The heathen, the plague, and the model minority: Perpetual self-assessment of Asian Americans as a panoptic mechanism

2021 ◽  
pp. 205030322110444
Author(s):  
Yuen-Yung Sherry Chan
Keyword(s):  
Asian Americans ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Model Minority ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Washington Post ◽  
Self Assessment ◽  
Discursive Space ◽  
Group Boundaries

Incidents of racism against Asians have been rising since the COVID-19 pandemic turned global in early 2020. Employing Foucault’s concept of panopticism and Kathryn Lofton’s insights on the function of religion to demarcate group boundaries, this article argues that American religion constructs Asian American stereotypes to limit the discursive space within which Asian Americans may negotiate their identities. These discursive limitations have, in turn, buttressed white supremacy. This article examines how some Asians and Asian Americans respond to anti-Asian sentiments during the pandemic by performing a close reading of an op-ed by prominent Asian American politician Andrew Yang in The Washington Post. This reading reveals that Yang’s colorblind solution upholds whiteness as the American gnosis and limits the discursive space in which Asian Americans may negotiate their identities. This article also discusses how the myth of America as a white Christian country withstands challenges from minority groups contesting its dominance.

Model Minorities and Overcoming the Dominance of Whiteness

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas D. Hartlep
Keyword(s):  
Asian Americans ◽  
Asian American ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Model Minority ◽  
The United States ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Curriculum Studies ◽  
Model Minority Stereotype ◽  
Model Minorities

Stereotyping Asian Americans as successful or model minorities is not positive. Instead, it is a form of racist love that reinforces White supremacy. How can a positive stereotype reinforce White supremacy? Because the process of revering Asian Americans as model minorities leads to other groups of people, such as people of color and Indigenous people, being reviled. But if the model minority characterization of Asian Americans is inaccurate, what should curriculum studies scholars do? Disproving a “stereotype” is impossible. Curriculum studies scholars and theorists should not attempt to disconfirm something that is untrue, or something that is racist, but instead should narrate the reality of being Asian American. The model minority stereotype of Asian Americans has been studied and contested over 50 years within the context of the United States. Over these 50 plus years, the model minority stereotype has taken on a transcendent meaning. Overcoming the dominance of Whiteness requires Asian Americans to transcend “positive” stereotypes via critical storytelling. This will require curriculum studies as a field to continue to interrogate: What are the realities of living in racist Amerika for Asian Americans?

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.

“Over-zealous Parents, Over-programmed Families”: Asian Americans, Academic Achievement, and White Supremacy

2021 ◽  
pp. 233264922110184
Author(s):  
Pawan Dhingra
Keyword(s):  
Asian Americans ◽  
Asian American ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Minority Group ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
White Educators ◽  
Asian American Students ◽  
American Students ◽  
High Achieving ◽  
K 12

Discussions of white supremacy focus on patterns of whites’ stature over people of color across institutions. When a minority group achieves more than whites, it is not studied through the lens of white supremacy. For example, arguments of white supremacy in K-12 schools focus on the disfranchisement of African Americans and Latinxs. Discussions of high-achieving Asian American students have not been framed as such and, in fact, can be used to argue against the existence of white privilege. This article explains why this conception is false. White supremacy can be active even when people of color achieve more than whites. Drawing from interviews and observations of mostly white educators in Boston suburbs that have a significant presence of Asian American students, I demonstrate that even when Asian Americans outcompete whites in schools, white supremacy is active through two means. First, Asian Americans are applauded in ways that fit a model minority stereotype and frame other groups as not working hard enough. Second and more significantly, Asian Americans encounter anti-Asian stereotypes and are told to assimilate into the model of white educators. This treatment is institutionalized within the school system through educators’ practices and attitudes. These findings somewhat support but mostly contrast the notion of “honorary whiteness,” for they show that high-achieving minorities are not just tools of white supremacy toward other people of color but also targets of it themselves. Understanding how high-achieving minorities experience institutionalized racism demonstrates the far reach of white supremacy.

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.

Finding Grace

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.

Discrepancies in Dixie: Asian Americans and the South

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jigna Desai ◽  
Khyati Y. Joshi
Keyword(s):  
Asian Americans ◽  
Asian American ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
American South ◽  
The South ◽  
Recent Immigrant ◽  
Antebellum Era ◽  
The American South ◽  
The Relationship

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the relationship between the Asian American and the American South. The figure of the Asian American is perceived to be discrepant in and antithetical to the American South. Within the American imaginary, the Asian American as perpetual foreigner and alien is always seen as a recent immigrant, and therefore associated with contemporary times, while the South is perceived as an anachronistic and isolated region. This renders the two—the Asian American and the South—allegedly mutually exclusive and incongruous. In these imaginings, the South remains a space quintessentially American but one steeped in an antebellum era of White supremacy, anti-Black racism, and outdated isolation. In supposed contrast stands the figure of the Asian American who is associated with immigration and borders, globalization, and contemporaneity.

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.

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.

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