Wow.  Totally hit the nail on the head with this one.  Put into words what I felt but didn’t think about or analyze or realize when I went through it all myself in high school. 

“He had always felt himself a part of a mob of “nameless, faceless Asian kids,” who were “like a part of the décor of the place.””

“At Stuy, it’s completely different: If you looked at the pinnacle, the girls and the guys are not only good-looking and socially affable, they also get the best grades and star in the school plays and win election to student government. It all converges at the top. It’s like training for high society. It was jarring for us Chinese kids. You got the sense that you had to study hard, but it wasn’t enough.”

“This is how he described himself: “I got good grades and I love literature and I want to be a writer and an intellectual; at the same time, I’m the first person in my family to go to college, my parents don’t speak English very well, and we don’t own the apartment in Flushing that we live in. I mean, I’m proud of my parents and my neighborhood and what I perceive to be my artistic potential or whatever, but sometimes I feel like I’m jumping the gun a generation or two too early.””

“At Stuyvesant, he had hung out in an exclusively Asian world in which friends were determined by which subway lines you traveled.”

…and then other stuff about the bamboo ceiling and social interactions etc etc.  Although I felt this article was a little too heavy on the dudes & not enough on the women.  Still, cool beans.  And the shout out to Jenny on page 2 :)