Genre variation and minority ethnic identity: exploring the ‘personal profile’ in Indian American community publications

Abstract

Indian Americans, along with other Asian American groups, are victims of the ‘model minority’ stereotype in American public discourse. This article explores the relationship between this stereotype and the nature of personal profiles published in the Indian American community. To explore the relationship systematically, I employed a controlled comparison between profiles in Indian American publications and a ‘control’ minority whose various identities are less directly implicated in this stereotype. A corpus study was undertaken involving the coding and analysis of 135 profiles, divided between Indian American and African American community publications. The African American publications, including Caribbean and Continental African Americans, functioned as controls because of the low or irrelevant standing of Americans of African descent on this stereotype. Results show that profiles from the Indian American publications reinforce the high standing of Indian Americans on the stereotype, in contrast to those of the African American controls, which show little sensitivity to the stereotype one way or another. I explore reasons why Indian American publications reinforce the stereotype, in spite of the negative implications that follow from its status as a stereotype, and suggest that these reasons have functional value for cross-generational communication in the Indian American community.