Asian American Experience: The Illusion of Inclusion and the Model Minority Stereotype

Abstract

ABSTRACT The stereotype of Model Minority is often applied to Asian Americans, whose educational and economic achievements are held up as a sign of successful inclusion into American society. Yet the deadly anti-Asian attacks following the Coronavirus pandemic have shattered this illusion of inclusion. Using trauma theories, I explore Asian Americans’ belief in the American Dream, alignment with whiteness, and the illusion of inclusion afforded by the Model Minority stereotype. In particular, I examine how the illusion of inclusion has obscured recognition of an Asian fetish, the sexualized objectification of Asian women and feminization of Asian men. Clinical examples illustrate the workings of racialized stereotypes and mutual dissociation of racial traumas in Asian therapist and Asian patient dyads. Finally, I add a plea for Asian American psychoanalysts and therapists to write and speak about their experiences from their own frame of reference for fuller recognition of Asian American subjectivity.