Res and Dev

In 1965 Congress passed the Immigration Reform Act, an effort by the US government to address shortages in critical scientific technical fields. Since 1965, with the family-reunification provisions of the Act , we started seeing waves of new immigration from the Asian continent coming to the United States. The second wave of immigration from South East Asia in the late seventees brought to Virginia an influx of new and young Asians eager to learn and then to become the American success stories.

The increase in new Asian immigration from various countries such as Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and now China, Malaysia, Indonesia,.Singapore, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, the Phillipines, and those of Central Asia ( Mongolia, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Kazaskhstan, Turmenistan, and Uzbekistan) can be felt most strongly in Virginia only in the past ten years.

The results: Asian Americans make up a significant portion of the academic faculty at major research universities, hospitals, technology incubators, and research labs.

What explains their success? Asians have a double cultural advantage. They arrive with both the traditional family values and regard for education an invaluable cultural and educational legacy.

Census 2000 data indicated that Virginia Asian Americans have the highest college degree attainment rate, rates of having an advanced degree, and working in professional, scientific, engineering, technical occupations. Virginia’s greatest overall advantage is its rich supply of well trained scientists and engineers.