I think on top of immigration polices, there is also a natural selective process imposed on Asian immigration just through sheer logistics. For example, throug

I think on top of immigration polices, there is also a natural selective process imposed on Asian immigration just through sheer logistics. For example, through having the financial means to go to a different country. The average income in China is about 7 000 USD - which means that the average Chinese individual would have to save up roughly half their yearly income to come to the states. Then on top of that, a person with money needs to have the entrepreneurial and pioneer spirit to leave their home country and go somewhere totally new. That isn't normal. Perhaps that isn't so much the case today, but in the mid 80s around the time my parents came here no one in their family were here and it was very rare to see someone from our racial background. Something about just leaving your home and taking a huge gamble in flying across the ocean in search of a better life, that seems to show the ability to dream of a better life and sacrifice in search of it, which is by no means common. My dad told me that in leaving Sri Lanka, he took the student visa route which involved writing some exam (probably the GRE but I never got the specifics). Anyways, did terribly on the exam a few times and then kept paying to take it over. He also spent hundreds on application fees to foreign universities. He told me that during this time, a bunch of people from his village in Sri Lanka would be sitting around laughing at him for all his failures and wasted effort. I think what the shows is that the desire to emigrate was no only difficult but at the time was by no means normal. It wasn't everyone who was putting in the gargantuan effort to escape Sri Lanka (of course this was before the civil war got really bad so the situation likely changed as the 80s wore on.) I think these factors also contribute to economic sucess.