Pre-Meds: It's in the Genes

It's enough to make my blood boil.

A story supposedly proving that Asian Americans are "breaking the mold" turns out to be an all too familiar picture of resigned people going about their distinctly 'Asian' ways, unthinking and helplessly rationalizing their pre-med choices. No wonder I never joined the Asian American Association. They have too much of a chip on their collective shoulder.

Michael M. Luo's article ("Asian-Americans: Breaking the Mold," Scrutiny, Feb. 1, 1995) parades in front of the reader a handful of Asian Americans who are ostensibly "breaking the mold," almost as a novel zoological phenomenon. In particular, he contrasts the prevalent pre-med image of Asian Americans with the exciting new venues that they find themselves in: high-rank campus publishing, student businesses and--of all impressive things--the Undergraduate Council.

Unfortunately, instead of providing evidence that stereotypes are disintegrating, we can't help but get the impression that nothing at all has changed. For instance, are Asian Americans' motivations for pursuing a career in medicine changing? Are they breaking out of that mold that seems always to have constrained them to Biochemistry? The answer, of course, is no.

Perhaps it's a simply a cultural difference grounded in a Confucian ideal of self-sacrifice, learning and a subordination of the self to a collective, but the statements coming out of these supposedly free-thinking, liberated-from-their-molds individuals smack of brainlessness. Claims that peer pressure and parental pressure to go pre-med have influenced some students' decisions make them seem easily manipulable and thought-controlled. Horror stories about piano lessons and SAT prep courses come right out of an Amy Tan novel about her mother.

And to top it off, the tragic sacrifice with which some students justify their pre-med choices simply perpetuate the rampant "stereotypes that have plagued all Asian-Americans." It is very filially pious to honor your father by going into medicine because, as one student put it, "My father really wants me to go into medicine. He's given up too much in absolute terms for me...It'd be too cold not to honor that wish." It is quite another matter to claim that this mentality somehow breaks any mold.

As if the guilt laid upon these students from their parents and peers weren't enough, some even transfer that guilt to all Asians in general. One student claimed that she felt "a very real duty to her race" to study ethnicity. She let the burden of her race weigh too heavily upon her own shoulders: "I think whether of not you want that responsibility [to effect change for Asian Americans], you have it." Again, the hapless Asian paradigm of self-sacrifice for the collective. Where is the thought behind the decisions, the motivations coming from within, not being driven by the expectations of a lineage of ancestry and by the exigencies of a genetically-determined social station? Why can't any of these students justify their choices on the intrinsic merits of studying to be a doctor, engineer or ethnic studies scholar?

Do we constrain ourselves to live out the roles that fate deals us--"I am Chinese, so I must study medicine or ethnicity because that's my responsibility to my family and to my race"--or do we define ourselves, and in so doing, enrich the aggregate definition of being Asian American? Are we truly interested in breaking the mold, or merely being better able to rationalize it? Rationalizing is what these alleged "mold breakers" do.

I believe very strongly in a responsibility to help others in one's own group by providing good role models and support. That's not what is being done here. Instead of good role models, we get the same tired, stereotypical Asian tragedies. The issues of linking ethnic identity with life choices should be recognized for what they are. They should be addressed and explored honestly, instead of being insultingly passed off as evidence of Asian-American mold-breaking. We're just further deepening the mold here, instead of smashing it to bits.

Patrick S. Chung's column appears on alternate Saturdays. He is not pre-med.