In late 2014, the group interviewed and endorsed four Republican candidates for the State Legislature who opposed affirmative action. It enlisted dozens of volunteers to campaign for them. All four candidates, none of them incumbents, won.

“They were a constant presence in my campaign office,” said Young Kim, a Republican who unseated an incumbent Democratic assemblywoman and is now running for Congress. “This was the first time that I knew that there were very active Chinese-American parents that were organizing this movement, specifically to fight against S.C.A. 5.”

Even after winning the fight in California, Mr. Li and other activists remain wary. Mr. Li said it was important to prevent Democrats in the California Legislature from gaining a supermajority that could allow them to pass a bill reinstating affirmative action. He said he was still worried about what the future held for his 13-year-old son, despite his strong academic performance.

“I think for him it’s going to be really, really tough if nothing is changed in current college admissions system policies and practice,” he said. “As an Asian male, it’s going to be very tough for him to get admitted to a top, elite school.”

His daughter is entering her senior year pursuing environmental studies at the University of California, Berkeley — a college Mr. Li said he did not think she would have gotten into if affirmative action had returned to California.

For many Chinese families, a focus on education is deeply rooted in the tradition they came from.

The civil service exam was a staple of Chinese governance for more than 1,000 years, leading to the rise of a gentry class of bureaucrats who supplanted aristocrats with inherited privileges. The test was a powerful engine of social mobility. The exam was abandoned in 1911, when the Qing imperial dynasty was overthrown.

Later, under Mao and during the massive upheaval of the Cultural Revolution, most schools were closed. When they reopened after the movement ended in 1976, it was clear just how much the country yearned for education. More than 11 million students flocked to take the college entrance exams over the next two years.