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Asian Americans are generally understood as a success story: scholars point out the incredible educational leaps in the second-generation. As a result, research on Asians is often devoted to explaining why mobility occurs. A recent explanation points to immigrant hyper-selectivity: post-1965 Asian immigrants come to the U.S. highly educated. Yet, research has shown divergent patterns among two of the largest hyper-selected Asian groups, Chinese and Filipinos: while the former achieves tremendous educational gains in the second-generation, the latter experiences stagnation. Drawing on data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, the following study examines why current hyper-selectivity literature fails to explain the two groups' disparate outcomes. Findings point to unequal levels of hyper-selectivity between Chinese and Filipinos, largely due to their opposing gendered migrations. In addition, the study illustrates a Filipino penalty in education vis-à-vis their Chinese counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I examine an understudied topic of intermarriage – nonwhite mixed unions. Drawing on a study of second-generation Filipino Americans, I compare how respondents in inter-ethnic (those partnered with other Asians) and nonwhite interracial (i.e. Latino, black, and non-Asian bi-racial) unions perceive racial boundaries, or their ‘racial schemas’. I argue that mixed unions can change how partners view racial boundaries. Drawing on phenotype, culture, and power position, both inter-ethnically and nonwhite interracially partnered respondents viewed themselves as different from whites. However, they differed in how they constructed nonwhite boundaries. Respondents in inter-ethnic unions drew on their Asian identity to distinguish themselves from Latinos and blacks, while informants in nonwhite interracial unions highlighted their Filipino identity to distance themselves from East Asians and align themselves with Latinos and blacks. These findings show that marriage affects racial boundary development and that mixed unions impact individuals’ racial incorporation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]