boston progress radio

The NYT covered a report last week released by “New York University, the College Board and a commission of mostly Asian-American educators and community leaders” aimed at exposing some of the falsehoods associated with the Model Minority myth—the perception that Asian-Americans are a homogeneous group of college-educated, middle to upper class people flooding America’s best universities and high tech job market.

The crux of the report “pokes holes in stereotypes about Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders, including the perception that they cluster in science, technology, engineering and math. And it points out that the term “Asian-American” is extraordinarily broad, embracing members of many ethnic groups.”

Some interesting points:

The report found that contrary to stereotype, most of the bachelor’s degrees that Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders received in 2003 were in business, management, social sciences or humanities, not in the STEM fields: science, technology, engineering or math. And while Asians earned 32 percent of the nation’s STEM doctorates that year, within that 32 percent more than four of five degree recipients were international students from Asia, not Asian-Americans.

The report also said that more Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders were enrolled in community colleges than in either public or private four-year colleges.

Robert T. Teranishi, the N.Y.U. education professor who wrote the report, states that the goal is “to have people understand that the population is very diverse.”

The first time I heard about the model minority myth, I didn’t understand what was so bad about it. Aren’t ‘good’ stereotypes less harmful than ‘bad’ ones? If Asian Americans are perceived as smart (albeit ‘geeky’), hard-working, and industrious, is that such a bad thing? Then I learned how the argument can be used to dismiss the concerns of Asian Ams, especially when contextualized within the concerns of other communities of color. The ‘model’ minority label also inherently places itself in juxtaposition. If Asian Americans are the model, what does that mean for other minority groups? (It’s like my father calling my brother the ’smart’ sibling—I think that’s potentially offensive, but I’m too dense to figure it out.)

I spent a lot of my youth in predominantly white middle-class suburban communities, where the model minority myth was rarely challenged. I learned about ‘Asians’ in a general sense in the same way I think many of my non-Asian peers did, through the small number of Asians I knew (who fit the middle-class stereotype), and what I saw on television. It wasn’t until I went to college that I started noticing how broad the umbrella of ‘Asian America’ is. In some ways I’m struck by how many people, despite being of Asian descent or living in diverse neighborhoods, still subscribe to the generalizations of the myth.

Considering Asian Americans are barely scraping 5% of the U.S. population, and heavily centered in cities, popular media remains the predominant representative of Asian America for many. The same way a picture speaks a thousand words, I imagine a Harold and Kumar speaks (or shouts over) a thousand academic reports. Depending on how and where you look, this can be hopeful, or not so hopeful. I’m excited to see how the new Clint Eastwood film featuring a portrayal of a Hmong teen turns out.

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