Trespassers?. Willow Lung-Amam
likely includes a large number of students of mixed Asian and Caucasian ancestry, which Mission High students commonly refer to as “Wasians” and “Hybrids.” Although neither the school nor the district record parental country of origin, most Chinese American families are reportedly from Taiwan, a trend consistent with the larger neighborhood.5 Most students are native-born, second-generation Asian Americans, and a number are among the so-called 1.5-generation, who were born overseas but raised in the United States. In 2010, 76% of Mission High’s Asian American students were born in the United States, but over two-thirds spoke a non-English language at home, an indication of their parents’ immigrant status. Latinos and African Americans made up only 2% and 0.5% of the student body, respectively (Table 2).
TABLE 2. Mission San Jose High’s student population went from predominantly White to Asian American in only a few decades. During the same period, the standardized tests scores for the school rose sharply.
As evidence of Mission High’s changing student body, at graduation time administrators often ask students to line up by C’s and W’s because of the large number of graduating students with common Chinese last names such as Chen and Wong.
With many parents employed as Silicon Valley engineers and researchers, Asian Americans have also raised the class status of the school and the neighborhood. In 2014, 70% of Mission San Jose residents age 25 and over held a bachelor’s degree or higher, and among these nearly 40% held a graduate degree or higher. Among employed adults, 73% worked in management, business, science, and arts-related occupations, with over half of these related to computer technology, engineering, or science.6 In 2005, the neighborhood appeared on Forbes magazine’s list of the 500 most affluent communities in the United States with a median income of over $114,000. By 2014, this had risen to $144,000.7 That same year, less than 4% of Mission High students qualified for free and reduced lunch, compared to 17% across the district and 58% in the state.
David Li reminded me of just how much had changed in Mission San Jose since he had grown up there in the late 1960s and 1970s. We gathered at Mission Coffee, a trendy and upbeat café just steps from the original mission—an ideal place to think about old and new. Here, Mission High teens crowded around overstuffed couches and rustic tables piled high with laptops, textbooks, and lattes, while old-timers discussed the local landscape paintings that lined the walls, read, and visited with neighbors and members of the various local civic and social clubs that regularly met there. Over the hum of these many voices, David recounted tales of his early school life and reflected on how much had changed. He recalled that when he graduated from Mission High in the early 1980s, “everyone just drove a car to get around.” But during his most recent visit to the school, students were sporting fancier cars than his. Many arrived in Lexuses, Audis, and BMWs, the latter of which is commonly known to students as “Basic Mission Wheels.”
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