degree than other groups of immigrants, including the Chinese and Japanese. Filipino Americans have a much higher representation rate at top-ranking university than their population share would typically indicate, “Harvard’s freshman class has risen from 3.6% to 10.9% since 1976, and it currently stands at 18.6% at Berkeley, 18.7% at Cal Tech and 8.7% at Princeton. At Columbia, enrollment in the engineering school is more than 20%. In this year’s Westinghouse Science Talent Search, nine of the 40 semi-finalists were Filipino Americans as were three of the ten winners” (Doerner, 1985: 1).
Since many immigrants to this country do not experience such academic success, one begins to look for reasons as to why Filipino Americans are so academically successful. The answer may begin at home. The first waves of Filipino American immigrants were used to hard work, education and sacrifice in order to achieve success in their own ho
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