Minorities in the United States have always suffered from varying degrees of prejudice, from the most blatant and horrifying (nearly a century of slavery comes to mind), to the more mundane but still unacceptable (racial slurs and bias in hiring and serving practices). After reading this article, I began to wonder what was so different about the Asian-American experience that has allowed them to be so successful on average.
I realize that the article I've cited refers to today's statistics, but the "special" status of Asian immigrants as hyperintelligent and successful has been apparent for decades.
So: how does the Asian-American image go from indentured servitude during the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad during the 1850's, to Mickey Rooney's caricature in Breakfast at Tiffany's in the 1960's, to nerds that are destined to make lots of money today? And why has this experience not been mirrored by that of blacks or latinos in the US?
Well to start off with its important to note that Asian-Americans are a highly heterogeneous group. Different immigrant groups within that grouping have different characteristics, statistics, and histories.
Between about 1870 and 1965, Asian immigration to the US was fairly small due to restrictions placed on non-white immigration to the US by the US government. In 1965 the US adopted an entirely new immigration policy, called the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 that did away with many restrictions on non-white immigration to the US. So the vast majority of Asian-Americans immigrated after 1965 (which is relatively recent). The Asian-American population increased from 1.5 million to over 17 million between 1970 and 2010. Today's immigration policies emphasis three things; education, occupation, and family ties. This will be important to remember as we discuss this a bit more.
A couple factors go into why Asian-Americans have certain higher statistical characteristics than white Americans;
Settlement Patterns: Asian-Americans tend to settle and live in urban areas, and especially "expensive" urban areas like Los Angeles, San Francisco/San Jose, New York, Honolulu, etc., so their incomes become somewhat artificially elevated due to the fact that they tend to live in areas that already higher than average incomes. Because Asian-Americans tend to settle in "expensive" urban areas, they also tend to have more access to resources, like good schools for their children, job opportunities, etc. This helps to give them higher than average education, income, etc. statistics.
Immigration Policy/Patterns: Like I said before the US's current immigration policy favors three things; education, occupation, and family ties. Therefore immigrants with high levels of education, specialized skill, etc. will have an easier time immigrating than immigrants who don't. Studying at US universities is also a big pull for many Asian immigrants, so that will attract immigrants with higher levels of educations and skill.
So in essence, we see certain higher levels of certain characteristics (i.e. income, educational attainment, etc.) mainly because of two main factors; an immigration policy that favors education and occupation that attracts more educated and professional immigrants, and settlement patterns of Asian-Americans in large metro areas.
Incidentally, Asian-Americans aren't the only group we see with similar patterns. African immigrants actually have higher levels of educational attainment than whites and even some Asian immigrants. This is because of the same reasons we've discussed with Asian immigrants; an immigration policy that favors education and occupation.
Some other recent immigrant groups have been very successful in America as well.
Here are some examples:
Immigrants from Nigeria make up less than 1% of the US black population, but over 25% of Nigerian Americans have a graduate or professional degree, compared to 11% of white Americans.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/opinion/sunday/what-drives-success.html?_r=0
This could well be caused by the selective immigration policies mentioned by u/tropical_chancer.
Less explainable by that exact cause is the relative success of Cuban Americans. Cuban Americans are twice as likely as non-Hispanic whites to earn more than $50,000 per year in America.
The same New York times article claims that the high relative performance of some immigrant groups is most measurable in the first and second generation, whereas by the third generation, the performance has tended towards the average.
The article opines that three features characterize high performing immigrant groups: 1. A sense of being 'special' or 'superior', 2. A deep insecurity and the need to prove something, 3. A culture of discipline, or impulse control.
Anyway, there are some observations and suggestions as reported by the New York Times.