Yeung, Wai Sik (Wilson)

Section 101
May 11th, 2009
Racism in Popular Culture: An Analysis of the Model Minority Myth
I. Introduction:
In many ways, Asian Americans have done remarkably well in achieving "the American
dream" of receiving a good education, possessing a successful career, and earning a remarkable
living. In fact, many has done so well that it created a popular image that Asian Americans are
the "model minority" a bright, shining example of hard work and patience whose
characteristics should inspire other minority groups to follow . However, the practical reality is
slightly more complicated than that. Despite the fact that some Asian Americans hold pride for
this image, the consensus in academia and the Asian American community is that this super
minority image is used to justify unequal treatment of certain racial groups while slighting the
achievements of many Asian American individuals. While the model minority image was
articulated to prevent liberal efforts during the Civil Rights Movement and to serve as a reminder
of the possible economic threats that Asian Americans present in the 1980s, its implications of
hidden mistreatments towards Asian Americans are still visible in todays America.

II. Model Minorities In the Media:

According to Wong, Lai, Nagasawa, and Lin, the term model minority refers to a
minority group that works hard and is self-sufficient, conforms to societal norms, and excels
academically and professionally1. This popular image of Asian Americans emerged in American
media as early as the 1960s. This depiction first appeared in the middle of the Civil rights
1 Wong, P., Lai, C., Nagasawa, R., & Lin, T. Asian Americans as a model minority: Self
perceptions by other racial groups. In Sociological Perspectives, 95-118. 1998

Movement period in a New York Times Magazine article entitled Success Story: Japanese
American Style, which detailed the struggle into mainstream American life by a Japanese
American family2. It praises Japanese Americans for their dedication to education, low crime
rates, and strong family values. In December of the same year, a similar article that focused on
Chinese Americans titled Success Story of One Minority in the U.S. appeared in the U.S. News
and World Report3.

Specifically, the author compares African Americans and claims that

Chinese Americans are able to achieve social mobility with their own efforts . In the article,
Chinese Americans are especially praised for their remarkable achievement and ability to
overcome racial discrimination and succeed.
The success stories of Asian Americans overcoming hardships are continuously reported in
mainstream media in the coming years. According to author Ki-Taek Chun, Newsweek published
an article entitled Success Story: Outwhiting the Whites while the Los Angeles Times
published an article titled Japanese in U.S. Outdo Horatio Alger in the 1970s4. Both articles
articulate success stories of Asian Americans in America, which not only provide an image of
hardworking and professional Asian Americans but also an implication of successful ethnic
assimilation. Chun also mentions that during the 1980s, similar articles like Asian Americans:
The Drive to Excel, The Triumph of Asian Americans, and Americans Super Minority

2 Lee, Robert G. The Cold War Construction of the Model Minority Myth. In Contemporary
Asian America: A Multidisciplinary Reader, edited by Min Zhou and J.V. Gatewood, 473. New
York and London, 2007
3 Lee, Robert G. The Cold War Construction of the Model Minority Myth. In Contemporary
Asian America: A Multidisciplinary Reader, edited by Min Zhou and J.V. Gatewood, 473. New
York and London, 2007
4 Chun, Ki-Taek. The Myth of Asian American Success and Its Educational Ramifications. In The Asian
American Educational Experience, edited by Don T. Nakanishi and Tina Yamano Nishida, 95-112. New York, NY:
Routledge, 1995

appeared in publications of Newsweek, Time, Fortune Magazine, New Republic, and the U.S.
News and World Report.
In this age of growing technology, it is important to note that the model minority stereotype is
no longer limited to press media. In fact, television depiction is also responsible for reinforcing
such Asian American stereotype. In a collective studies by Chin, Milman, Deo, Lee, and Yuen,
we learn that the majority of AAPI-identified characters on prime-time television had high
status occupations in both the 2004 and 2005 seasons5. It is evident that the model minority
myth motivates the media to portray Asian Americans as successful doctors, lawyers,
mathematicians, and even engineers. Their high achievements render them as anything but
normal when compared to the general population.

III. Political Context of the Emerging Image:

It is by no accident that the Model Minority emerged during the Civil Rights Movement, a
revolutionary period where minority groups demand equal racial treatment . During this period,
conservatives and the media carefully used this model minority stereotype to discredit criticism
about America being a racist country while discouraging liberals from advocating equal rights
and treatment during the Civil Rights Movement. In his article, Omatsu writes, Conservative
political commentators began to use it to contrast Asian Americans respect for law and order to
African Americans involvement in civil rights marches, rallies, and sit-ins .6 He identified the
political effects of establishing Asian Americans as the model ethnicity, which is to encourage
5 Chin, Christina B., Milman, Noriko, Deo, Meera E., Lee, Jenny J., Yuen, Nancy W. Without a Trace. In
Contemporary Asian America: A Multidisciplinary Reader, edited by Min Zhou and J.V. Gatewood, 458-459. New
York and London, 2007
6 Omatsu, Glenn. The Four Prisons and the Movements of Liberation. In Contemporary Asian America: A
Multidisciplinary Reader, edited by Min Zhou and J.V. Gatewood, 84. New York and London, 2007

African Americans and other minority groups to remain political silent like Asian Americans .
Identical to Omatsus conjecture is a book by David Palumbo-Liu. 7 In his book, Palumbo-Liu
further analyzes the model minority image as a political product during the Civil Rights Era . He
reasons that in Japanese Americans, who demonstrated reputable success, conservatives are able
to prove that minority success is possible and that poverty and violence among minority groups
are results of weak institutional welfare systems rather than societal racism . On the political
level, depiction of the Asian American communitys achievements completely diffuses black
militants claims that America is a racist society that embraces white supremacy . Using this
logic, conservatives are able to replace such criticisms with a perfected portrayal that America is
actually a land of equal opportunities where any person of color can succeed . Ultimately, we can
see that the hostile political context of the Civil Rights America is partially responsible for the
birth of such Asian American stereotypes.
Second, media invention of the model minority image also reinforced itself in the
1980s as a campaign to restore trust in capitalistic values. As Omatsu indicates in his article, the
Asian success stories are used not only to praise capitalistic values but also to combat the
communistic economic model and values of the Soviet Union during the Cold War . The model
minority myth symbolized the moral vision of capitalism, a celebration of traditional values, an
emphasis on hard work and self-reliance, a respect for authority, and an attack on prevailing civil
rights thinking associated with the African American community . On the international front,
the model minority image sent a message to the Soviet Union and the rest of the world
(especially Asia where the United States had dramatically increased its military involvement)
that America is a liberal democratic state where everyone can enjoy upward mobility and
7Palumbo-Liu, David. Asian/American: historical crossings of a racial frontier. Stanford University Press, 1999

prosperity through capitalistic values. Most important of all, the minority thesis is able to
pronounce the virtues of capitalism while rendering the communistic values that the Soviet
Union advocated as harmful.

IV. Economic Context of the Perpetuating Image:

While the model minority myth emerged as a tool to detain and divert political activism
during the Civil Rights Movement, it is perpetuated as an economic motive in the coming years .
This economic motive to maintain the model minority image can be traced back to the 1980s,
where growing anti-Asian sentiments can easily be found.
Following President Nixon's imposition of wage and price controls in 1971, a wave of
cost-push commodity shocks caused a great jump in prices. Coupled with the 1973 oil crisis
where the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) constrained the worldwide
supply of oil, domestic raw materials (especially oil) dramatically decreased to a limited supply 8.
To complicate the matter, the price controls resulted in raw material shortages increased
production costs for many domestic industries.

During the same period, Asian countries,

especially Japan, are experiencing enormous economic growth. The American stagflation of the
1970s and the international competition from Japan set the scene of tension for Asians and
Whites in the coming decade. In the 1980s, the fear and resentment of Asians due to domestic
economic insecurities are more than apparent in the mainstream media, where successful Asian
stories are presented with an alarming tone. In a sense, through the reports of Asian American

8 Pierce, kenneth M. and Branegan, Jay. "Over a Barrel." Time Magazine, Oct 3, 1983,
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,926216,00.html

success stories, the media attempts to reinforce the alienation and otherness in the respect that
all Asian Americans are successful like their mother country.
A Drive to Excel, a Newsweek article that was previously mentioned, was one of the
best examples. As author Ono summarizes, this article explicitly mentions that white students
feel increasingly threatened and resenting towards the growing number of Asian students in
universities9. The article not only reported stories of white students dropping courses if there
were too many Oriental faces but also told derogatory jokes that MIT stood for Made in
Taiwan while UCLA stood for University of Caucasians Living Among Asians.
In fact, this form of derogatory depiction of model minorities is also present in other
press releases. Ono notes that media often discusses Asian success with almost alarming tones,
reminiscent of the hordes of Asians that threatened California in the late 1800s . He even
recalls that a New York Times Magazine described Asian Americans as surging into the nations
best colleges like a tidal wave and another author, when referring to the increase of Asian
students at Harvard writes, The figure is now 10% - five times their share of the population .
With such observations in mind, it is more than obvious that such media depictions of successful
Asian Americans are nothing more than a societal alert for the possible economic threats caused
by the Asian American community.

V. Implications of the Model Minority Myth: Why Do We Care?

The model minority Myth attempts to paint a positive image of all Asian Americans as
intelligent, hard-working, and self-sufficient. Yet, behind this positive image lies a diverse and
complicated community that finds this collective representation more damaging than accurate .
9 Ono, Kent A. A Companion to Asian American Studies. Blackwell Publishing, 2004

First, as Schultz mentions in his book, Asian American success stories have an adverse impact on
damaging race relations among minority groups10.

Popular media portrayals encourage

Americans to believe that America is an open society with numerous opportunities where anyone
can succeed through determination and a good work ethic . As a result, other minority groups
who appear to be less successful than Asian Americans are constantly blamed for their lack of
achievement in this open society. This unfair assessment of success can create anti-Asian
sentiments within the African American and Latino communities, where violent acts toward
Asian Americans are usual scenes. In fact, the violent murder of Vincent Chin and the Los
Angeles Riots of 1992 are prime examples of how violence can erupt toward the Asian American
community.
Second, numerous ethnic groups such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, etc. are
subsumed under the Asian American label. The model minority myth implies that Asian
Americans share identical experiences in American way of life despite their minority status in
American society. This interpretation is troublesome because it does not describe Southeast
Asians and Pacific Islanders who are mostly poorly educated, underemployed, and trapped in
low-paying labor jobs. And as for the group of Asian Americans who are relatively successful
when compared to other minority groups, the model minority stereotype is flawed in the sense
that it obscures many problems that successful Asian Americans face . The primary example is
underemployment and unfair treatment that Asian Americans face at the workplace. According
to Min Zhou and J.V. Gateway, highly skilled professionals never do as well as their non-

10 Schultz, Jeffrey D. Encyclopedia of Minorities in American Politics: African Americans and

Asian Americans. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000

Hispanic white counterparts11. Specifically, they indicate that Asian Americans often experience
disproportionate underemployment because of overqualification and overwork. To further this
analysis, Schultz also provided some statistics to prove this point. He indicates that AsianAmerican men are less likely to be in management positions than white men and other minority
groups with the same qualifications and that in the nations largest companies, only 0.6
percent of the senior management positions were held by African Americans, 0.3 percent by
Latino Americans, and 0.3 percent by Asian Americans . As a result, the one-sided picture that
popular media paints on the Asian American community overshadow the limited occupational
mobility and economic discrimination that many successful Asian Americans face.
To further the discussion of unfair representation of Asian Americans, it is important to
note such Asian American success stories trap many individuals in specific career fields . In her
article, Min Zhou notes that the model-minority stereotype places particular expectations on
members of the group so labeled, channeling them to specific avenues of success, such as
science and engineering which in turn unintentionally reinforces barriers for Asian Americans in
pursuing careers outside these designated fields. It is exactly this reason that many second
generation Asian Americans are discouraged from particular career fields such as English
literature. This rationale constitutes the self-fulfilling prophecy of the stereotype that Asian
Americans should only be confined within a certain career field.
Third, the popular depictions of Asian American success stories are not only inaccurate but also
detrimental to the welfare of the Asian American community . In his book Asian Americans,
author Pyong Gap Min argues that because of their image as successful and problem free, Asian
11 Zhou, Min, and Gateway, J.V. Transforming Asian America. In Contemporary Asian
America: A Multidisciplinary Reader, edited by Min Zhou and J.V. Gatewood, 134-135. New
York and London , 2007

Americans have frequently been eliminated from affirmative action and other social programs
designed for disadvantaged minority groups.12 As a result of their success image and low
dependency level on formal social services, American policymakers often assume that Asian
Americans generally do not have serious problems and that they should not qualify for federal
services. In particular, Min points to the Chinese residents in New York Chinatown and Korean
residents in Los Angeles Korea-town in 1990 as examples. He suggests that the poverty rates of
the two groups are 25 percent and 26 percent respectively . However, those poor Chinese and
Korean residents are not eligible for many welfare programs for which African Americans are
eligible.
Fourth, David T. Mayeda outlined another implication behind the damaging representation of
Asian success in his article.13 He suggests that the model minority myth can be used to control
Asian Americans and other minority groups. As previously discussed, the stereotype was
founded as a tool to discourage political activism during the Civil Rights Movement at the
expenses of Asian Americans.

The author argues that Asian Americans are chosen to be

represented with the model minority image because of the political silence and conformation
to societal norms among its community. The fact that they are easily used as the tool to achieve
political motives renders Asian Americans to be particularly vulnerable to political manipulation
and silencing. The presentation of the model minority image functions to encourage Asian
Americans to remain political silent and conforming when it comes to American politics.

12 Min, Pyong Gap. Asian Americans: contemporary trends and issues. Pine Forge Press, 2006
13 Mayeda, David Tokiharu. From Model Minority to Economic Threat. In Contemporary
Asian America: A Multidisciplinary Reader, edited by Min Zhou and J.V. Gatewood, 486-487.
New York and London, 2007

VI. Conclusion:
Though some racial stereotypes may imply positive characteristics among an ethnic group,
they are still problematic in the respect that generalize attributes of some members of the group
and assume them to be true and applicable to all others. Regardless of all the good intentions
that the mainstream media possesses, the labeling of Asian Americans as the model minority
does more harm than good. Perhaps it is true that the media can never determine an individuals
success or failure in when it comes to academics or career. Yet, the media should achieve a
higher conscious when it comes to stories of Asian Americans. After all, the model minority
myth not only dismisses many societal issues that succeeding members face while masking the
failures that others encounter, but also raises the barrier for Asian Americans to seek needed help
as previously mentioned. Recognizing the discussed flaws of such model minority stereotype,
the Asian American community needs to wake up to the call to reveal the wide range of problems
that the community faces and recognize that every member of the Asian American community
are unique, autonomous individuals.