Model Minority

Dear Liz Lin,
While I am impressed by your action of writing about Asian American and Ferguson in particular, I am bothered by the implications of the model minority myth that you describe for Asian Americans. As an Asian American in an immigrant family myself, the narrative you describe in the “model minority myth” is an almost exact representation of my experiences growing up. However, it comes with its share of negative consequences. The stereotype causes other ethnic groups to perceive that Asian Americans are getting special treatment, increasing the racial divide. One facet of these Asian American stereotypes is the almost unrecognized consequence of when this “model minority” myth becomes the expected behavior for the group of Asian Americans. Boiling back down to identity, it is entirely possible that many we come to identify (as the society) as Asian American do not identify as Asian Americans at all. The concept of the model minority also homogenizes all different kinds of Asian Americans as having the same experiences (highly successful and high academic achievers because of hard work). However, this is on average more readily seen in bigger ethnic groups. Southeast Asians often come from different socioeconomic backgrounds which gives them widely different experiences than any of the larger groups.

Derek

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