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A few months ago, Newsweek columnist George Will wrote about Asian Americans as the new victims of affirmative action. Equally, if not more, qualified Asian Americans would be displaced at the nation's top universities for more appropriate minority students. However, this is an oversimplification of the affirmative action story, stemming from the same line of reasoning that fueled the Berkeley College Republicans to hold an "affirmative action bake sale", where blacks were charged $0.25 for a cookie, Hispanics- $0.50 and so on. Whites were charged $1.50.

Affirmative action is not about numbers. It's not about quotas. It's not about being fair or unfair to any particular group. The practice of affirmative action exists in order for minorities to overcome the institutionalized discrimination they face simply by living in the United States. Institutions of government, law, education, entertainment all exist with an inherent bias towards wealthy, white men that has not yet been overcome. For this reason, affirmative action needs to exist.

However, how about Asian Americans? The so called "success story" of Asian Americans first made headlines in the 1980's and the model minority myth was born. All the evidence points to the conclusion that minorities can work their way up to become successful in the United States- just look at the numbers of Asian Americans in top colleges and in the work force. Numbers show that Asian Americans are graduating with business degrees and master's degrees in record numbers. Look at wealthy Asian American enclaves in California. Doesn't this prove that Asian Americans have made it?

More importantly, the simple inclusion of Asian Americans into one racial group ignores the needs of the different ethnicities and cultures that constitute Asian America. For example, the general statement that high percentages of Asian Americans attend college does not tell the whole story nor reveal the breakdown of ethnic groups. Looking at the demographics at Berkeley, the large Asian American population is primarily East and South Asian, with Pacific Islanders and Southeast Asians represented in much smaller numbers. The Asian American faculty includes few Southeast Asians and students have been fighting for a Filipino American professor to teach a Filipino American Studies course. In the general population, Chinese businessmen from the San Gabriel Valley near Los Angeles differs substantially from Hmong migrant workers in California's Central Valley or Vietnamese refugees in Louisiana.

Categorizing all APAs under the same umbrella group (when comparing racial numbers) denies the existence of under-representation of many groups, especially in the area of college admissions. The biggest problem in using Asian American success in colleges and universities (especially top tier schools) as evidence against affirmative action is that the very term ignores the socioeconomic and ethnic differences that exist among Asian Americans, and does a disservice to those who are still struggling to achieve the equal playing field so often lauded as present upon immigration (or in some cases, finding refuge) to the United States.