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Model Minority Myth and Racism Against Asian American College students

Racism is a word with a very broad meaning worldwide, given the definition of

discrimination against people based on their skin color, culture, and country. Scientists have

given diversified causes of racism ranging from social to political and economical interests.

Surprisingly, selfishness and self-interest seem to be the primary cause of racism. Individuals

consider themselves special due to different qualities, and thus mistreat others. Some scientists

support that children from certain races have poor health, even some policies support racism, and

thus some scholars believe that racism can be used to maintain the status quo (“Racism and the

Status Quo”). Good people are said not to talk against racism, and media houses unconsciously

support the same by posing some races like blacks to be “violent”. In the United States, the

Model Minority Myth (MMM) poses some potential dangers that cause further racism against

Asian Americans. This model is based on stereotypes of which Asian Americans are said to be

geniuses occupying the most prestigious positions in medicine, engineering and accounting.

Asian Americans are branded to be polite, law-abiding and integrate talent and hard work to

succeed in life (Jo and Mast). The model minority theory can be positive to Asian Americans,

but it comes with numerous disadvantages that turn out to be racial discrimination(Soken-

Huberty). They believe that all Asian Americans are sharp-minded makes other people view you

as lazy and not hardworking when you fail to be successful. For instance, the help you are

supposed to get from your teachers becomes minimal, leads to further drop in class and social

performance. Not many students overcome the image, which has been the main cause of many

suicides in colleges. However, those who overcome the image hold high degrees and get

employed with higher salaries than the Americans (Burrell). This has been proven with statistical

data; when an American makes a dollar, an Asian American makes 1.2 dollars. This comes as a
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result of the family view point of education and its value. Asian Americans are usually viewed as

foreigners and assigned features depending on their gender. For instance, men are seen as

KungFu masters and women as sex objects. As a result, there are many harassments and

mishandling, which lower the group’s confidence and self-esteem. Although the model depicts

America as a very welcoming country since many races live in the country and do well, Asian

Americans are said to take advantage of the warm welcome and to suppress Americans' success,

make them ranked the topmost in the hierarchy. This makes the people from different races view

it as a competition, leading to a lack of unity for fighting for equal rights and justice.

Model Minority Myth directly or indirectly leads to racism cases in the U.S.A colleges.

Racism takes different forms, such as biased results and ill comments. Asians in America were

considered exotic, unwelcome, and uncivilized for more than a century, from approximately the

1850s until World War II (Annie, 2020). they were given titles like the “yellow peril,” hence

seen as a threat “to Western civilization.” Because of their perceived challenge, they became the

victim of racist assaults and unjust legislation. However, beginning in the 1960s, this pessimistic

perception began to shift to one of admiration as Asian success stories became more common in

American society. Since then, even today, Asian Americans have conquered past biases and are

still performing well in society. As a result, Asian Americans are dubbed the model minority and

are held up to illustrate other minority groups. However, this belief, which is a kind of covert

stubbornness, is false and has far-reaching implications not just for the Asian American

community but also for all minority groups. The model minority “mark”, in the end,

disadvantages all minority communities, divides them and leads to discriminatory and divisive

views.
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This problem may seem on the surface to be a struggle among “Asian Americans and

other minority groups” (kim, 2021). However, there is a much bigger problem beneath the

surface. Instead of getting together and identifying with each other’s issues, ethnic communities

in America are being pushed farther away due to wrong perceptions. Although Asian Americans

are the model minority, many Americans claim that non-Asian minority communities are

affected by their shortcomings. This belief causes unpleasant sensations for Asian Americans

and non-Asian minority groups to tend to feel as though they cannot recognize themselves as a

minority with the Asian American community. However, many people do not realize that the

Asian American culture has the same detrimental effects as non-Asian American ethnics under

such a name. Many Asian American students and families continue to struggle, but the model

minority mark overlooks them and remains invisible.

Jean Wing, the Research and Best Practices Manager of the New School Development

Group, Oakland Unified School District, has developed a report to assess Asian American

students’ invisibility by tracking their perception and performance of Berkeley High School

Asian American students. Wing believes that Asian American students experience unnoticed

problems due to the pervasive recognition of Asians as a minority model. From its conclusions,

Wing notes that every case study has confronted new, unrecognized university problems because

they “are masked by the common view that Asians are model students, that they are not

unsuccessful and that their performance is simple for them” (466). This popular belief is a type

of discreet prejudice which has negative consequences not only for Asian Americans but also for

other minority groups. “Asian Americans’ progress story is frequently opposed to African

American and Latin calls for freedom.” Wing declares: “The stereotype of the minority paradigm

promotes color division rather than solidarity in the fight against bigotry and for greater justice
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for all peoples” (481). The minority paradigm myth separates minority communities and

promotes discriminatory ideas in a society that already suffered under racial conflicts for the past

centuries.

Additional research examining that “many categories of races and racial groups now

enrolled in gifted education systems in the U.S.” further reveals how the minority model mark

reinforces bias. Yoon Yoon, an applicant for a doctorate in talented learning at Purdue

University, and Marcia Gentry, director at Purdue University’s Gifted Education Resource

Institute, contend that fair student distribution through race and ethnicity is one of the main

challenges in gifted education programs. Yoon notes that white and Asian students have

constantly been overrepresented in talented programs at a national level, whereas American

Indians, Alaskan natives, Hispanics, and African American students have and remain

underrepresented (128). This underrepresentation of minority students in talented programs other

than Asian Americans may be called bigotry. The reasoning behind this point is: “When Asian

Americans will succeed in talented programs, other ethnic groups can also be in a position to

succeed.” This theory causes biased feelings, and some ethnic communities are therefore

believed to be indocile only because they are poor or just as intellectual. However, it is not

rational or accurate to say that those are underrepresented in talented programs, since certain

social ramification are hard to notice.

The minority model mark often produces prejudices for Asian and non-Asian minority

communities that further intensify segregation in the United States. These stereotypical

perceptions have been found to harm the test results of both Asian and non-Asian students. Non-

Asian minority groups face academic exam threats that lead them to fail. The detrimental impact

of assumptions on academic success was studied by Sapna Cheryan and Galen Bodenhausen of
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Northwestern University. They find that negative perceptions hinder success for non-Asian

minority groups by “creating concern on the part of the stereotyped community that their

performance will help to reinforce the negative assumptions of others towards its group” (399).

This concern, called a “stereotypical challenge,” impedes academic success by applying the

pressure of concern to validate other people’s low standards (Cheryan 399). The poor success

expectation caused by testing by non-Asian students is attributed in part to the minority label of

the Asian American paradigm. As non-Asian minorities are contrasted to a high-performance

minority community, a sense of inferiority may develop that impedes academic performance.

Cheryan and Bodenhausen have shown that Asian students are adversely affected by such

a title compared to the lack of success by non-Asian minority groups due to the model minority

myth. The myth calls for Asian Americans to excel and surpass them, encouraging them to

undertake tests when they hit high standards. Exposed to a supposedly positive stereotype as the

model minority, an external audience anticipates a positive output that causes a person to feel

worried about meeting the high demands, leading to a phenomenon called “pressure hitting”

(Cheryan 399). Like fear of confirming a negative stereotype, fear of confirming a positive

stereotype can undermine results as well. Though Asian Americans are the model minority, this

stereotype may be restrictive. The myth creates a racial stereotype that disadvantages Asian and

non-Asian students due to a stereotype hazard and causes them to underdog academic tests.

The model minority myth also undermines Asian students’ academic success and has

more severe implications. “The expectation to excel and overcome is sometimes excessive and

may result in suicide, especially among young Asian American women aged 15 to 24 who carry

the highest suicide rates in the country (Le). The Chicago Tribune is a report by Joel Wong,

assistant professor of psychology and therapy at the University of Indiana, on the key factors
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Asians think about suicides. Wong’s 1377 Asian American students Internet study found that 48

percent listed family issues as the cause of suicidal thinking, with 43 percent preferring academic

problems and 25 percent referring to financial problems. This study reveals that model minority

aspirations will lead to expectations of achievement, which many Asian Americans will

overshadow.

Francis Dalisay and Alexis Tan, both from the Edward R. Murrow College of

Communication at Washington State University, investigated another illustration of the negative

impact of prejudices caused by the model minority name. Dalisay and Tan were interested in the

impact on Asian Americans’ and African Americans’ perceptions of knowledge, reinforcing the

Asian American model minority stereotype. Dalisay and Tan observed that study participants

would judge “Asian Americans more favorably and negatively when subjected to the minority

paradigm”. Dalisay notes that the positive representations of some social classes, as Asian

Americans, may lead to negative views on other groups, such as African Americans. Given that

many Americans support the model minority stereotype, derogatory perceptions for other

minority groups such as African Americans and Latinos are created, thereby strengthening racist

ideas.

These communities can often feel isolated and alienated by the generation of adverse

perceptions by non-Asian minority groups. This feeling of isolation will contribute to

discrimination among minority groups. This division of minority communities is visible today in

several university campuses in America. One illustration is the University of Berkeley,

California. Proposition 209 was adopted in 1996 in California, which eliminates ethnic

preferences in public services. “The rise of Asian students at the University of California, the

Berkeley campus at the detriment of underrepresented Black and Hispanics, is a product of

Proposition 9 and its strict meritocrats.” Timothy Egan, a New York Times writer, estimates that

Asian-US attendance has reached the height of prestigious colleges and universities and has

made other ethnic groups feel alienated and lonely in these universities. “The decreasing number

of African Americans on campus is a consistent cause for debate among black students and

without some sense of culture,” Egan says (24). Amilia Staley, a student of African American

law interviewed by Egan states, “I think you are always standing out... I’m the first black kid in

my class nearly always” (24). Staley said she doesn’t recognize the Asian population as a

minority. Unfortunately, since Asian Americans are a group, Staley thinks this way; “they make

up fewer than 5 percent of the national population. Both minority groups in America have had

some feelings of isolation and should be able to cope with this problem, but instead are pulled

away from each other because of racial prejudices created by the minority model mark.”

Eric Liu, author of The Accidental Asian: Notes of a Native Speaker, and domestic policy

advisor to former President Bill Clinton, challenges the notion of pure meritocracy to defend

non-Asian minority groups. The author suggests that the high Asian composition of elite

campuses represents a post-racial era in which merit prevails. Liu maintains that “the notion of

pure meritocracy is ludicrous before all applicants from poorer metropolitan areas have fair

access to specialized training courses that have proven a ticket to the best universities” (24). Liu

then says that Proposition 209 seeks to fairly evaluate the consequences of an already unequal

scheme by the State of California. Many Asian American students on the Berkeley campus have

parents who are educated at universities. They have easy access, cmpare to those who come from

poor backgrounds with no access to good schooling to the opportunities that help train them for

college education. Such a elite education framework is discriminatory and excludes diversity

from universities by isolating and alienating non-Asian ethnic classes. As a consequence of the
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minority paradigm mark, Asian Americans have a high expectation and overpopulate college

campuses, removing the possibilities of diversification and dividing minority groups further.

Since Asian Americans take up 4.2 % of the American population, there is a need for

proper strategies to minimize racism toward this group. The population can be ignored; it adds to

the country,s GDP and other national activities(Jung). Racism and other discriminations come as

a result of stereotypes. People should be educated about the mental fixations that mold the vice.

People believe in some statements they hear without evening researching facts and truths. If they

become aware that Asian Americans are not there to grab their job vacancies but help improve

the American economy, racism will reduce in magnitude. Key processes such as job employment

procedures should be systematically structured in such a way that every applicant gets the same

number of similar questions. People should be employed based on their skills and qualifications

rather than skin colors and other unprofessional features. Social accountability should be valued

and called for. Things should be made clear and available to everyone in society. For instance, in

the case of a job, the wages should be announced to all potential workers to create equal chances

for every applicant. Employment of the best will better the U.S.A economy as experts only

would get employed. The firms of justice should put in proper punishments for racists.

Whenever one is found in controversial racism, they should be judged and jailed to act as

examples to others who think of committing the same crime. Racism should be outspoken as a

crime at every level: for instance, when black Americans commit a crime of discriminating

against a color, it is seen as a very serious issue, but it is taken lightly and sometimes assumed

when a white does.

By naming Asian Americans as the minority paradigm, all minority communities in the

United States had several detrimental effects. The minority model myth creates derogatory
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perceptions for Asians and non-Asians, which disadvantage both communities. Not only are

negative expectations created, but minority groups start to feel marginalized and segregated and

eventually divide these groups. This division of ethnic communities reinforces and encourages

more divisive perceptions and bigotry and racism.

Works cited

American college students in their own words. Duke University Press, 2020.
Kim, Sunmin. "Fault Lines Among Asian Americans: Convergence and Divergence in Policy
Opinion." RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 7.2 (2021):
46-67.

“Asian Americans as the Model Minority | Department of English.” English.umd.edu,

“Mooko/‘the Asian American College Student as Model Minority.’”

Ho, Annie, Vicky Liu, and Benjamin Stephen. "Asian American Studies." (2020).

Jo, Moon H., and Daniel D. Mast. “Changing Images of Asian Americans.” International
Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, vol. 6, no. 3, 1993, pp. 417–41,
www.jstor.org/stable/20007100.

Jung, Jong Eun. “10 Remedies for Systemic Racism.” Vanderbilt Business School, 10 Aug.
2020, business.vanderbilt.edu/news/2020/08/10/10-remedies-for-systemic-racism/.

“Racism and the Status Quo.” Nature Genetics, vol. 52, no. 7, July 2020, pp. 641–41,
doi:10.1038/s41588-020-0666-6.

Soken-Huberty, Emmaline. “10 Root Causes of Racism.” Human Rights Careers, 28 Oct. 2020,
www.humanrightscareers.com/issues/root-causes-of-racism/.

Wing, Jean Yonemura. “Beyond Black and White: The Model Minority Myth and the Invisibility
of Asian American Students.” The Urban Review, vol. 39, no. 4, June 2007, pp. 455–87,
doi:10.1007/s11256-007-0058-6.

Www.uvm.edu, www.uvm.edu/~vtconn/v16/mooko.html.
Yano, Christine R., and Neal K. Adolph Akatsuka, eds. Straight A's: Asian