Asian American stereotypes as circulating resource

This chapter examines the ways in which stereotypes of Asian Americans emerge as resources for Asian Americans. Drawing on theories and methods in linguistic anthropology, this chapter reveals how metapragmatic stereotypes are circulating resources that can be creatively recontextualized in interaction. It analyzes video‐recorded interactions among Southeast Asian American teenagers as they reappropriate Asian American stereotypes to: 1) position themselves and others relative to stereotypes; 2) construct stereotyping as an oppressive practice to resist or as an interactional resource to celebrate; and 3) bring about interactional effects from widely circulating stereotypes (e.g., Asian American storeowner) that are different from those from locally circulating typifications (e.g., Asian American minivan driver). This chapter reveals how stereotypes can be creatively recontextualized in interaction, incorporated into people's lives to various effects, and sought out as a means of identifying and imagining oneself, others, and connections between individuals and groups.

Asian American theater had a political goal at its beginning. It intended to overcome racial discrimination in theater by providing non-stereotypical roles for Asian American theater artists, and such a purpose was realized with the establishment of Asian American theater companies that encouraged Asian Americans to write plays about Asian American issues. The political features gradually waned over time, but Asian American playwrights’ approach to three Asian wars in the 20th century, which the U.S. was deeply involved in, has still been political; they dealt with issues of Japanese American incarceration during World War II, ideological conflicts and atrocities in the Korean War, and Orientalism and controversies over Vietnam Veterans Memorial during and after the Vietnam War. The plays shed light on often-overlooked history of racial oppression during the wars that should be remembered and criticize the ways in which Asian or Asian American stereotypes can institutionalize racial discrimination against Asian Americans.

The content of the Asian American model minority stereotype is important for understanding how Asian American individuals are perceived. Existing theories about stereotype content may not capture the unique historical and cultural context that could affect perceptions of Asian American individuals. We have identified a more differentiated underlying structure with four dimensions—warmth, competence, self-centeredness, and submissiveness—that differ in their rated typicality and desirability for Asian and White Americans. We then developed the 16-item Asian American Stereotypes Scale to measure perceptions of Asian Americans on these four dimensions. Ratings on the different dimensions predict unique variance in attitudes toward Asian Americans and other minority groups, contact with Asians or Asian Americans, perceptions of size of the Asian American population, and system justification. The four-dimensional model and the Asian American Stereotypes Scale allow us to predict and examine the unique impacts of Asian American stereotypes in a way that differs from more general models.

David Henry Hwang is best known as the author of M. Butterfly, which won a 1988 Tony Award and was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize, and he has written the Obie Award-winners Golden Child and FOB, as well as Family Devotions, Sound and Beauty, Rich Relations, and a revised version of Flower Drum Song. His Yellow Face won a 2008 Obie Award and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Understanding David Henry Hwang is a critical study of Hwang's playwriting process as well as the role of identity in each one of Hwang's major theatrical works. A first-generation Asian American, Hwang intrinsically understands the complications surrounding the competing attractiveness of an American identity with its freedoms in contrast to the importance of a cultural and ethnic identity connected to another society. William C. Boles examines Hwang's plays by exploring the perplexing struggles surrounding Asian and Asian American stereotypes, values, and identity. Boles argues that Hwang deliberately uses stereotypes in order to subvert them, while at other times he embraces the dual complexity of ethnicity when it is tied to national identity and ethnic history. In addition to the individual questions of identity as they pertain to ethnicity, Boles discusses how Hwang's plays explore identity issues of gender, religion, profession, and sexuality. The volume concludes with a treatment of Chinglish, both in the context of rising Chinese economic prominence and Hwang's previous work. Hwang has written ten short plays including The Dance and the Railroad, five screenplays, and many librettos for musical theatre. The recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim and Rockefeller foundations, Hwang was appointed by Bill Clinton to the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.

As one of the most visible and powerful media institutions of U.S. popular culture, advertising plays a central role in conveying and disseminating a dominant racial ideology. After establishing an analytical framework based on the relationship between racial ideology and stereotypes of Asian Americans, this study investigates how Asian Americans are represented in American news magazines advertising and how racial ideology is embedded within those depictions. Quantitative analysis found Asian Americans are frequently depicted as highly educated, proficient with technology, and affluent. A textual analysis reinforced these findings and also led to additional insights related to gender dynamics, potential conflicts within the Asian American category, and the relationships between Asian Americans and other minority groups.

This study examines how Asian American consumers respond to ads that use the “model minority” stereotypes of Asian Americans. Based on the theoretical explanations of the match-up effect between perceived spokesperson characteristics and product attributes, this study proposes that the existing association derived from model minority stereotypes between the model minority image and particular product types influences Asian Americans’ responses to advertising. This study further proposes that the level of acculturation influences Asian Americans’ responses to ads that use stereotype-consistent portrayals of Asians. Study 1, focusing on Asian Americans’ responses, indicated that Asian Americans responded more favorably to the stereotype-consistent match than they did to the stereotype-inconsistent match. Further, Asian Americans’ acculturation levels significantly and positively affected their evaluation of the ad featuring the stereotype-consistent match. In Study 2, examining Caucasian Americans’ responses, a significant two-way interaction was found, demonstrating that Caucasians responded more favorably to the stereotype-consistent match than the -inconsistent match in ads, similar to the responses of highly acculturated Asian Americans.

Is the posthuman postracial? Posthumanism, an interpretive paradigm that unseats the human individual as the de facto unit of literary analysis, can be a powerful tool for Asian American literary studies when deployed with attention to critical race theory and literary form. Throughout American literature, Asian Americans have frequently been figured as inhuman—alien, inscrutable, and inassimilable. Representations of Asian Americans as either sub- or superhuman populate many genres, including adventure literature, domestic realism, comics, and science fiction. This trope, which combines yellow peril and model minority stereotypes, forms a through line that runs from depictions of Asian Americans as nerveless 19th-century coolies to 21st-century robotic office workers. Manifesting both threat and promise for America, posthuman representations of Asian Americans refract national and racial anxieties about the fading of the United States’ global influence as Asian nations, especially China, become political and economic superpowers. Rather than directly refuting these characterizations, Asian American writers have creatively engaged these same thematics to contemplate how developments in science and technology produce different ways of understanding the human and, concomitantly, engender changes in racial formation. Novelists, dramatists, poets, and artists have all deployed posthumanism in order to conduct imaginative experiments that challenge expectations regarding the typical purview of Asian American literature. Several nodes of inquiry that demonstrate the importance of posthumanist critique for Asian American literary studies include race as an index of humanity, the mutability of race through biotechnology, the amplification of racial inequality through infrastructure, and the reproduction of race through algorithmic culture. In the wake of early 21st-century ecological disaster and biotechnological fragmentation, examining the evolving relationship between Asian American racialization and posthumanism continues to provide important insights into how race is structured by the changing boundaries of the human and, in turn, demonstrates that the posthuman subject is never “beyond” race. In addition to offering an overview, this article provides a case study regarding the stereotyping of Asian Americans as robotic.

This study employs critical ethnographic child–parent research to examine Korean American children’s lived experiences related to anti-Asian racism, looking closely at children’s ordinary interactions in their everyday lives at home. Children’s conversations at home were audio – and video-recorded and artifacts created by children and from school were collected. While children as co-researchers actively participated in the research, they shared their perspectives on race and anti-Asian racism, noticing the invisibility and stereotypes of Asian Americans. The children’s counterstories from child–parent research reveal that racialized discourses toward Asians and Asian Americans are not discussed at school even though children experience them. This study opens more conversations to understand and navigate Asian American children’s perspectives on race and racism and methodological insights for racially minoritized parent research with children.

The benefits of using films/movies in the English language classroom to teach culture and cultural awareness in addition to the four skills of language acquisition have been well documented. This study attempts to examine how Korean Americans are portrayed and depicted in Hollywood films which have traditionally reduced the complexity of Asian nations and cultures into simplified stereotypes. Most Asian characters were stereotyped as the “Yellow Peril,” “Lotus Blossom,” “Dragon Lady,” “Charlie Chan,” or “Dr. Fu Manchu.” Though these negative stereotypes were commonly used in early Hollywood films, they continue to appear in many contemporary films. In recent years, additional stereotypes of Asians and Asian Americans have appeared, such as the “Nerdy Shy Guy,” the “Anti-Model Minority,” and “The Greedy Merchant.” The study also examines how Hollywood deals with Korean women who do not fit the classic and contemporary negative Hollywood stereotypes. The study concludes by suggesting methods for identifying the negative stereotypes presented in Hollywood films in the English language classroom in order to raise awareness and when necessary to challenge these stereotypes of Asians and Asian Americans in films or other forms of media.

Okamura reviews the 2008 US presidential campaign and the election of Barack Obama as a ‘post-racial candidate’ in terms of two different meanings of ‘post-racialism’, namely, colour blindness and multiculturalism. He also discusses his campaign and election from the perspective of Asian America and Hawai'i given that Obama has been claimed as ‘the first Asian American president’ and as a ‘local’ person from Hawai‘i where he was born and spent most of his youth. In both cases, Obama has been accorded these racialized identities primarily because of particular cultural values he espouses and cultural practices he engages in that facilitate his seeming transcendence of racial boundaries and categories generally demarcated by phenotype and ancestry. Okamura contends that proclaiming Obama as an honorary Asian American and as a local from Hawai‘i inadvertently lends support to the post-racial America thesis and its false assertion of the declining significance of race: first, by reinforcing the ‘model minority’ stereotype of Asian Americans and, second, by affirming the widespread view of Hawai‘i as a model of multiculturalism.

This research explores the content of stereotypes about Native Americans and how they differ from stereotypes about other racial groups from a psychological perspective. Building on a classic social psychology paradigm, participants identified adjectives associated with stereotypes of Native Americans and either Asian Americans or African Americans. Native American stereotypes were less favorable than Asian American stereotypes, but more favorable than African American stereotypes. Predominant themes that emerged in the stereotypes participants held about Native Americans reflected being historic (e.g., ancient) and contemporary negative behaviors and outcomes (e.g., alcoholic). Furthermore, relative to the stereotypes about other social groups, stereotypes about Native Americans more closely aligned with participants’ personal beliefs. Lastly, along dimensions of the stereotype content model (Fiske et al. in J Personal Soc Psychol 82(6):878–902, 2002), Native Americans were viewed as less competent, less competitive, and lower in social status than Asian Americans, and less competent and lower in social status than African Americans.

Ever since the 1970s, as writers and critics began to develop an Asian American canon and search for role models for their own writing, Snow Wong and her 1950 autobiography, Fifth Chinese Daughter, have been forcefully criticized. Comparisons of the book to contemporary writing took place at Wong's expense, and she was accused of capitulating to her readers' tastes for exotic an era that prized overt resistance to such demands. (1) Scholars continue to debate Wong these terms, whether by attempting to recuperate her reputation (2) or by cautioning that Wong's accommodations of her white majority audience are still reason for concern. (3) This debate focuses not only on the text itself, but also on Wong's integrity, to borrow a phrase from Sau-ling Cynthia Wong's account of the pen wars concerning Maxine Hong Kingston and The Woman Warrior (29). Elaine H. Kim, for example, grants that the book valuable as a document of Asian American social history but considers the author herself psychologically vulnerable to racist demands and ultimately, in light of today's changing attitudes, rather (72). Similarly, Frank Chin questions her integrity both as a writer and as a Chinese American, stating the introduction to Aiiieeeee! that she was obviously manipulated by white publishers to write to and from the stereotype of Asian Americans (13). Wong's own (perceived) personal failings have been integral to criticism of her book. Because Wong's accommodation of a white readership is central to her reputation, it is surprising that no critic has yet examined her writing leading up to Fifth Chinese Daughter--writing that offers clues about the nature of that accommodation. Her earlier essays, published the magazine Common Ground 1945 and 1948, provide a kind of fossil record documenting the evolution of her self-presentation. If judged along the lines of the old resistance/accommodation framework, these early works do not vindicate Wong; at times, they demonstrate that she provided an increased level of exoticism writing for a broader audience Fifth Chinese Daughter. However, they also show the complexity of Wong's position as an Asian American author the postwar era, and an understanding of that complexity may lead to a more sympathetic reading. Based on her distinct personae the Common Ground essays, Fifth Chinese Daughter, and her life following the book's publication, I suggest that Wong's construction of different selves for different audiences indicates her artistic and psychological strength. By creating the figure of Jade Snow, Wong is able to meet the orientalist expectations of her world order to be published and, simultaneously, to separate herself from those expectations at a personal level. Rather than being pathetic or manipulated, she found ways to maintain control of her texts and her self-image, even the face of external pressure. A comparison of Wong's Common Ground essays and Fifth Chinese Daughter sheds some light on the issue of whether, how, and why Wong made adjustments based on editors' and readers' preferences, as both contain similar reworked for different audiences. Although Wong later claimed an interview that her book didn't duplicate any previously published material (Witness 12), and none of the three Common Ground essays appears its entirety the subsequent book, Fifth Chinese Daughter does draw on and adapt much of this and therefore carries the additional copyright years of 1945 and 1948. In the book, Wong's stories about her family and about San Francisco's Chinatown are expanded, contracted, recast, and recontextualized; some take center stage the book, while others are eliminated entirely. Perhaps most surprisingly for those who have read Fifth Chinese Daughter first, the personal essays Common Ground are narrated the customary first person, rather than the third person of her 1950 book. …

Students of color in higher education face myriad challenges that supersede the academic, including feelings of isolation, lack of belongingness, and overt discrimination that confer stress on top of their academic workload. One avenue to tackle these issues and reduce the negative outcomes associated with these stressors is the effective mentoring of scholars of color. Research has typically focused on African American and Latino scholars. Asian American scholars have received less attention despite studies showing high levels of anxiety, depression, isolation, and reported experiences of targeted microaggression and discrimination among this population. This article highlights the cultural issues that need to be raised and considered in the mentorship of Asian American scholars. In particular, mentors need to be aware that stereotypes of Asian Americans are pervasive, insidious, and harmful, even those that may be thought of as positive stereotypes, and to examine their own beliefs about them. Second, mentors should be aware of the cultural values that predominate in Asian American cultures-in particular, hierarchical collectivism and a high-context communication style-that may be at odds with the mentor's cultural values or pose as obstacles that negatively influence the mentoring process. Finally, broad considerations and recommendations for mentoring Asian Americans scholars are offered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

This paper focuses on three articles written in response to clothing company Abercrombie & Fitch’s new t-shirt line, which depicted Asian American caricatures that promoted negative stereotypes. The company removed the t-shirts from stores after receiving an overwhelming number of calls and e-mails from predominately Asian American college students. Although Abercrombie & Fitch took the t-shirts off the shelves, students and Asian organizations protested against the company, demanding more action to ensure that a similar event would not occur. In particular, this chapter first concentrates on the ways in which three college students use Burke’s (1984: 4) concept of burlesque humor in their articles. Next, we address how the rhetors use burlesque argumentation as a tool to save face. Third, we examine what we can learn from the limited audience of Asian Americans and how that can hinder the effectiveness of the burlesque arguments. Fourth, we then look at how the use of burlesque in these three articles was ineffective in producing a more dramatic and longterm transformation. Finally, we point out some required modifications of burlesque in order to advance social change. A closer examination of the three articles indicates how these student writers use burlesque to reprimand Abercrombie & Fitch, thus shedding light on the need to reshape society’s moral values related to minorities, specifically, the stereotyping of Asian Americans. In understanding the burlesque strategy, rhetors will have a better chance of creating a long-lasting difference when challenging the social responsibilities of major institutions, which often go unquestioned.KeywordsSocial ChangeWorld WideRhetorical QuestionWoman WriterWestern JournalThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Asian American Education--Asian American Identities, Racial Issues, and Languages presents groundbreaking research that critically challenges the invisibility, stereotyping, and common misunderstandings of Asian Americans by disrupting ‘customary’ discourse and disputing ‘familiar’ knowledge. The chapters in this anthology provide rich, detailed evidence and interpretations of the status and experiences of Asian American students, teachers, and programs in K-12 and higher education, including struggles with racism and other race-related issues. This material is authored by nationally-prominent scholars as well as highly-regarded emerging researchers. As a whole, this volume contributes to the deconstruction of the image of Asian Americans as a model minority and at the same time reconstructs theories to explain their diverse educational experiences. It also draws attention to the cultural and especially structural challenges Asian Americans face when trying to make institutional changes. This book will be of great interest to researchers, teachers, students, and other practitioners and policymakers concerned with the education of Asian Americans as well as other peoples of color.