The Emergence of the Asian American Sporting Body: Michael Chang and Model Minority Discourse in the Post-Reagan Era

Abstract

This research stems from an interest in the sudden rise of Asian American athletes' crossover appeal, both as athletes and as celebrities, within the conservative backlash climate of the post-Reagan United States. In this article, I examine the cultural meanings attributed to former professional U.S. tennis player Michael Chang (from 1988 to 2003) and offer counternarratives to tropes of American diversity and inclusiveness commonly found in stories about him. I first discuss the model minority discourse and its implications. Then I examine how the model minority discourse was embodied through the media's Orientalist representation of Chang's Asian American body and how his model minority identity was used to make sense of the Asian American athletic body's success in the White-centered tennis field. Finally, I examine Chang's images in television advertisements and explore how these images satisfied the New Right's conservative desire to create a rugged-individual persona to prove that the American dream remained a possibility without state intervention, even for minorities.