[clicks]

Worse than that, what about the casual racism?

The truly shocking thing to me is no-one in this thread has yet commented about it. This is frustrating for two reasons:

1) It is so normalized that no-one felt the need to even comment about it -- as if it's not bizarre

2) 'Studying' is presumed as a boring, bad thing. Is this what college students are like? Studying a lot is bad? Asians studying a lot is 'the worst thing'?

I emphasize it not apparently being a problem is a big problem -- this is how racism is perpetuated.

[stephengillie]

>Is this what college students are like? Studying a lot is bad? Asians studying a lot is 'the worst thing'?

Yes, most college students want to study only the week before midterms and finals, so they can maximize their free time with friends. And I have seen Asian friends complain about other Asians for "living in the library" and "being too Asian".

(I was in an Asian fraternity at a 25% Asian campus...)

Yes, everyone's racist today, and the new equality is being an equal-opportunity racist. It's a brave, new world.

[noblethrasher]

The racist lines came from a non-protagonist, and the response from the protagonist was basically dismissive.

Consider also that he's going on to bigger and better things while she's apparently going to be stuck there (presumably she would have followed if she could). So her disdain for studiousness wasn't portrayed as particularly virtuous.

[dcre]

I absolutely agree we should be talking about it.

I found the line about "stinking up the place with her pork dumplings" a little over-the-top and unrealistic. I don't think I knew anyone in school who would have said something like that, though I'm sure people talk like that somewhere.

The stereotype about studying more than average is something I've heard plenty of people say about Asian students. Being a stereotype, it obviously cannot be 100% true, but there are decent reasons it might be partially true. For example, international students may have more at stake in getting an American education. And of course cultural differences in parenting that are a cliche to mention at this point.

I disagree with the other commenter that the protagonist (if you can really call the unsympathetic main character that) dismissed the racist remark. He seemed to agree, though the character was sort of sycophantic -- I can easily imagine him agreeing with everything she said just to please her.

Finally, yes, negative attitudes toward studying are extremely common in college. There's plenty of variation between schools and within schools (as suggested by the character's remark), but the idea that teenagers are lazy about schoolwork is ubiquitous in pop culture. I'm surprised that you're surprised.