The Covert Orientalism Of the Model Minority Myth

Introduction

Asians Americans/ Asian Canadians are often seen as and are portrayed in media as model minorities. The idea of a model minorities describes a minority demographic who are perceived achieving overall social and economic success compared to other minority groups. This success thus serves as a reference for other minority groups. On the surface the perception of Asian Americans and Asian Canadians as a “model minority” is one of positive sentiments. Perceptions of being “smart”, “hardworking” and “Nice” (LAAUNCH, 2021) do not seem to hint at any racist ideology, however, these positive sentiments of model minorities belie its true effects on Asian Americans and Asian Canadians and other people of color. It glosses over the intersections of race, nationality and socioeconomic status that many Asian Americans and Asian Canadians find themselves at. I would argue that that idea/mythos the model minority in many ways represents a modern-day sense orientalism, serving to further enable the proliferation of racist ideas, inequality, and maintenance of inequal power structures.  Because despite of Asian American’s and Asian Canadian’s success they still do not receive the equal treatment of White American’s and White Canadians. Further more the placement of Asian as a model minority further drives a wedge between them and other minority groups. To explore this, we must first understand the history of how Asians became a” model minorities.”

History of Asians and Model Minorities

The term Model Minorities was first coined in 1966 by American sociology professor William Petersen in his New York Times essay: “Success Story, Japanese-American Style,” in which he argued that Japanese Americans, rather than being a “problem minority,” had within a short timespan emerged as a “model minority.” In his essay Petersen attributed the apparent success and rebound of Japanese Americans following the 20 years after their World War II incarceration in internment camps to “cultural values, strong work ethic, family structure, and genetics.” (Petersen, 1966). These reasonings and seemingly positive sentiments still echo in today’s sense of Asian Americans and Asian Canadians being considered Model Minorities. However, this change was quite drastic considering the history of Asians in North America.

The start of Asian immigration into North America is often considered to be when Chinese immigrants first arrived in the United States and Canada in the 1850s looking to escape the economic hardship in China (Chan, 2019). Many came initially as miners chasing the California Gold Rush and later in British Columbia when gold was also discovered in the Fraser Valley (Government of British Columbia, N.D). Following the gold rush Chinese immigrants became cheap labor, becoming contract laborers, miners, and later as railroad workers. Those who arrived in the United States and Canada faced isolation and racism, being seen as the “Yellow Peril” from Americans and Canadians who felt would invade their lands and disrupt Western values, compete unfairly for jobs by willing to work lower wages. This eventually led to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 in the US that prohibited all Chinese immigrants to the United States. In Canada the Government introduced the Chinese Immigration act of 1885 which placed a head tax in every person immigrating of Chinese descent. The Chinese Immigration act of 1923 later prohibited all Chinese immigrants from entering Canada. Bans on Chinese immigration persisted until 1943 in the United States and 1947 in Canada. (Zhou, 2012)

Despite of facing racism and discriminatory immigration policies, between the end of the discriminatory immigration policies in the 1940s and the 1960’s Asian Americans had not only surpassed African Americans in average household earnings but also began achieving similar average household earnings as White Americans (Hilger, 2016, p.1). This apparent success is the basis of the Asian model minority myth. Asian Americans had gone from being cheapest of laborers, to climbing social economic ladder. Hilger notes that many attributed Asian American’s success to the “extraordinary investments in children’s educational attainment” (Hilger, 2016, p.1). This is an assumption as Hilger argues has no basis. Hilger in his research using census data of California from the 1940s to 2000’s found that educational gains had little to do with how Asian Americans managed to close the wage gap with White Americans in the 1970’s.

“At the time of the 1940 census, Hilger found, California-born Asian men earned less than California-born black men. By the 1970 census, they were earning about the same as white men, and by the 1980 census, the native-born Asian men were out-earning white men. Throughout this time, many Asian American families did invest, increasingly, in their children's education. But Hilger discovered that the improvements in educational attainment were too modest to explain how Asians' earnings grew so fast. The picture became much clearer when he compared people with similar levels of education. Hilger found that in the 1940s, Asian men were paid less than white men with the same amount of schooling. But by the 1980s, that gap had mostly disappeared.” (Hilger, 2016)

“Asians used to be paid like blacks,” Hilger said. “But between 1940 and 1970, they started to get paid like whites.” (Hilger, 2016) The charts below shows average earnings for native-born black, white and Asian depending on how much education they had.

Instead of education, Asian American’s success can in many ways be attributed political convenience as Wu in her book. “ In the throes of the worldwide decolonization movement, more precisely, Cold Warriors encountered the dilemma of differentiating their own imperium from the personae non gratae of the European empires. As nonwhites, the entrance of Asian Americans into the national fold provided a powerful means for the United States to proclaim itself a racial democracy and thereby credentialed to assume the leadership of the free world. The rearticulation of Asian Americans from ineradicable aliens to assimilating Others by outside interests bolstered the framing of US hegemony abroad as benevolent—an enterprise that mirrored the move toward racial integration at home” (Wu, 2016, p.4). This ultimately resulted in the 1965 National Immigration Act which replaced the national-origins quota system with one that gave preference to immigrants with U.S. family relationships as well as those with highly skilled training which heavily contributed to increase of average earnings. Despite of this evidence pointing to education not being the sole driver of Asian American success, the same logic continues today. In 2014 Fox editorial Bill O’Reilly controversially debated the existence of White Privilege and Asian Americans as an arguing point against the existence of White Privilege. He noted that “Asian household incomes were 20 percent higher than white household incomes on average.” Arguing that reason for Asians American’s success was because “their families are intact, and education is paramount.” He then proceeds to then say that “American children must learn not only academics but also civil behavior, right from wrong, as well as how to speak properly and how to act respectfully in public. If African American children do not learn those things, they will likely fail as adults. They will be poor. They will be angry, and they often will be looking to blame someone else.” (Fox News, 2014).  While I do not purport or think this represents of majority view in Americans today, I do believe this highlights the logic that placed Asians in the position of a Model Minority. This ideology and its consequential effects both on Asians and other people of color can be identified through intersectionality.

Intersectionality

Intersectionality was first coined in 1989 by Kimberlé Crenshaw in her paper “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex”. She used intersectionality to explain Black Women were at the intersections of both being black and being a woman. As a result of this intersectionality, she explained that black women were subject to discrimination on the basis of both race and gender. Crenshaw argued that these experiences of a Black Women cannot be summed up in the experiences of just black people or just women, arguing that “These problems of exclusion cannot be solved simply by including Black women within an already established analytical structure. Because the intersectional experience is greater than the sum of racism and sexism, any analysis that does not take intersectionality into account cannot sufficiently address the particular manner in which Black women are subordinated.” (Crenshaw, 1989). 

While in Crenshaw’s original definition on Intersectionality focused upon the intersect of race and gender, this has gradually evolved to include the intersection of other areas such as ethnicity, nationality, physical ability, citizenship, or socioeconomic status. A perhaps more modern way to explain intersectionality is defined by the Merriam Webster Dictionary is the “the complex, cumulative way in which the effects of multiple forms of discrimination (such as racism, sexism, and classism) combine, overlap, or intersect especially in the experiences of marginalized individuals or groups.” (Merriam Webster Dictionary, n.d.) As such I wanted to use intersectionality as the lens to explore the effects on Asian Americans/Asian Canadians of being a “model minority”.

In McGowan & Lindgren’s paper “Testing the ‘Model Minority Myth’” They highlight what the basic portray of the model minority “First, Asian Americans are supposed to be extremely hard working—more hard working than whites. Second, they are said to be intelligent and highly educated, though a large number of them are dismissed as math and science geeks. Third, as a group they are seen as economically successful, especially compared to other ethnic minorities, even though they faced severe discrimination in the past and may encounter some (fairly minor) discrimination now.” (McGowan & Lindgren, 2006)

These reinforced ideas of how a “model minority” is supposed to be creates expectations for those of Asian ethnicity. In Lee et al.’s 2008 research paper “Model Minority at Risk: Expressed Needs of Mental Health by Asian American Young Adults” they found that participants reported several common sources of stress that affect the mental health of Asian American young adults including: “ pressure to meet parental expectations of high academic achievement and live up to the ‘‘model minority’’ stereotype; difficulty of balancing two different cultures and communicating with parents; family obligations based on the strong family values; and discrimination or isolation due to racial or cultural background.” (Lee et al., 2008). These issues highlight the intersections Asian Americans and Asian Canadians often found themselves at, often caught between the expectations of being a “model minority” and between being identifying as Asian or American/Canadian as well at the differing values of the different societies. Lee et al. (2008) explain that “Asian American youths tend to acculturate faster because of the school environment whereas parents tend to keep their original culture. Therefore, conflict of cultures can arise in the family setting, and this has been raised as a source of stress for our study participants…Authors found perceived discrimination affected depressive symptoms, substance use, poor mental health, decrease in feelings of control and self esteem, and anxiety. Our findings suggest that Asian American youths are less likely to seek professional help for their mental health problems… Study participants mentioned stigma as the biggest deterrent in health seeking behavior.” (Lee et al., 2008, p.151). The model minority myth ignores many of these intersectionalities involved in being Asian American or Asian Canadian, using their apparent success to mask the experiences of many Asian Americans and Asian Canadians. As a result of this I would argue the model minority myth serves as a modern-day orientalism.

Model Minority as Modern Orientalism

Orientalism as explained by Edward Said is a discourse that serves to objectify the East as inferior and backwards. Orientalism is “a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.” (Said, 1978).  Orientalism is way for the west to come to terms with the Orient (the East) within the cultural and societal context of the west which ultimately resulting with the East being deemed as the “other” (Said, 1978).  In this sense I want to argue that the model minority myth ultimately achieves the same goals of orientalism in this case. As through the idea of the model minority the West (White Americans/Canadians) continues to dominate, restructure, and having authority over the Orient (Asian Americans/Canadians) and it perpetuates Asians American’s and Asian Canadians as the “other”.  The combined stereotypes/traits of the model minority myth serve as the benchmark of what someone of Asian descent must be in order to be considered successful in America/Canada. This ideology has become so prevalent I would argue that this benchmark by extension is also becomes what someone of Asian descent thinks they must to become American or Canadian. This lends itself to a power dynamic in which the dominant West maintains its power by setting the standards of success yet for Asian Americans and Asian Canadians but also simultaneously using their success to avoid any responsibility or to address racism or the damage it continues to inflict. Because despite of Asian American’s and Asian Canadian’s success they still do not receive the equal treatment of White American’s and White Canadians. Further more the placement of Asian as a model minority further drives a wedge between them and other minority groups.

This is we can examine the social economic status and trends of Asian Americans. As we explored earlier one of the primary reasons Asian Americans/Asian Canadians are seen as a model minority is due to their socioeconomic success. In McGowan and Lindgren’s paper “Testing the ‘Model Minority Myth’” they argue that the “socioeconomic success of Asian Americans obscures the plight of many struggling Asian Americans (McGowan & Lindgren, 2006). This is shown by 2019 US census data below we can see while Asian Americans have a median household income of around $78,000 a year. Higher than the national median of about $66,000. However, that number ignores the large differences between different Asian ethnic groups. With the highest-earning groups Indian American and Taiwanese American households have the highest levels of education, while the lowest-earning groups have comparatively lower levels of education. (Jin, 2021)

This perceived overall success of Asian generated by the model minority myth also places Asian Americans and Asian Canadians at odds with other minority groups such as African Americans. The idea of Asian being successful can be seen as reflection on black people and their struggles. Many of these arguments attempt to conflate anti-Asian racism with anti-black racism. But as we explored through intersectionality the racist experiences of Asian Americans will be very different from African Americans and vice versa. As Hilger and many other scholars have argued that some Asians only started to "make it" when the discrimination against them lessened. However, in the context of American and Canadian history this only happened when it was politically convenient. Meaning the position of Asian as a “model minority” is not only fictitious but also precarious.

Conclusion

Over 50 years since the term was first coined Asians Americans and Asian Canadians are still seen as model minorities. Despite the positive surface perceptions of being “smart”, “hardworking” and “Nice” (LAAUNCH, 2021) the mythos of Asians being a model minority continues to hide the struggles faced by Asians Americans and Asian Canadians as they struggle with intersectionalities of race, nationality and socioeconomic. This modern-day orientalism has further enabled the proliferation of racist ideas, inequality, and maintenance of inequal power structures.  As despite of Asian American’s and Asian Canadian’s success they still do not receive the equal treatment of White American’s and White Canadians. They remain simultaneously to “other” to be full Americans and Canadians, but yet are often seen as too successful to be seen with problems of other minorities. To remedy the issues caused by the model minority myth intersectionality provides the clearest path to do so. Crenshaw in her paper argued that intersectionality offers a “way of mediating the tension between assertions of multiple identity and the ongoing necessity of group politics.” And explored the power of categorization. Asian Americans and Asian Canadians must be seen for more than a “model minority” and as a group Asian Americans and Asian Canadians must also be able embrace the other parts of their culture and heritage that may not align with the ideologies of success as determined by the model minority myth. The alternative is the continuation of definition by the dominating class.

References

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