scholarly journals High-Status Exemplars and the Misperception of the Asian-White Wealth Gap

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 397-405
Author(s):  
Entung Enya Kuo ◽  
Michael W. Kraus ◽  
Jennifer A. Richeson
Keyword(s):  
Asian Americans ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Model Minority ◽  
High Status ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Central Hypothesis ◽  
Wealth Gap ◽  
Nuanced Understanding

In this research, we test the central hypothesis that perceptions of Asian Americans as a high-status “model minority” lead to overestimates of the extent of wealth equality between Asian and White Americans. We test this hypothesis across three studies that manipulate the salience of high- or low-status Asian American exemplars before soliciting estimates of Asian-White wealth equality. A meta-analysis of the results revealed that participants significantly overestimated Asian-White wealth equality and that making low- versus high-status Asian American exemplars salient decreased this tendency. These data suggest that activation of high-status Asian American exemplars elicits greater overestimates of Asian-White wealth equality, obscuring existing wealth disparities relative to White Americans and significantly downplaying the economic inequality that burdens a subset of Asian Americans from less prototypical ethnic backgrounds. The findings echo recent calls by sociologists and political scientists for a more nuanced understanding of the diversity and economic inequality among Asian American communities.

scholarly journals High-Status Exemplars and the Misperception of the Asian-White Wealth Gap

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Enya Kuo ◽  
Michael W. Kraus ◽  
Jennifer Richeson
Keyword(s):  
Asian Americans ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Model Minority ◽  
High Status ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Central Hypothesis ◽  
Wealth Gap ◽  
Nuanced Understanding

In this research, we test the central hypothesis that perceptions of Asian Americans as a high-status “model minority” lead to overestimates of the extent of wealth equality between Asian and White Americans. We test this hypothesis across three studies that manipulate the salience of high- or low-status Asian American exemplars before soliciting estimates of Asian-White wealth equality. A meta-analysis of the results revealed that participants significantly overestimated Asian-White wealth equality, and that making low- versus high-status Asian American exemplars salient decreased this tendency. These data suggest that activation of high-status Asian American exemplars elicits greater overestimates of Asian-White wealth equality, obscuring existing wealth disparities relative to White Americans and significantly downplaying the economic inequality that burdens a subset of Asian Americans from less-prototypical ethnic backgrounds. The findings echo recent calls by sociologists and political scientists for a more nuanced understanding of the diversity and economic inequality among Asian American communities.

Yellowface Performance: Historical and Contemporary Contexts

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josephine Lee
Keyword(s):  
Asian Americans ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Model Minority ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Interracial Interactions ◽  
Racial Categories ◽  
American Theater ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Political Radicalism ◽  
East West

In European and North American theater and film, the centuries-old practice of “yellowface”—white actors playing Asian-identified characters—has dominated the ways that Asians and Asian Americans have been presented. Since the 19th century, yellowface representations in American theater portrayed these characters as villainous despots, exotic curiosities, or comic fools. These roles in turn greatly reduced the opportunities for the employment and recognition of Asian and Asian American actors. Yellowface performance does not only misrepresent Asians and Asian Americans by limiting the kinds of visibility and opportunities that they might have, but it also supports the imagined distinctions between those values presumably embodied by white Americans and those associated with oriental others. Late-19th and early-20th-century plays such as George Ade’s The Sultan of Sulu (1902), Joseph Jarrow’s The Queen of Chinatown (1899), and David Belasco’s Madame Butterfly (1900) not only used yellowface acting but also expressed anxieties about interracial interactions and the potential for racial contamination produced by U.S. imperialism and Chinese immigration. Both yellowface and “whitewashing” (the erasure of Asian and Asian American characterizations from film and theater in order to benefit white actors) continue to be used in U.S. theater and film. In addition to protesting, Asian American performing artists have responded by creating alternative venues for Asian American performers and writers to make their talents known, such as Los Angeles’s East West Players (established in 1965). Asian Americans have also fully engaged with these issues through writing a host of plays that feature characterizations of actors who suffer the effects of discriminatory casting practices. Two plays in particular, David Henry Hwang’s Yellow Face (2007) and Lloyd Suh’s Charles Francis Chan Jr.’s Exotic Oriental Murder Mystery (2015) not only critique the legacies of yellowface representation but also prompt broader reflection on how contemporary Asian American identities are shaped by both political radicalism and “model minority” conformity. These plays re-appropriate yellowface to comment on the changing and contested nature of racial categories such as “Asian American” as well as the continuing problems of racial typecasting.

The Model Minority Narrative and Its Effect on Asian American Identity and Social Status

2015 ◽  
pp. 323-350 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy Lowe
Keyword(s):  
Asian Americans ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Model Minority ◽  
The United States ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Cultural Struggle ◽  
Asian American Identity

Asian Americans have been conceptualized as a model minority for their apparent success in socioeconomic, academic, and professional settings, where other minorities have struggled. However, studies have suggested that this image is only a popularized stereotype, with academic underachievement, poverty, mental health issues, and cultural struggle prevalent amongst different Asian American communities. This chapter is a meta-analysis of studies on the model minority narrative, its influence on the social perception of Asian Americans, and its effect on shaping self-identity for Asian Americans themselves. This chapter also discusses the role the narrative plays in hindering racial parity and inter-race relations through furthering the marginalization of minority groups, silencing the voices of social change while maintaining the imbalance of status and power that currently exists in the United States.

The Racialization of the African-American and Asian-American Citizen: A Comparative Legal Analysis

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 30-41
Author(s):  
Mallory Yung
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Asian Americans ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Model Minority ◽  
Legal Discourse ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
Legal Analysis ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
American Citizen

The perception of racial tensions in North American settler countries has historically been focused on the Black/White relationship, as has much of the theoretical legal discourse surrounding the concept of “race”. Accordingly, the scope of much critical race scholarship has been restricted such that it rarely acknowledges the racial tensions that persist between different racially-excluded minorities. This paper hopes to expand and integrate the examination of Black and Asian-American racialization that critical race scholars have previously revealed. It will do this by historicizing the respective contours of Black and Asian-American racialization processes through legislation and landmark court cases in a neo-colonial context. The defining features of racialization which have culminated in the ultimate divergence of each group’s racialization will be compared and contrasted. This divergence sees the differential labeling of Asian-Americans as the ‘model minority’ while Blacks continue to be subjugated by modern modalities of exclusionary systems of control. The consequences of this divergence in relation to preserving existing racial and social hierarchies will be discussed in the final sections of this paper.

The Mean is Not Enough: Using Quantile Regression to Examine Trends in Asian–White Differences Across the Entire Achievement Distribution

2009 ◽  
Vol 111 (5) ◽  
pp. 1274-1295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Spyros Konstantopoulos
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Academic Achievement ◽  
Achievement Gap ◽  
Quantile Regression ◽  
Asian Americans ◽  
Asian American ◽  
White Students ◽  
Model Minority ◽  
High Achievers

Background In recent years, Asian Americans have been consistently described as a model minority. The high levels of educational achievement and educational attainment are the main determinants for identifying Asian Americans as a model minority. Nonetheless, only a few studies have examined empirically the accomplishments of Asian Americans, and even fewer studies have compared their achievement with other important societal groups such as Whites. In addition, differences in academic achievement between Asian Americans and Whites across the entire achievement distribution, or differences in the variability of the achievement distribution, have not been documented. However, this is an important task because it provides information about the achievement gap for lower, average, and higher achieving students. Purpose The present study examines differences in academic achievement between Asian American and White students in average scores (e.g., middle of the achievement distribution), in extreme scores (e.g., the upper and the lower tails of the achievement distribution), and in the variability of the achievement distribution. The main objective of this study is to determine the achievement gap between Asian American and White students in the lower and upper tails of the achievement distribution to shed some light on whether the achievement gap between the two groups varies by achievement level. Participants I use data from four national probability samples of high school seniors to examine Asian American–White differences in achievement from 1972 to 1992. Specifically, I used data from the base year of the NLS (NLS:72), the base year of the High School and Beyond (HSB) survey of 1980, the first follow-up of the HSB survey in 1982 (that is HSB:80, HSB:82), and the second follow-up of NELS (NELS:92). Research Design The study is correlational and uses quantile regression to analyze observational data from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Findings The findings indicate that the Asian American–White gap is more pronounced in mathematics than in reading. In 1992, the gap in the middle and the upper tail of the mathematics distribution is greater than one third of a SD, which is not a trivial gap in education. In reading, the gap is overall smaller, and nearly one third of a SD in 1992 in the upper tail (favoring Asian students). Conclusions It appears that Asian American students are indeed a model minority group that performs not only at similar levels but also at higher levels than the majority group, especially among high achievers in mathematics (and reading in the 1990s).

Asians and the Myth of the Model Minority in Higher Education

2016 ◽  
pp. 447-468
Author(s):  
Ronn Johnson ◽  
Ji Youn Cindy Kim ◽  
Jojo Yanki Lee
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
Asian Americans ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Help Seeking ◽  
Model Minority ◽  
Help Seeking Behavior ◽  
Dominant Culture ◽  
Health Concerns ◽  
Seeking Behavior

When compared with African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans, Asian are often attributed more positive attributions from the dominant culture. The developed stereotype, Myth of the Model Minority (MMM), suggests Asian Americans achieve a higher degree of success than the general population. Under the internalized assumption of being psychologically trouble free, the MMM stereotype contributes to Asians being less inclined to proactively engage in help seeking behavior despite the presence of severe mental health concerns. Psychocultural examples relating to Asian Americans (e.g., Virginia Tech Shooter case) are reviewed to form a clinical and forensic psychological framework that offers a challenge as to why the MMM is problematic in higher education. The myths related to MMM and the experiences—positive or negative—of MMM are analyzed to encourage subsequent empirically-based applications for addressing MMM as well as serving as a caveat against using monocausal explanations or other thumbnail assessments of Asian American behavior in higher education.

scholarly journals Researching From Buried Experiences: Collaborative Inquiry With Asian American Youth

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald Campano ◽  
Lan Ngo ◽  
Grace Player
Keyword(s):  
Asian Americans ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Collaborative Inquiry ◽  
Model Minority ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Practitioner Research ◽  
Immigrant Community ◽  
Asian American Youth ◽  
Out Of School

This article reports on an out-of-school practitioner researcher study, the Community Researchers Project, involving predominately Indonesian youth who were members of a Catholic parish in a diverse multilingual neighborhood of our city. The lives and learning of many of the youth in the Indonesian immigrant community were, to a large extent, invisible in the research literature or homogenized through broader generalizations regarding Asian Americans, such as the myth of the "model minority." Through analysis of several representative student inquiries, we argue that practitioner research can be an effective methodological vehicle for unearthing "buried" personal and collective histories that impact students.

Asian Americans

Sociology ◽  
2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer C. Lee ◽  
Alexander Lu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Asian Americans ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Model Minority ◽  
The United States ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Socioeconomic Outcomes ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
Racial Ethnic

Asian Americans currently make up about five percent of the US population and are one of the fastest growing racial/ethnic groups in the United States. The history of Asians in the United States spans more than 200 years. The term “Asian American” covers over twenty nationality groups. It covers a wide variety of identities, languages, cultures, and experiences, yet this diversity has been masked with the assumption of homogeneity and the model minority image. Research within sociology on Asian Americans often focuses on dispelling the model minority myth through the empirical analysis of heterogeneity within the Asian American population, particularly in regard to educational and socioeconomic outcomes. Other sociological research examines contemporary stereotypes and discrimination against Asian Americans as well as the racial stratification of Asian Americans in relation to other racial/ethnic groups in the United States. However, it is important to note that Asian American Studies is an interdisciplinary field, and much sociological work is informed and influenced by multi- and interdisciplinary work. Therefore, although focused primarily on sociological works, this article will include books and articles from other disciplines that have important implications for sociological research.

Asian Americans, Disability, and the Model Minority Myth

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoonmee Chang
Keyword(s):  
Asian Americans ◽  
Asian American ◽  
American Studies ◽  
Model Minority ◽  
Asian American Studies ◽  
Model Minority Myth

Chapter 14 engages a sustained critique of the ableist aspects of Asian American studies. Such ableism, as Chang maintains, obscures through minoritized exceptionalism the possibility of a disabled Asian American personhood, rendering such bodies as “impossible subjects.”

Asian Americans: Achievements Mask Challenges

2004 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 290-307 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roli Varma
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Asian Americans ◽  
Glass Ceiling ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Model Minority ◽  
Career Mobility ◽  
Government Agencies ◽  
Institutions Of Higher Education ◽  
Private Companies

AbstractThis article focuses on the existence of the "glass ceiling" to upward career mobility experienced by Asian Americans in professional occupations. It questions the recent portrayal of Asian Americans as a "model minority" who have "made it" in America. Instead, it shows that despite their good record of achievement, Asian Americans do not reach a level at which they can participate in policy and decision-making responsibilities. This article builds on the emerging glass ceiling literature by Asian American scholars, while examining social/cultural complexities, peculiarities, and nuances in private companies, government agencies, and institutions of higher education.

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