Talking about Race
I Am Not a Model Minority Bernadette Lim
BEFORE YOU READ: Discuss what “model minor- American Style.”1 Peterson purported that the ity” means. Japanese cultural emphasis on hard work was a I am a third generation Asian-American woman mechanism for overcoming discrimination and at Harvard, and I despise living under the impres- achieving success post World War II. Perpetuating sion that I belong to the “model minority.” For a Peterson’s views, U.S. News and World Report pub- label that sounds so positive in tone, living under lished an article called “Success Story of One Mi- 2 this stereotype has been anything but ideal. nority Group in U.S.” in 1968, and Newsweek pub- In high school lished “Success Story: Outwhiting the Whites” in 1971.3 In 1987, TIME Magazine’s cover headlined Believing that Asian and at Harvard, I have encountered the “Those Asian-American Whiz Kids” with a smil- 4 Americans are the consequences of living ing group of young Asian-American students. The model minority under the model mi- Asian-American community has for decades been diverts attention nority myth constant- presented as a homogenous group of people who 1) work hard, 2) never complain, and 3) live with from past and exist- ly. My personal and academic achieve- above average success and satisfaction—a danger- ing discrimination. ments are the result of RXVP\WKFDOFLÀHGE\WKHPHGLDDQGLQJUDLQHGLQ simply “being Asian.” the minds of the public. My interests in biol- Looking closely, one can see that the Asian- ogy and physics in high school were “typical,” and American model minority myth is simply that: being stereotyped as “too smart” a myth. While Asian Americans garnered unwarranted envy and earn higher median household competition from classmates and incomes than whites, blacks, and friends. My achievements weren’t Hispanics/Latinos, these statistics considered the by-product of hard obscure the fact that Asian-Ameri- work; they were simply expected can families include multiple earn- and representative of the Asian- ers (white vs. Asian American per American model minority stereo- capita income is close; household 5 type. income is not), likely the result Many believe that the model of the many generations living minority label allows me to ride under one roof and the retirement on the coattails of my ethnicity, savings of elders. Southeast Asian giving me a “one-up boost” ahead Americans drop out of high school of others. Yet to me, the model at an alarming rate; nearly 40 minority myth has done nothing percent of Hmong Americans, 38 but strip me of my humanity. percent of Laotian Americans, and The term “model minority” 35 percent of Cambodian Ameri- 6 ZDVÀUVWLQWURGXFHGWRWKHSXEOLF FDQVIDLOWRÀQLVKKLJKVFKRRO by sociologist William Peterson These Asian-American subgroups, along with Vietnamese Americans, in a 1966 New York Times article 3KRWRIURPWKH$VLDQDQG3DFLÀF earn below the national average.7 entitled “Success Story, Japanese Islander Student Aliance
10 The Change Agent — March 2016 Talking about Race
Per capita income by ethnicity, 2007-2009 than other minority groups. The model minority myth has thus undermined the formation of posi- Taiwanese $38,312 Indian $36,533 tive relationships among minority groups by pre- Malaysian $33,264 venting the recognition of the intersection among Sri Lankan $32,480 racial histories. It is more than simple chance that Japanese $31,831 the appearance of the “model minority” term Chinese $30,061 Total Population $27,100 coincided with the rise of the African-American Korean $26,118 Civil Rights Movement and Chicano Civil Rights Filipino $25,799 Movement. Why don’t we acknowledge this? The Indonesian $25,729 model minority myth is a wedge that impedes soli- Pakistani $24,663 darity, emphasizing differences in socioeconomic Thai $21,708 Vietnamese $21,542 outcomes rather than commonality in the historic Bangladeshi $16,784 struggle for civil rights. Laotian $16,585 By being part of the model minority, I am Cambodian $15,940 expected to feel nothing less than gratitude and Hmong $10,949 honor for being labeled through a “positive ste- 0 10K 20K 30K reotype.” Yet focus on the upper echelons of the “Per capita” comes from the Latin and means “for each Asian-American population has rendered every- head.” We use it to mean “per person.” Study the chart one else invisible. In grouping all Asian Ameri- above and write several true sentences based on the data. cans as high achievers, avid students, and career Source: See Endnote #5. climbers, society fails to acknowledge the nuance and disparity. “Asian American” encompasses a Believing that Asian Americans are the diverse range of dialects and ethnicities (and of model minority diverts attention from past and course, a diverse umbrella of individual, personal, existing discrimination. The stereotype renders human experiences within those subgroups). racial inequity for Asian Americans invisible and I am not a model minority and never will be. unimportant. For example, the portrayal of the No such thing exists. Asian-American woman as the servile “Lotus Blossom” or the domineering, deceitful “Dragon Bernadette N. Lim, Harvard class of 2016, is a joint human Lady” has been common for years. There’s the evolutionary biology and women, gender and sexuality studies concentrator in Dunster House. This piece was reprinted with 1958 movie “China Doll” and Lucy Liu’s cunning permission from
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