Internalization of the model minority myth, school racial composition, and psychological distress among Asian American adolescents.

While the model minority stereotype depicts Asian Americans as having somehow “made it” in American society, rarely does the discourse involve Asian American athletes. The purpose of this chapter is to delineate how race and the model minority myth were an integral part of the media coverage and affected perceptions of the phenomenon known colloquially as “Linsanity,” which charted the unprecedented rise of Jeremy Lin. In 2012, Jeremy Lin became one of the most famous players in the NBA. By exploring the popular press coverage of this event, fueled by the Internet and social media, the intersection of the model minority myth and athletics are investigated. Through a combination of media critique and analysis, narrative, psychological literature, and coverage of other Asian and Asian American athletes, the authors illustrate how racism was a prominent factor and a significant part of the everyday discourse that permeated the coverage of Jeremy Lin.

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Finding Grace

Degrees of Difference ◽

10.5622/illinois/9780252043185.003.0008 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 134-145

Author(s):

Aeriel A. Ashlee

Keyword(s):

Graduate Students ◽

Critical Race Theory ◽

Asian American ◽

White Supremacy ◽

Model Minority ◽

Racial Microaggressions ◽

First Year ◽

Critical Race ◽

Model Minority Myth ◽

Race Theory

This chapter features a critical race counterstory from an Asian American womxn of color about her doctoral education and graduate school socialization. Framed within critical race theory, the author chronicles racial microaggressions she endured as a first-year higher education doctoral student. The author describes the ways in which the model minority myth is wielded as a tool of white supremacy and how the pervasive stereotype overlaps with the imposter syndrome to manifest in a unique oppression targeting Asian American graduate students. The author draws inspiration from Asian American activist Grace Lee Boggs, which helps her resist the intersectional oppression of white supremacy and patriarchy present within academia. The chapter concludes with recommendations to support womxn of color graduate students.

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Impacts of the Model Minority Myth on Asian American Individuals and Families: Social Justice and Critical Race Feminist Perspectives

Journal of Family Theory & Review ◽

10.1111/jftr.12342 ◽

2019 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Kristy Y. Shih ◽

Tzu‐Fen Chang ◽

Szu‐Yu Chen

Keyword(s):

Social Justice ◽

Asian American ◽

Model Minority ◽

Critical Race ◽

Model Minority Myth ◽

Feminist Perspectives

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Disability Studies and Asian American Literature

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.013.912 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Kristina Chew

Keyword(s):

American Literature ◽

Disability Studies ◽

Asian American ◽

Model Minority ◽

Asian American Literature ◽

Model Minority Myth ◽

Yellow Peril ◽

Intellectual Abilities ◽

Asian American Identity ◽

The 19Th Century

Twenty-first-century understandings of how disability figures in Asian American literature and the representation of Asian American individuals have greatly evolved. Earlier, highly pejorative characterizations associated with the 19th-century “Oriental” or “yellow peril” as a carrier of disease whose body needed to be quarantined and excluded. Later, the model minority myth typecast Asian Americans as having extreme intellectual abilities to the point of freakishness. Disability studies asserts that having an “imperfect” disabled body is nothing to hide and questions beliefs in norms of behavior and experience. Focusing on disability in Asian American literature opens a new path to reflect on Asian American identity and experience in ways that break away from the racial types and narrative trajectories of immigrant success that have often been seen as defining what it is to be Asian American. Integrating a disability studies perspective into Asian American studies provides a compelling and necessary means of critiquing stereotypes such as the model minority myth, as well as to reread many classic texts of Asian American literature with attentiveness to difference, impairment, and loss.

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