Chinese international students’ perspectives on Asian Americans in the U.S. racial hierarchy

Abstract

This article examines how Chinese international students perceive the racial identity of Asian Americans and how they position this pan-national, pan-ethnic, phenotypical-based group in relation to other oppressed minorities. Drawing upon theoretical frameworks of the world racial system and racial triangulation, this article argues that Chinese students’ ideological socialization in their home country and college experiences in the host country jointly contribute to their knowledge of Asian Americans. To be specific, Chinese students subscribe to the racial stereotype of Asian Americans as ‘perpetual foreigners,’ and insist that they are difficult to unite but they have more racial consciousness as a minority than Asians from Asian countries. The finding further indicates, different from perceived racial stratification that Asian Americans are positioned as a ‘racial middle’ group in relation to White and Black Americans, that Chinese students subjectively think Asian Americans are (politically) positioned at the bottom in the U.S. racial hierarchy.