Narrative: “I just learned recently that a white man created the term ‘model minority’ to describe Japanese Americans as a way of pitting them against Black Americans. Japanese Americans were terrified that they would be put in concentration camps again and thus went through life as quietly as they could. My ancestors had to go through hell and then pretend it didn’t matter. Now Asian Americans have to deal with this term unfairly and act a certain way (studious, quiet, smart, nerdy) or else they’re looked down upon. This term and its history must be publicized so that people can be educated that its purpose is to divide POC and pit us against each other when we should be banding together and uniting to fight our oppression.”
(Asian American Student’s Narrative, Debunking the Model Minority Myth)
 
Today, in the United States, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders have been identified as the fastest growing population group. They have also been characterized by many as the “most educated, wealthiest, and even happiest” group of people. Despite the positive nature of this characterization, it is a stereotype or myth that has negatively plagued the Asian American community since the 1940s. As the testimony from the Asian Narrative reveals, not only is the stereotype untrue, but it is also damaging and harmful for Asian Americans and other minorities in the United States. Studies reveal this stereotype promotes and encourages the sin of systemic racism so endemic and pervasive in our society and culture.
       
Ericka Lee explains the origin of this myth in this manner: “Once cast as inassimilable and racially inferior foreigners who were threats to the United States, Asian Americans are now the poster children of American success and are sometimes even called ‘honorary whites.’ But this portrait is misleading. It masks persistent inequalities and disparities among Asian Americans and relies on a new and divisive language of racism. Moreover, it obscures the unstable place of Asian Americans in contemporary America. Depending on domestic economic and global political conditions, some Asian Americans are accepted as full and equal citizens in the United States while others find themselves marginalized as dangerous outsiders.”

The roots of this stereotypical behavior go back to World War II and the Cold War period. After the Pearl Harbor attack of the Japanese and the entry into the war, the Japanese were demonized while China and Filipinos as allies were lionized. Before the war, Chinese and Filipinos were also equally disparaged by the media, politicians and others in the USA.

During the 1960s at the peak of the civil rights movement, the media and others pitted Asians against African Americans. The media considered Asians as hardworking and peaceful, not demonstrating in the streets while African Americans were lazy, looking for a handout and demonstrating in the streets. The media’s Asian to African American comparison escalated during the 1992 Los Angeles riots after four policemen charged with beating Rodney King were acquitted of the charges. The riots broke out and 2,300 known Korean businesses were destroyed and over 10,000 Koreans were uprooted. There was over $1 billion in property damages done to the Korean businesses.

The media initially characterized the civil disturbance as a “Black-Korean conflict.” However, it was revealed that participants in the riots and lootings included Whites, Blacks, Latinos and even some Asians. Erika Lee also states: “Such media coverage pitted African Americans against Koreans Americans while ignoring the larger structural inequalities that helped to create the conditions for the Los Angeles riots. Korean American reporter K.W. Lee went so far as to call the coverage a ‘media-fanned minority vs. minority bogus race war.’ He observed that ‘even before Koreans and African Americans had a chance to get to know each other with their common struggles and sorrows…both groups watched themselves pitted against each other…in the shouting sound bites and screaming headlines.’”

Erika Lee also points out that “African Americans are not the only points of comparison with Asian Americans. In other words, the White majority has this underlining sense of anxiety and resentment against Asian Americans. Who are the deserving groups in America? This resentment spilled over when schools like MIT and UCLA were nicknamed “Made in Taiwan,” and the “University of Caucasians Lost Among Asians.”

The 2010 U.S. Census paints a more realistic picture of the social and economic conditions of Asian Americans unlike the perception of the mainstream media and others may have. It revealed a diversity in education and income among Asians. More Asian Americans (49%) had degrees than the general population (28%), but many came to America with advanced degrees and education. Many have less than 4 years of high school education than the general population. This is reflected in the fact that many most recent Asian immigrants and refugees arrived with a “lack of access to for education.”

The diversity in Asian groups was also reflected in the annual personal income. Indian Americans, Chinese Americans and Japanese Americans had higher incomes than the general U.S. population. At the same time, Korean American, Vietnamese Americans, and Filipino Americans had lower level of median income than the U.S. general population. In other words, the Asian American community, like other diverse U.S. communities, is a community in contrast based on Census information. It was noted that the disparity was even more evident in the Cambodian American community, a later arrival group to America where poverty and lower educational achievement persist.

Ericka Lee again explains, “In spite of the factual evidence that illustrates the broad diversity of Asian American populations, high levels of poverty, unemployment and underemployment, and low levels of education among some groups, the model minority label has persisted.”

Narrative: “The model minority myth invalidated my feelings of
Otherness. In high school I did the stereotypical ‘Asian’ things I thought I was supposed to do-play violin in orchestra, take as many AP classes as possible even at the expense of my mental health, and replace friends with columns of “A”s on my report card. I thought my deteriorating mental health and overall feelings of unhappiness were normal and even expected, because as an Asian American person I wasn’t entitled to have problems. Up until now I couldn’t even consider myself a person of color because my heritage seemed so marginalized that I should just be grateful for my ‘privilege’ and gaslight my own experiences with racism. The model minority myth taught me how to code switch from elementary school onward-act white enough that I wouldn’t make my white classmates uncomfortable and tokenize my Asian-ness when it was deemed socially acceptable. I learned self-hatred through the model minority myth. I couldn’t understand why all my effort to be the perfect student in school ultimately couldn’t stop my neighbor from calling my parents ‘Chinese virus’ at the first opportunity for socially acceptable racism. Since coming to USC I’ve been able to begin embracing my culture through support from APASS and other empowered Asian American students, but I wish I had been able to recognize earlier that my self-hatred didn’t stem directly from myself, but rather the white supremacist society that taught me that my ‘privilege’ could and should simultaneously oppress me as well.” (Asian American Student’s Narrative, Debunking the Model Minority Myth)

The presence of this stereotype and myth continues to marginalize Asian Americans. This racism has led to more blatant and flagrant acts of violence. During economic downturns, like in Detroit in the 1980s with the auto industry, Japanese Americans were blamed because of the success of auto products from Japan. This led to violence against Japanese Americans and other Asian Americans.

In the rise of China as an economic leaders and goods being exported from China, Chinese Americans experienced anti-Asian anger and violence. With the introduction of the Coronavirus in the environment, anti-Chinese American and other Asian American groups violence have increased and amplified.

With the attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, violence against Indian, Middle East and Asian Americans have also occurred. Erika Lee indicates that in the weeks following 9/11, “hate crimes directed against Muslims, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Americans increased by 1,600 percent throughout nation, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, resulting in murders, property damage, physical damage, physical violence and harassment.”

Since their arrival in the United States Asians have been subjected to hatred, racism and violence. Today, and over the last year, Asian Americans have been pushed, beaten, pepper-sprayed, kicked, spit on and called slurs. Homes and businesses have been vandalized. The violence has known no boundaries, spanning generations, income brackets and regions.

The New York Times attempted to capture a sense of the rising tide of anti-Asian bias nationwide. Using media reports from across the country, The Times reported more than 110 episodes since March 2020 in which there was clear evidence of race-based hate. In measuring the source of the animus against Asian Americans, the Pew Research Center conducted a survey among Asian Americans to determine what they felt was behind the rising hate and racist behavior.

Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/04/21/one-third-of-asian-americans-fear-threats-physical-attacks-and-most-say-violence-against-them-is-rising/ft_2021-04-20_asianamericans_02/

Of the reports of discrimination and violence against Asian Americans during the coronavirus outbreak, 32% of Asian adults say they have feared someone might threaten or physically attack them. The vast majority of Asian adults (81%) also say violence against them is increasing, far surpassing the share of all U.S. adults (56%) who say the same, according to this new Pew Research Center survey.

This leaves the question: how to confront the violence and anti-Asian American racism, including the “model minority myth”?

First, on the national level, the U.S. Congress voted for the COVID-19 Asian Hate Crime Bill and sent it to the White House for President Biden’s signature. Tuesday, May 18^th was the third annual National Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Day Against Bullying and Hate, which coincides with the birthday of Vincent Chin, who was murdered in 1982 in a hate crime. Chin was a Chinese American man in Detroit killed by two autoworkers who thought he was Japanese, whom they blamed for the industry's struggles. His killers paid a $3,000 fine each and went free. 

The hate crime bill would establish a position at the Justice Department to expedite the agency’s review of hate crimes and expand the channels to report them. It would also encourage the creation of state-run hate crime hotlines, provide grants to law enforcement agencies that train their officers to identify hate crimes and introduce a series of public education campaigns around bias against people of Asian descent. (The Washington Post, May 18, 2021)

Second, on a local and personal level, the general public and institutions must dump the model minority myth and stereotype that continues adversely affect not only Asian Americans, but all Americans. This is a title that Asian Americans did not initially impose on themselves but was stamped on them by a racist system that pitted one group against another.

Third, all citizens, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders and others, must intervene and confront violence when witnessed and encountered.  Keeping quiet and silent are no longer options. Crimes and violence against Asian Americans are under reported in comparison to other ethnic groups, but the lack of response to this bias must be changed.

Fourth, school textbooks and curriculum must include course in Asian American, Pacific Islanders history. All Americans should be exposed to the rich and unique culture of the people from Asia and how their contributions enriched this country.

Fifth, in a spirit of solidarity and collaboration, Asian American, Pacific Islanders and other ethnic groups must join as a unified force to confront all elements of the sin of racism in our American society and institutions. Since the 1960s, this collaboration began, and now and more than ever, there must be a renewed effort on the part of these groups to maintain and strengthen this bond.

Finally, the Catholic Social Justice principle of the rights and dignity of all persons prohibits the use of racial and xenophobic language, slurs, smears and insults against all groups, including Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders.

These are just a few. Churches and religious institutions have varied other resources to protect and safeguard persons of color. Most important, is the moral authority of these institutions. Below is a hope note from one of the students.

Narrative: “But I do think there is much more to the APIDA (Asian Pacific Island Desi American) Experience than the model minority myth, even when discourse today centers a lot around it. There is so much diversity, power, and resilience that the APIDA community holds that can never be encompassed by a label a non-APIDA individual cast on it. I hope that one day, we don’t need to discuss how APIDA individuals are being oppressed by the model minority myth but instead how we have overcome it.” (Asian American Student’s Narrative, Debunking the Model Minority Myth)

Resources:

1. The Making of Asian American, A History, Erika Lee, Simon and Schuster Paperback, NYC, 2015.
2. History of Anti-Asian Racism in the United States, The Daily Skimm, Published March 25, 2021.
3. Debunking the Model Minority Myth, USC Asian Pacific Museum, USC University of South California, Online Exhibit.
4. We Are Not Silent, Confronting America’s Legacy of Anti-Asian Violence, Time Magazine, April 21, 2021.