ACWW board of directors Tetsuro Shigematsu and Ray Hsu is part of UBC Dialoges: Vancouver about the nature of higher education in a culturally diverse society on May 9th, 2011.
. One third of UBC Vancouver’s student population is of Chinese descent, with another third made up of students descended from families from other Asian nations. Do these statistics define UBC? Should we even be talking about this?
A recent Maclean’s article titled, “Too Asian,” provoked a storm of responses (some outraged, some humourous), but may have hit upon a small grain of truth. Does UBC’s ethnic makeup reflect the ethnic makeup of the Lower Mainland? Does the predominance of Asian-related students make it more difficult for non-Asians to gain admission? Is “tiger parenting” exclusive to the Asian cultures?
Is a conversation about race at UBC even relevant? Can we explore this topic without offending each other?
