Starting off with the very first factor, educational attainment. This is a major impact on what kind of people we meet during our lifetime course. According to the US Census in 1990, about 2/3 of Asian Americans were more likely to have completed college. This significantly shows that Asian Americans were fairly focused on studies and considered education to be a priority. Not only are Asian Americans categorized as the model minority within the US, but also as mentioned by Qian, “members of racial minorities with greater educational attainment are likely to be more successful at merging into the socioeconomic mainstream.” Stratification theorists claim that as our society becomes more and more modernized, people increase emphasis on achieved …show more content…
This shows that education is highly sought after among Asian Americans but also creates a broad range of opportunities for them to meet people from other races. Educational homogamy is important when it comes to mate selecting, not only does education expand growth of knowledge but also weakens ethnic attachments. This creates social networks that link various opportunities for potential mates from different racial and ethnic origins. Therefore the higher level of education one has, the greater possibility of meeting someone with a similar or even higher socioeconomic status. Meeting people from different backgrounds increases within college campuses or even at workplaces due to the diversity within the community. Since highly educated people are able to meet in certain environments, they are more likely to intermarriage interracially than those with less education (Qian, 1999). Therefore this leads to Asian Americans to have better chances of meeting potential partners within college campuses and
Some college students might try to be more inclusive of others outside their own racial group by interacting across racial/ethnic lines. Humphrey’s states that although “students today do sometimes choose to live, socialize, or study together with similar backgrounds.” (575, Hoeffner and Hoeffner) however, she believes self-segregation does not appear to be widespread.
Both were exposed to various stereotypes and write on how the stereotypes are time again permeated across societies. Asian Americans are viewed as the ‘Model Minority’. Asian Americans have high rates of admission into institutions of higher education, low rates of drop outs and also higher grades across all groups. Asian Americans also have higher average annual incomes than other groups. Asian Americans also figure lower in crime rates.
My grandmother sent me a letter from home, telling the success story of her old Chinese tenants who, through hard work, had become very wealthy in the 9 short years they lived in America. My grandmother embraces the belief that "with hard work, patience and a little help from the model minority stereotype, someday Asians will gain full approval of white America". She believes that Asian Americans are inherently smarter, more diligent and thrifty than other racial minorities of our time. I, on the other hand, am skeptical towards this assumed advantage that other minorities have perceived as "elevators to the ladder of success" in American society. While Asian Americans are able to achieve acculturation by gaining material success, despite this economic advancement, they are unable to assimilate socially into mainstream America because of prejudice and discrimination.
The Asian-Americans settlement patterns were shaped by many decades of economic and social development in the United States. Since the Asian-American group is so large, it is often discussed in different ethnic subgroups. These various ethnic groups have many faced different struggles upon settling in America. Some of these struggles include significant racial discrimination in the workplace, low wages, and harassment, and violence. Despite the differences, most of these immigrants were drawn to America for better career and educational opportunities. Nevertheless, these immigrants have made numerous sacrifices, such as leaving their homeland in order to provide the best support for themselves and their family. The differences in settlement patterns over time can be seen through the ethnic groups: Chinese Americans, Filipino Americans, and Japanese
One theme that I found to be very interesting is the struggles that Asian Americans have faced in the past and the present. I never knew about the struggles that have been happening in places like China and Laos. I never realized how many families come from poverty and violence. I have only learned very little about historical events such as Vietnam. I am only now becoming more aware about the human rights problem in China. I am so used to seeing places like Tokyo, Japan in movies and television. Everything seems so clean and the city is lit up with bright lights and amazing buildings at night. Before this course, I thought that most Asians live this kind of life. I never knew that these events had even occurred and I was amazed at some of the things Asians have had to go through over the years.
Chinks, bad drivers, math and science nerds, F.O.Bs and ect. There are so many stereotypes and misconception for one specific ethnic group: Asian. But perhaps the most popular image of Asian Americans presented in society is being the “model minority.” If you were to ask any random person to pick a specific minority group that was more academically, economically and socially successful compared to the others, chances are 90% of them would answer: Asians. “Asians makes more money than any other race.” “Asians have the highest grades compared to other races, especially in math and science subjects.” But contrary to these popular stereotypes, the misrepresentation of Asian Americans as the model minority are false and simply just a myth. Furthermore, this misleading comparison may actually lead to harmful consequences in Asian American students.
If an Asian American is successful and smart, then it must be true about the whole Asian race. It creates false assumptions that every Asian is the same, which can discriminate and stereotype all Asian Americans who don’t belong in the category. This creates an unfair and unjust disadvantage and treatment towards Asian Americans who are targeted as one, in other words, it’s a problem that their needs and aids are ignored by society. According to the Pew Research Center data, recent trends show that Asian Americans are the “the highest-income, best-educated and fastest-growing racial group in the United States” ("The Rise of.”), who overtook Hispanics in the 2010 Census.... ...
Nakanishi, Don T., and Tina Yamano Nishida, eds. The Asian American Educational Experience. New York: Routlege, 1995.
The United States of America is the place of opportunity and fortune. “Many immigrants hoped to achieve this in the United States and similar to other immigrants many people from the Asian Pacific region hoped to make their fortune. They planned to either return to their homelands or build a home in their new country (Spring, 2013).” For this reason, life became very complicated for these people. They faced many challenges in this new country, such as: classifying them in terms of race and ethnicity, denying them the right to become naturalized citizens, and rejecting them the right of equal educational opportunities within the school systems. “This combination of racism and economic exploitation resulted in the educational policies to deny Asians schooling or provide them with segregated schooling (Spring, 2013).”This was not the country of opportunity and fortune as many believed. It was the country of struggle and hardship. Similarly, like many other immigrants, Asian Americans had the determination to overcome these obstacles that they faced to prove that the United States was indeed their home too.
In 1970, the term “model minority” was popularized by journalists, social commentators and some academics to refer to Asian Americans. The stereotype suggests that Asian Americans are more academically, economically and socially successful than any other racial minority groups, and it was achieved by overcoming disadvantages through hard work, thrift, strong family ties, and emphasizing children’s education. Contrary to this popular belief by Americans, the exaggerated praising of Asian Americans as the model minority is false. This positive image of Asian Americans as a model minority has a sinister core of believe about Asian Americans and other racial minorities in America: a view of Asian American as foreign. Since most studies on Asian children centered on their success stories and the realization of the invisible crisis that many Asian American children face is fairly recent, few studies have addressed the diverse and complex experiences of Asian American children, especially those who do not fit the model minority stereotype. This paper revisits the model minority myth and examines the impact of model minority myth on underachieving student who are failing schools. I will first present a contextualized understanding of the “model minority myth,” what is it and what does it mean to be model minority. Secondly, I will demonstrate that the myth has been inaccurate and invalid representation for many Asian American students. Then, I discuss the impact of the model minority stereotype on underachieving Asian American student schooling. I argue that the stereotype has pose a threat to the students’ advancement on school and society. In order to illustrate the impact of the model minority stereotypes on individual experiences, I r...
For 20 years, Asian Americans have been portrayed by the press and the media as a successful minority. Asian Americans are believed to benefit from astounding achievements in education, rising occupational statuses, increasing income, and are problem-fee in mental health and crime. The idea of Asian Americans as a model minority has become the central theme in media portrayal of Asian Americans since the middle 1960s. The term model minority is given to a minority group that exhibits middle class characteristics, and attains some measure of success on its own without special programs or welfare. Asian Americans are seen as a model minority because even though they have faced prejudice and discrimination by other racial groups, they have succeeded socially, economically, and educationally without resorting to political or violent disagreements with the majority race. The “success” of the minority is offered as proof that the American dream of equal opportunity is capable to those who conform and who are willing to work hard. Therefore, the term ...
In the end, it is up to Asian-Americans to discredit the positive and negative stereotypes. By assimilating with other race groups, Asian-Americans will gain more understanding from their non-Asian peers. In addition, when Asians are more forth-coming with their struggles, it will unmask the myth of perfection and allow others to see them as an individual.
The intersection of dominant ideologies of race, class, and gender are important in shaping my social location and experiences. By exercising my sociological imagination (Mills, 1959), I will argue how my social location as an Asian American woman with a working class background has worked separately and together to influence how I behave, how others treat and view me, and how I understand the world. The sociological imagination has allowed me to understand my own “biography”, or life experiences by understanding the “history”, or larger social structures in which I grew up in (Mills, 1959). First, I will describe my family’s demographic characteristics in relation to California and the United States to put my analysis into context. I will then talk about how my perceptions of life opportunities have been shaped by the Asian-American model minority myth. Then, I will argue how my working class location has impacted my interactions in institutional settings and my middle/upper class peers. Third, I will discuss how gender inequalities in the workplace and the ideological intersection of my race and gender as an Asian-American woman have shaped my experiences with men. I will use Takaki’s (1999) concepts of model minority myth and American identity, Race; The Power of an Illusion (2003), Espiritu’s (2001) ideological racism, People Like Us: Social Class in America (1999) and Langston’s (2001) definition of class to support my argument.
America has been thought of as a place represented by fairness, mixed culture, power and the dream of having a better life for everyone, whether a person is white, black, brown, and yellow. However, the truth is that racial groups have been segregated by the white-centric media or government of the American society, and that has widened the psychological and geographical distances between the two groups, Asian and black, and has encouraged ignorance and hatred. On the other hand, there are many conflicts between Asian and Black, due to their different cultures, experiences, and educational backgrounds. From the book Native Speaker, we can see how these different cultures, powers and identities deepen Asian-black mistrust, misunderstanding and ignorance, and sometimes these irreconcilable conflicts develop into hate-crimes.
We’ve all heard it said that Asian Americans are good at math; anything involving science, technology, and medicine. They study all the time, work really hard, and live a version of the American dream many of us never thought to dream of. And of course, we know these stereotypes are dangerous and often untrue, but perhaps we still find ourselves buying into them. Ronald Takaki”, the ethnic studies expert, writes about the idea that Asian Americans are more successful than any other American minority group in his article “The Harmful Myth of Asian Superiority. Takaki refutes this idea by strategically, and somewhat effectively, using reason, statistics, and word choice to show that Asian Americans still face some of the same hardships and barriers