic group, who do we copy? Do we copy from an ethnic group that complains and asks for special privileges? Or do we copy from a successful ethnic group? I want to follow a winner, not a whiner.

The Sunday January 7, 2007 New York Times had an article in the Education Life section entitled, "Little Asia On the Hill," by Timothy Egan. It seems California voters got rid of affirmative action and college entrance is based on competion. So is Berkeley all white now? No! The University of California at Berkeley, one of the very best public universities in the country, has a freshman class starting that is 46% Asian. The state is only 12% Asian, but 46% of Berkeley freshmen are Asian. The numbers are 43% at U.C. Davis, 56% at U.C. Irvine, and 43% at U.C.L.A.

Don't ask for afirmative action. Do not picket. Do not protest. The Chinese face discrimination and they don't go in for all that. They work hard and compete. And that is what we have to do.

The key for the long term success of Hispanics everywhere is hard work in the classroom. Education is the key to the future. We need to understand what the Chinese do right education and do the same.

Robert