Re: Cupertino and Whites fearing Asians, don't believe the hype.
From another board:
I want to set a few things straight. My kids go to school in Cupertino, in fact we moved here for the schools. Every few years some idiot news rag comes along and tries to pretend there's some kind on racial tension in Cupertino. Don't believe it - they are just trying to sell newspapers. It's sad to see the once-great WSJ stoop to this level.
Cathy Gatley, who was name in the WSJ article, was so furious at the way she was mis-quoted that she sent a letter to the Journal. She also sent it to many parents in the community. It says in part: "How surprised and hurt I was to read your article entitled "White Flight" and see my thoughts misrepresented in such a way as to try and divide the wonderful diverse community that I live in.". I suspect many of the others who were named feel the same way.
There are a few local families that don't send their kids to Monta Vista, and I think the WSJ found them all. Most often it's because the kids have special needs, only a handful leave over simple racism. Cupertino's been heavily Asian since I moved here 15 years ago (the journal got that statistic just flat wrong) so anyone who has raised school age kids here knew they would be around Asians before those kids were born. The racists left long ago, and as Mintaar says, who needs 'em.
Cupertino has lots of Orientals, Caucasians, Indians, Hispanics and Mid-Easterners; and most of us get along just fine. There is no racial majority, and most of us like it that way. It's just that some cheese-heads elsewhere in the country can't figure that out; and they keep looking for trouble here.
Last years swipe at Cupertino by the Media Weasels is documented here. [www.stevenscreekparents.org] The racists at the ADF thought they could divide us, and they found out otherwise.
So Don't believe everything you read.
Re: The New White Flight (Score: 1)
by soccerdad on Saturday, November 26 @ 01:46:27 EST
Hi Again,
Someone asked me to post the entire contents of the letter from Cathy Gatley, the co-president of Monta Vista High School's parent-teacher association who was interviewed in the WSJ article. Here it is. This copy came to me a bit mangled after going through several email accounts, so please forgive any format oddities. -SoccerDad.
*********************
Dear Monta Vista Community,
Many of you may have read or heard about the resent article in The Wall Street Journal. I am very upset with the way the article portrayed Monta Vista, our students and those of us who were interviewed. I have written a Letter to the Editor that I would like to share with you. It is a long letter but I hope you will read it until the end.
Thanks, Cathy Gatley
Dear Letter to the Editor of the Wall Street Journal:
I made the mistake by thinking that a prestigious paper such as the Wall Street Journal would be fair and accurate in their reporting. How surprised and hurt I was to read your article entitled "White Flight" and see my thoughts misrepresented in such a way as to try and divide the wonderful diverse community that I live in.
Why do papers always try to make it an "us versus them" problem and bring about racial strife? As Co-president of the PTA I am often asked my opinions but never have my words been more manipulated and edited to offend my neighbors. When asked about the school that my children attend I responded that it is a very academic school. Students have to make sacrifices with their time that I don't think they should have to make.
The point I was trying to make is strong academics are important but the things you learn outside a classroom can be just as valuable as the things one learns in a classroom. I don¹t want my children to only concentrate on AP classes and getting A¹s. I want my children to learn good sportsmanship by being on a school sports team, I want them to smile with joy as they sing in a choir performance, I want them to build confidence as they recite their lines in the school play and I want them to go to the beach with their friends on a Saturday and not bring their books with them to study. In the highly driven academic environment of Monta Vista some students sacrifice the extra things, the building of a sand castle or being on a sports team in order to take one more AP class or go to SAT tutoring.
I think twice about having my children live in an environment that makes them make those choices. So when asked, ³would you have moved to Cupertino then knowing what you know now?¹ my answer was I don¹t know. It had nothing to do with the change in demographics as the writer might lead you to believe, but for the desire of a school filled with pep-rallies, school spirit, pasta nights, and fun.
Strong academics and competition are important to me but so are the extra things teenagers should experience that I feel is getting lost and forgotten for the sake of an AP class. When I see my friends choosing other schools for their children it is because they are seeking a more balanced school environment not because they don¹t believe in competition or diversity.
Instead of fleeing to that kind of school I am committed to the Monta Vista community and support the schools focus of educating the whole child.
Cupertino schools afford our children an excellent education, in part because of the tremendous programs and in part because of the wonderful parental involvement. Monta Vista has great academics but it also has a great arts and music program, great community service programs and athletic programs. Monta Vista's staff has been working hard over the past year to transform itself into a more rounded school environment. I attended freshman night recently and was proud to hear one of our administrators counsel incoming
freshman parents about their role. He said that if we allowed our children to focus only on academics and miss out on an extra-curricular activity, be it band or sports or drama or service, then we as parents were not holding up our part of the bargain.
It's time for papers like the Wall Street Journal to stop trying to divide this great nation of ours by printing articles trying to pit neighbor against neighbor. We all come from different backgrounds and experiences and no one is better than the other....just different. I personally embrace the differences my community has to offer and plan on living in Cupertino a very long time.
Cathy Gatley
Cupertino, California
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