An Invisible Minority: Asian Americans in Mathematics

摘要

There is an obvious dearth in the number of African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans in the mathematical sciences. It seems incongruous, however, to describe Asian Americans as an invisible minority in mathematics. Asians—foreign and American—earned about half of the doctorates in statistics awarded by American universities in the last five years. For doctorates in mathematics, this proportion drops to about a quarter, substantially less but hardly characteristic of an “invisible minority”. Among U.S. citizens and permanent residents, Asian Americans received less than 8% of mathematics Ph.D.’s during that same time period. Although this figure may seem surprisingly low, it is nearly double the proportion of Asian Americans in the U.S. population. Moreover, Asian Americans on average earn more and attend college and graduate school at higher rates than white Americans. By many measures Asian Americans are the most successful ethnic group in the United States, and relative to their proportion in the population, Asian Americans are overrepresented in mathematics.