The Asian American Next Door

Abstract

This essay inquires into the aesthetic modes that made the concept of “the model minority” legible for mainstream white American audiences during the late 1950's and early 1960's. Specifically, it looks to the television sitcom, as both the television industry and Asian American communities rapidly established themselves in California during this period. In multiple instances, Asian integration into white suburban neighborhoods met with resistance (and counter-resistance) that drew local, national, and even international attention. Through archival research and close readings of episodes of the popular sitcoms The Donna Reed Show (ABC, 1958–1966) and My Three Sons(ABC, 1960–1965; CBS, 1965–1972), which center Asian American actors, I explore how television and its various stakeholders negotiated the incursion of Asian American neighbors. My focus on the domestic sitcom suggests the importance of looking to the domestic as that which generates the gendered and sexualized differences through which race beco...