Some of the most common taunts lie in the nicknames other students attach to schools using their initials. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for instance, is known as �Made in Taiwan.� Gonzalez, who worked at UCI�s Cross-Cultural Center for 14 years, says UCI, which is 44 percent Asian, is known as �University of Chinese Immigrants.� Such xenophobic nicknames not only unfairly imply an Asian invasion, she and others say, but they wrongfully suggest all Asians are alike. In 2006, only 33 percent of Asian Americans at UCI were Chinese, the others were Korean, Filipino and Vietnamese, to name a few.
Vang says students needing financial help often need other resources, too. At UWM, where financial aid applications and renewals are among
Vang�s top priorities, more than 75 percent of Southeast Asian students in 2007- 2008 received academic advising, tutoring or other services. Among other findings by Chang and his UCLA colleagues, nearly 20 percent of Asian freshmen in 2005 said they needed tutoring or remedial help in English � a statistic comparable to that of Hispanic freshmen and higher than those of other racial groups. �We�re unsure whether Asians were being overly modest or if they really need the help, but these kinds of statistics show how colleges need to offer services to find out the answers,� Chang says.
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