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Yet another tired rendition of the old model minority myth.
It's used as a wedge issue to bash other ethnic communities, and yet it's also detrimental to Asian Americans - to live up to the pressure and assumptions, as well as mask other subgroups which are struggling.
Originating in the 1960s, the term “model minority” at first applied primarily to people of Chinese and Japanese descent, the two largest Asian ethnic groups in the United States at the time, according to Karthick Ramakrishnan, a public policy professor at the University of California, Riverside.
“[It was] not just the notion that all Asian Americans are successful or high skilled or high income, but also to contrast Asian Americans with African Americans and to hold Asian Americans up as models,” Ramakrishnan told NBC News.
During the ’60s, a decade that saw the modern civil rights movement take shape, African Americans were protesting and agitating for change, Ramakrishnan said, leading to contrasts between blacks and Asian Americans and the latter’s apparent successes.
“‘Instead of complaining and protesting, why can’t they succeed in the same way?’” Ramakrishnan said, describing the prevailing mindset. “That was the model minority myth.”
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Ramakrishnan calls it a myth because he says it failed to account for how the experiences of Asian Americans in the ’60s were “so different [than those] of African Americans, Native Americans, or even many Latinos, who were either slaves or had their lands colonized by the United States.”
But it’s not just those outside the AAPI community who perpetuate the model minority label.
“There are many Asian Americans who think that Asians might be naturally smarter, or there’s something about Asian culture that makes them truly exceptional, unlike other minority groups like blacks and Latinos,” Ramakrishnan said.
Those expectations, experts say, can have negative consequences.
“The averages look really good in terms of educational achievement or income. But in fact those averages mask a lot of differences.”
Liang, the mental health hotline counselor, said she handles a lot of calls involving academic pressure from New York’s Chinese population, which is the largest of any city outside of Asia, according to the New York City Department of Planning.
“They’re under a lot of stress because their parents sacrificed a lot and they’re trying to keep up their grades,” Liang said. “And they do go through a lot of anxiety where they have to leave school after the first year.”
“Parents are overworked,” she added, saying they don’t give a lot of attention to their children because of the long hours they work as immigrants.
“So really the only validation they get is from good grades,” Liang said. “That becomes their identity, just to get approval from their parents.”
Liang said she has also seen this pattern play out among students of Korean, Indian, and Japanese descent in New York City.
Today, as U.S. immigration patterns have shifted, the model minority label has also been applied to other AAPI groups, including Southeast and South Asians. This phenomenon, what Ramakrishnan calls “model minority framing,” presents its own host of problems.
“It’s kind of a statistical sleight of hand, if you will, a statistical misunderstanding that people think all Asians do well in math, because the average Asian American does well in math, or all Asians are high skilled, because the average Asian American is high skilled,” he explained.
“The averages look really good in terms of educational achievement or income,” Ramakrishnan said. “But in fact those averages mask a lot of differences.”
Southeast Asians are one group that often gets lost in the numbers. Take education, for instance. Cambodians, Laotians, and Hmongs all place at the bottom for degree attainment, according to AAPI Data, a project Ramakrishnan started. For those three groups, less than 1 in 5 have a bachelor’s degree or higher, the figures show.
Contrast that with Taiwanese and Asian Indians, of which roughly 3 in 4 have at least a bachelor’s degree, according to the data.
Some Asians, eastern Asians. Not Filipinos, Hmong, and a view others.
According to J. Philippe Rushton, The University of Western Ontario and Arthur R. Jensen, University of California, Berkeley in Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 2005, Vol. 11, No. 2, 235–294, THIRTY YEARS OF RESEARCH ON RACE, DIFFERENCES IN COGNITIVE ABILITY Ashkenazi Jews have the highest average IQ (110) followed by east Asians (105) followed by whites (100).
These graphs indicate that Blacks one standard deviation above their median(centerline) is equivalent to an Asian one standard deviation below their median!.
If accurate - and I think that it is - THIS SAYS IT ALL.
Unfortunately, any efforts to close persistent performance gaps between these groups is doomed to failure if they refuse to acknowledge the wide body of evidence available simply because it is unflattering.
People, please stop supporting your arguments by research from Rushton, who a simple Google search will show was a biased, sloppy, researcher with clear racial prejudices and right-wing racial politics. Jensen was pretty much the same. Both have been long discredited by mainstream science and neither are taken seriously any more—except by those who use their tainted research as a cover for their own racial bigotry and hate.
Many (most?) Asians in the US are the cream of the crop Asians, the ones with the brains and money to make it here, the engineers, the PhDs, the business owners, the ones on the far right of the Asian IQ Bell Curve. The median Asian is still back in Asia sewing Nike shoes or slapping iFads together or picking rice. Most of those in India and China live worse than the poorest Americans.
NO. It's not about higher IQ Asians coming over here, it's about their culture and them knowing that the best route out of poverty is to hit the books hard. The kids are raised to respect their parents and the academic process.
Years back, there was a tragedy somewhere in the Midwest. A drunk driver (American) had hit and killed two college students who were Chinese nationals. And doubly because their parents had taken out huge loans from other family members to pay for college. The parents were counting on their children to do well in college, and go into high income jobs afterwards... and being able to pay off those school debts. So their daughters died, and their parents still had to pay off those loans. And they probably didn't have the means to do so.
Asian (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian) culture for the win. Some Asian cultures are not as or that geeky. But if they are old school Asians, they all believe in hard work and many consider it shameful to collect welfare or unemployment and have children out of wedlock.
BTW I read somewhere that there are 17 different Asian nationalities.
What my mother told me was that in old China, those who were book smart were able to have inside "white collar" jobs. And those who were uneducated, had to work in the fields as farmers. And that work was hard manual labour, when all one had were a team of oxen and no machinery.
And another consequence was that those farmers, from being outside all of the time, had very dark tanned skin and rough skin. And that led to some prejudices of lighter skinned Chinese being better than dark skinned ones.
And this class system went on for many thousands of years in China.
I'm curious what's so different about Asians compared to other minorities. I've been looking at Greatschools.org stats and it doesn't matter if it's east coast or west coast, Asians do well at school and follow white stats closely but there's a HUGE disparity with Hispanics and blacks.
In San Diego I noticed a majority Asian school in a mid/low income neighborhood do great (at least on paper) comparable to wealthy majority white areas. In this particular school even the other minorities do higher than state average.
Although looking at other stats, San Diego county seems to be doing good with schools in general. But yeah, why are Asians different and what can we do to improve the school experience/results for other minorities?
I've dated several Asian ladies in my day, the common characteristic I gathered was that they really encourage their children to succeed, study hard, and they push, and instill those values into their children. It becomes a way of life and part of their culture.. Their kids just seem to keep their heads down, with an eye on the prize. But a lot of cultures do this.
That said, you can't just generalize a segment of population/society. Stereotypes are overrated. One of the Asian ladies I dated, for example, was horrible at math....go figure. She could never figure out the percentages when leaving a tip for a waiter.....that said, I've met, for example, Peruvians that have a great work ethic, and they are very driven. The misnomer that immigrants are lazy and want free stuff isn't exactly correct either. They work hard, want to feed their families, etc. they own businesses, the ones I've met aren't sitting home watching TV...
IMO, if you really get out and talk to the people, you'll find that most stereotypes just aren't accurate.
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Those expectations, experts say, can have negative consequences.
“The averages look really good in terms of educational achievement or income. But in fact those averages mask a lot of differences.”
Liang, the mental health hotline counselor, said she handles a lot of calls involving academic pressure from New York’s Chinese population, which is the largest of any city outside of Asia, according to the New York City Department of Planning.
“They’re under a lot of stress because their parents sacrificed a lot and they’re trying to keep up their grades,” Liang said. “And they do go through a lot of anxiety where they have to leave school after the first year.”
“Parents are overworked,” she added, saying they don’t give a lot of attention to their children because of the long hours they work as immigrants.
“So really the only validation they get is from good grades,” Liang said. “That becomes their identity, just to get approval from their parents.”
Liang said she has also seen this pattern play out among students of Korean, Indian, and Japanese descent in New York City.
Today, as U.S. immigration patterns have shifted, the model minority label has also been applied to other AAPI groups, including Southeast and South Asians. This phenomenon, what Ramakrishnan calls “model minority framing,” presents its own host of problems.
“It’s kind of a statistical sleight of hand, if you will, a statistical misunderstanding that people think all Asians do well in math, because the average Asian American does well in math, or all Asians are high skilled, because the average Asian American is high skilled,” he explained.
“The averages look really good in terms of educational achievement or income,” Ramakrishnan said. “But in fact those averages mask a lot of differences.”
Southeast Asians are one group that often gets lost in the numbers. Take education, for instance. Cambodians, Laotians, and Hmongs all place at the bottom for degree attainment, according to AAPI Data, a project Ramakrishnan started. For those three groups, less than 1 in 5 have a bachelor’s degree or higher, the figures show.
Contrast that with Taiwanese and Asian Indians, of which roughly 3 in 4 have at least a bachelor’s degree, according to the data.
All true.
I am a counselor. Among college students, Asian and Asian-American students have higher rates of depression and suicidality than any other cultural demographic. They aren't at the highest suicidality risk in the nation, but among students.
Out here on the West Coast Asians do not follow whites academically White's follow Asians academically.
Exactly. That matches what I've seen too. At first I didn't want to believe in the idea of a so-called tiger mom (or dad) but there sure is such a parenting type and it doesn't seem half as prevalent in the white families here as in asian families. That's not the only reason the kids are successful but it's a part of it.
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