““It’s no secret that mainstream American habits are not always leading kids to educational and life success. In Sunset Park, Chinese kids are part of a counter-culture that is reinforced on a daily basis by family members, by other adults, by Chinese television shows, by local test-prep centers. Shopkeepers might ask whether they’ve done their homework. They don’t ask what they want to be when they grow up because the correct answer is all but universally shared. The role models for poor Chinese kids, observers point out, are not basketball players and rap stars but successful businesspeople and professionals. MOVING UP While most eyes have been on the shifting demographics of places like Bush-wick and Greenpoint, the Chinese have been redefining several of southwest Brooklyn’s legendary white ethnic neighborhoods near Sunset Park.””
