I do know a Vietnamese-American guy from my college (Ivy League) who is a high level I-banker of some sort on Wall Street… He had no connections; parents were immigrants and he grew up here in lovely Lakeside!
I am a “white” and had nothing but generations upon generations of farmers in my background. Some immigrated in the late 1800s/early 1900s, some much earlier. One grandfather was a police officer, one was in sales. Grandmothers were housewives; later one grandmother was a secretary and one worked in a department store. My parents went to college, but my father is a mostly unemployed engineer and mother an admin assistant type. So, I don’t think I had a fast track to anything… yet somehow I made it into the Ivy League, medicine, etc.
My husband had a similar pink collar type background (parents RN and teacher). He and I paid for all of our own wedding expenses, house down payment, etc etc. I am proud of this, but it wasn’t easy. Never got to consider something like “a gap year” or even a summer trip to backpack around Europe during college. Everything has been focused on going to the next step.
I guess I never really considered many careers besides medicine or science as those were the only fields that seemed more focused on merit than connections as a condition of employment.
It’s strange to say, but I often feel like I have more in common with people who are (mostly) 2nd generation Asian/Indians than with most other white people that I meet.
And I sometimes worry about my very blonde children being not taken as seriously in the classroom as their Asian/Indian peers. :/ I feel that they have to “prove” themselves, too.
