Asian American Model Minority Myth

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The black/white paradigm creates the foundation that the model minority myth is built upon. It is the concept that America consists entirely of only two racial groups – black and white. The paradigm fails to incorporate the experiences of other minority groups that also struggle with racism and discrimination. It establishes the fundamentals of the middleman minority phenomenon and the honorary white/forever foreigner, which all ties back to the model minority. Asian Americans are used as “a buffer between Black and White [as it] does not position Asian Americans outside the Black-White paradigm, but rather in a dominant place where they can be manipulated to serve the interests of the dominant group” (Chap. 27, pp. 604). The honorary white refers to the act in which the model minority is …show more content…

The forever foreigner, on the other hand, still deems them as an other due to their appearance, continuing this racial stereotype that they will never belong in the US no matter how hard they try. This inadvertently leaves them in the middle as they are not accepted by either the dominant group or subordinate group. The model minority myth heightens these differences between the Asian American community and other minorities, as well as whites. The model minority myth came out in the mid-1960s, prompting the idea that Asian Americans were becoming “white” due to the rising of their success, specifically that of Chinese and Japanese immigrants. They were targeted as they both experienced direct racism and discrimination yet overcame these barriers to lift themselves up in the racial hierarchy. The articles and press “attributed their winning wealth and respect in American society to hard work, family solidarity, discipline, delayed gratification, nonconfrontation, and eschewing welfare” (Chap.

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