Debunking the model minority myth

You would think that in a blog dedicated to issues of race in the U.S. and my own focus on Asian American issues I would have written an extensive post on the "Model Minority Myth" (lets just abbreviate to MMM for the duration of this post) and yet, after a quick search, I saw that I've alluded to MMM in several posts and assumed everyone knew what I was talking about. But I've never elaborated.


And I think the time is right for a post debunking the MMM because a report just released that was conducted by/sponsored by NYU, The College Board, and various Asian American educators has just been released and it takes on the MMM--stating, very clearly, the stereotypes that are perpetuated by the MMM.

For example, the stereotype that Asian Americans excel over all other groups (including whites) because of genetic superiority in terms of intelligence or cultural superiority in terms of work ethos. Or that Asian Americans are a bunch of nerds who study the hard sciences and math. Or that Asian Americans are taking over all sectors of education and crushing everyone like Godzilla crushed Tokyo. But the MMM is also particularly dangerous when used as a tool of divisiveness. As in, people point to Asian Americans and say "See?! We don't have a race issue in this country. Look at all the hard working Asian people--why can't those other minorities be just like them???" In fact, it's no coincidence that the phrase "Model Minority" was coined in the mid-1960s -- first in one news piece to praise hard-working Japanese Americans and then a year or two later, in another news essay praising hard-working Chinese Americans and their ability to assimilate and capture "The American Dream."



The New York Times has a piece about the report (click here) and one of the things it notes is that this stereotype is NOT true. First of all, the report notes that "Asian American" is a broad phrase and captures a host of various ethnic groups that span a vast region that is extremely diverse. And if you look at rates of graduation and educational achievement for SouthEast Asian Americans (especially Hmong, Cambodian, and Vietnamese) they suffer low educational achievement, high drop out rates, rates of incarceration, and poverty levels.

Also, it's REALLY important to remember that the MMM is a stereotype that has been linked to Asian Americans and like with many stereotypes, there is a cyclical and self-perpetuating nature to them. Asian Americans see that they are supposed to excel and so they do. This is simplistic, but it's part of what Stanford researcher Claude Steele has called "the stereotype threat." (btw, Claude's more conservative cousin is Shelby Steele, but you should NOT get the two confused--Shelby believes it's rational to cross the street when you see a black man because society has programmed you to link African Americans with crime in your head. Claude does NOT take this pov, and has done groundbreaking research at Stanford to show the ways we are being programmed and that we can FIGHT this programming and the stereotype threat we perceive--that everyone is subject to--and that the way to have a more integrated and mixed-race society is to recognize that these ARE stereotypes and not inherent qualities associated with particular ethnicities or racial groups). See Steele's article in the Atlantic Monthly "Thin Ice: Stereotype Threat and Black College Students" and a brief interview with him at Mount Holyoke College (click here).

The Model Minority Myth is just that--a myth. It is NOT true that Asian Americans are smarter than any other racial/ethnic group. It is NOT true that Asian Americans are succeeding more than other ethnic/racial groups--especially other ethnic/racial minorities. The myth and stereotype does disservice to Asian Americans who are not high achieving and who are struggling with poverty and racism. It does a disservice to other ethnic and racial minorities who are told, "Why can't you be more like those Asians" and it's simply BS to think that there are some cultures who value education more than others. What society or culture in this world is going to say, "Nope, we don't place a premium on learning...we don't care if our young people become educated."

If the MMM was really true, then how come Asian Americans aren't ruling the world, I mean SERIOUSLY! If Asian Americans are so smart, how come we aren't dominating the banking world? Winning the Nobel Prize in various scientific fields on an annual basis? How come we don't hold most of the patents in most of the technological advances? How come we don't comprise half of the Fortune 500 company CEOs? Or have major representation in Congress? Or just in the field of education--why is it that in the one field we are supposed to absolutely DOMINATE--higher education--there are only 33 APA presidents of any colleges or universities in the nation--that's less than 1% nationwide. Clearly, we aren't such a model minority after all.

To read the full report, go to the College Board's website here. And for another piece (a bit dated but still relevant) that takes on the MMM click here.

Hapa Fever

This weekend I've been reading a lot about hapa issues. Hapa, for those unfamiliar with this term, is the Hawaiian word for "half" and generally speaking refers to anyone who is mixed race, with part of that mixture being of "Asian" origins. This is rather loosely taken in Kip Fulbeck's book, Part Asian*100% Hapa, since some of the participants don't seem to have any Asian ancestry (there is one person who is half African American, half Native American and there is a Japanese-Korean person, which would seem to make this person inter-ethnic Asian rather than hapa, but perhaps I'm splitting hairs since all participants in the book are self-identified, and if you tell me you are hapa I will believe you). It's a great book--and I'd encourage anyone interested in mixed-race issues to find a copy (you can easily get it on Amazon.com). Fulbeck says it's the book he wishes he had growing up, and I see why--it's a simple book of portraits from the collar-bone up of various self-identified hapas and their answers to the question: What are you?

I also just finished a memoir by May-lee Chai called Hapa Girl (a fairly page-turning memoir, although I found the instances of naked racism in South Dakota hard to stomach--although important to remember that it went on in the 1980s and probably still does today), and in the NY Times this weekend there was an announcement that Sarah Gore, the youngest of the Gore daughters, was married to Bill Lee, a Los Angeles businessman. It wasn't until I saw this item repeated in the Angry Asian Man blog and then found a photo that I realized that Lee is Chinese American. Which means that the bio babies of Sarah and Bill will be hapa--and Al Gore will soon have non-white grandchildren (of course, perhaps he already does since his other daughters are also married and may have adopted children from other countries and heck, maybe their spouses are also non-white--surnames are misleading).

And I guess what impresses me about the quick google search I did for info on Lee & Gore's wedding was that only one site made mention of his ethnicity--and it only said that she was marrying a Chinese American businessman.

Anyway, is this a tide we're turning--that there is now a coffee table photo book, a memoir, and the man who may help stem the tide of global warming is going to be a global granddad within his own family? Or are we just proof that the model minority myth isn't so mythical and that mixing with Asians has just never been as controversial as crossing the black-white color line?

[Amendment--July 21, 2008: Since I've written this post I've had a few thoughts about the use of the term "hapa" which has come to be seen as a controversial adjective/label within the mixed-Asian community. For more, see this post on my thoughts about the use of "hapa"]