Model Minority Research Articles

How Should Clinicians Help Patients Navigate "Model Minority" Demands?

The "model minority" myth (MMM) has far-reaching implications for Asian Americans in many settings, including medicine. For clinicians working with first-generation Asian American college students, this article considers 3 factors that affect how the MMM plays out in clinical care: clinicians' racial identity awareness, cross-racial dynamics, and the extent to which a patient has internalized racism or oppression.

From the Yellow Peril to the Model Minority and Back Again: Unraveling the Orientalist Representations of Asian Americans in the Age of Covid-19

ABSTRACT Anti-Asian xenophobia and discriminatory acts against Asian Americans have increased significantly as the COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly spread across the US. But connections between diseases, racism, and xenophobia are not new in the history of Asian America. While from the 1890s to the 1950s, Asian Americans were primarily stigmatized with the label ‘Yellow Peril,’ from the 1960s to the present, they have been simplistically cast as the ‘model minority.’ However, with the outbreak of COVID-19, misinformation about the virus also spread, and the public perception of Asian Americans has shifted once again from their being the ‘model minority’ to being the ‘Yellow Peril.’ By looking at intellectual and cultural history, I argue that ‘Yellow Peril’ and ‘model minority’ are Orientalist representations of Asian Americans that have been used as hegemonic devices. Orientalism as a relationship of unequal power has structured the obstacles that Asian Americans have struggled against as they try to find a sense of belonging in the US.

Culturally Attuned Behavior Therapy for Anxiety and Depression in Asian Americans: Addressing Racial Microaggressions and Deconstructing the Model Minority Myth

Extant research has shown that racial discrimination and microaggressions can have negative effects on anxiety and depression among Asian Americans. However, not much has been published regarding how to process and integrate experiences of racism into culturally attuned behavior therapy specifically for Asian Americans. In this article, I describe the process of culturally attuned behavior therapy for two Asian American clients, with an emphasis on integrating racial microaggressions into exposures for social anxiety, and deconstructing the model minority stereotype through value-driven behavioral activation for depression. Cultural attunements common to both case examples are then summarized, alongside practical recommendations for clinicians. Limits to generalizability are also discussed. Finally, the article closes by addressing the importance of cultural humility in effective culturally attuned behavior therapy with Asian Americans.

Model Minority Stereotype: Addressing Impacts of Racism and Inequities on Asian American Adolescents Development

ABSTRACT Research related to racial discrimination has shown negative consequences on Asian American adolescents’ mental health outcomes. The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has fueled xenophobic and sinophobic discrimination against individuals of Asian descent in the United States. Yet, Asian immigrants and Asian Americans are often excluded from the discourse on racism, marginalization, and equity. Model minority stereotyping has portrayed Asian Americans as being societal successful and problem-free. Due to such stereotypes, Asian American adolescents have to navigate identity development, interpersonal relationships, academic adjustment, and psychosocial adjustment. The model minority myth also masks Asian American youth’s experiences of racism, discrimination, and oppression, and discourages their help-seeking behavior. This article reviews impacts of racial discrimination and ethnic stereotypes on Asian American adolescents’ development. Counseling implications for addressing Asian American adolescents’ racial discrimination stress are discussed. Strategies for promoting racial justice and meeting Asian American adolescents’ unique needs in schools and communities are recommended.

Overcoming constraints of the model minority stereotype to advance Asian American health.

Asian Americans are the fastest growing U.S. immigrant group, projected to become the largest immigrant group by 2065, but the quantity of research on Asian Americans' health has not mirrored changing demographics. Asian Americans have been understudied for more than 25 years, with only 0.17% of National Institutes of Health (NIH) expenditures allocated to projects including Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander populations (Ðoàn et al., 2019). This disproportionality may result in part from the model minority stereotype (MMS) being extended to health, perpetuating the ideas that Asian Americans are well-positioned with regard to health status and that associated research is not essential. Accordingly, the aims for this article are threefold: (a) bring attention to the inadequate representation of the Asian American population in health-related science, (b) question the MMS in health, and (c) outline potential pathways through which the MMS limits what is knowable on Asian American health issues and needs. We discuss the limited meaningfulness of nonrepresentative aggregated statistics purporting the model minority image and provide counterexamples. We also present a stereotype-constraints model with the MMS contributing to a bottleneck for Asian American health-related knowledge, accompanied by present-day circumstances (e.g., sparse data, few psychologists/behavioral medicine scientists focused on Asian American health). We conclude with initial recommendations for addressing MMS-associated constraints in psychology and more broadly. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

모범적인 소수민, 아시아계 미국 남성성, 그리고 『미국 출생 중국인』

This essay interrogates the model minority discourse and explores its counter-discourse in Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese (2006). Paying special attention to the historical context of racialization of Asian American men in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this essay sets out to investigates how such literary characters as Fu Manchu and Charlie Chan have developed American cultural biases against Asian American men. Pointing out that toxic racist narratives are intertwined with the model minority myth, this essay goes on to examine how Yang’s graphic novel challenges the model minority discourse of Asian American masculinity. American Born Chinese braids three different protagonists, each corresponding to a distinct narrative medium: the Monkey King (Chinse folklore), Jin (ethnic buildungsroman), and Danny/Chin-Kee (TV sitcom). My essay probes how all of the three stories examine the model minority myth and its attendant racialization of Asian American men. In doing so, I conclude that American Born Chinese asserts the conversion of the model minority into the “Asian American” as a new alternative discourse for Asian American men.

Demystifying and addressing internalized racism and oppression among Asian Americans.

Asian Americans (AAs) are a diverse group who come from many different cultures, backgrounds, immigration histories, geographic regions, and experiences. Unfortunately, AAs are commonly stereotyped as a model minority, used as an intermediary minority, and consequently have been marginalized and left out of dialogues of racism and discrimination. Internalized racism (IR), defined as the internalization of bias and oppression toward one's group, is an especially insidious form of divisive racism that remains largely misunderstood and unaddressed in AAs. In addition to devaluing oneself, IR creates division in communities and reinforces systems of oppression. This paper reviews the extant literature on IR among AAs and discusses the importance of addressing this deleterious issue and its consequences on individual, family, and community mental health. Moreover, I discuss and elucidate how stereotypes about AAs (e.g., model minority, perpetual foreigner, gendered stereotypes, and conceptions of beauty) directly promote and reinforce different types of internalized oppression (e.g., intraracial hierarchies, intraethnic othering, gendered emasculation, and hypersexualization, colorism and Western standards of beauty). Clinical and community recommendations are provided through a multilevel preventive intervention framework. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Risk and resilience among Asian American youth: Ramifications of discrimination and low authenticity in self-presentations.

This study examines adjustment patterns among a group neglected in developmental science-Asian American students in high-achieving schools. National reports have declared such schools to connote risk for elevated problems among teens. Asian American students are commonly referred to as model minorities, but little is known about adjustment issues within academically competitive settings, specifically. Guided by past research on culturally salient issues, multiple U.S. high schools were examined to (a) determine areas of relative strength versus weakness in adjustment of Asian Americans compared with Whites, and (b) more importantly, to illuminate salient within-group processes related to Asian Americans' well-being. Risk modifiers examined were perceptions of ethnic discrimination, parent perfectionism, internalized achievement pressure, authenticity in self-presentation, and closeness to school adults. Outcome variables included depression, anxiety, and isolation at school. Results demonstrated that Asian Americans fared better than Whites on anxiety and school isolation, but with low effect sizes. By contrast, they fared more poorly on almost all risk modifiers, with a large effect size on discrimination. Regression results showed that among Asian Americans the most consistent associations, across cohorts and outcomes, were for discrimination and authenticity. Findings underscore the need for greater recognition that discrimination could be inimical for students not typically thought of as vulnerable-Asian Americans in high-achieving schools; these issues are especially pressing in light of increased racism following coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Results also suggest that feelings of inauthenticity could be a marker of generalized vulnerability to internalizing symptoms. Implications for future theory and interventions are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Rendered invisible: Are Asian Americans a model or a marginalized minority?

In 1992, the United States government expanded a 1978 decision to observe Asian Pacific American Heritage Week to a month-long recognition of the contributions of Asian Americans to the country's history and ongoing cultural milieu. Since 2000, the Asian population in the United States has grown by 72%-the fastest rate of any racial/ethnic group in the country. Today, the Census reports that Asians comprise 22 million United States residents. Despite this unprecedented growth, Asian Americans remain largely invisible in the national dialogue and in scientific research. This special issue features theoretical, empirical, and policy articles that highlight Asian Americans in psychology. Asian Americans remain marginalized and invisible in scientific endeavors for several reasons. For example, consolidating many ethnic groups under an "Asian American" pan-ethnic umbrella masks meaningful cultural, linguistic, ethnic, migration, gender, sexual/gender identity/expression, and socioeconomic differences. These intersectional identities result in experiences that are multiply marginalized, contributing to invisibility. The model minority stereotype highlights high-achieving and successful individuals, rendering the segment of the Asian American population that is struggling irrelevant and unworthy of attention. This special issue directly interrogates sources of invisibility to synthesize theory, research, and policy focused on Asian Americans. The articles in this special issue focus on the intersectional spaces that Asian Americans occupy, unpacking the diversity behind the "Asian American" pan-ethnic label, experiences of identity and discrimination across a range of Asian American groups, and areas of theory/research/policy where Asian American experiences have been overlooked. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

What is career success? A new Asian American psychology of working.

Model minority stereotypes of Asian Americans as high educational and occupational achievers are perpetuated by conceptual and methodological issues in career development research that aggregate across Asian ethnicities and oversample high achievers. These issues render those marginalized, such as working-class immigrants with limited English proficiency, as well as their children, as invisible within research, practice, and policy. A new theoretical framework, entitled the Asian American Intergenerational Model of Psychology of Working (AAIM), questions the mainstream career development assumptions of linearity, stability, and upward mobility that reveal inherent classism. Building on the Psychology of Working Theory (Duffy et al., 2016); the AAIM broadens the scope and definition of work beyond career, and acknowledges the significance of structural and cultural forces on people's work and life. An expanded qualitative analysis of interviews with 17 low-income, working-class, Chinese immigrant parents (Tu et al., 2019) provides an empirical illustration of the intergenerational and coethnic dynamics of vocational experiences central to the AAIM. The working-class immigrants relied on coethnic networks to secure employment within a narrow range of options, many straddling helplessly between arduous manual labor and family demands. Though they had immigrated primarily to provide a better future for their children, many parents struggled to participate meaningfully in their children's development. These findings highlight the need to expand Asian American psychology of working to incorporate systems and social justice perspectives. Research, practice, and policy implications of AAIM advocate for maximal inclusivity and offer directions to address invisibility of the most marginalized and disenfranchised Asian American workers. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Who are the Asian Americans? Commentary on the Asian American psychology special issue.

For decades, Asian Americans have had to deal with stereotypes, misunderstandings of their status in society, and prejudice and discrimination. Because of their small population in the U.S. and prevailing model minority stereotypes, they have not received the attention or aid necessary for research and policy advocacy to counter the misunderstandings. It is argued that Asian Americans are diverse group on many dimensions but they share experiences involving stereotypes and racism. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Beyond STEM: The invisible career expectations of Asian American high school students.

The overrepresentation of Asian Americans in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) occupations can render invisible the early experiences of Asian Americans in other fields. In this study, we provide a national and longitudinal portrait of the occupational expectations of Asian Americans (n = 2,340) in high school and their postsecondary years. Multinomial logistic regression models confirm Asian Americans hold high occupational expectations in STEM fields overall. However, longitudinal results also reveal high occupational expectations in arts and sports in Grade 9 that decrease and occupational expectations in business and management that begin low but increase after high school. These longitudinal trends are similar for other students but reveal career trajectories of Asian Americans that receive less attention among researchers. Results show little evidence of misalignment between Asian American occupational expectations and academic subject interests in high school. Gaps in occupational expectations between students categorized as English Learner (EL) and those who are not (non-EL) are also mostly attenuated when accounting for individual and parent backgrounds. The study has implications for supporting Asian American youth interested in non-STEM fields, complicating a characterization of Asian Americans as model minorities uniformly predisposed for STEM fields, and improving Asian American career visibility beyond STEM. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

“People Get Mistaken”: Asian American Girls Using Multiple Literacies to Defy Dominant Imaginings of Asian American Girlhood

ABSTRACTIn this article, I use narrative portraiture as a methodology to inquire into the ways that two Asian American (AsAm) girls used their time in an after‐school writing collaborative for girls of Color to explore and express their identities and political commitments through multiple literacies. Building on theoretical foundations of AsianCrit, women of Color, and AsAm feminisms, and sociocultural understandings of literacies, I argue against the flattening of AsAm girlhood, rooted in the harmful intersection of sexism and stereotypes such as the model minority and forever foreigner tropes. Three learnings emerged from this study: (1) AsAm girls’ relational literacies are used to explore and express AsAm girlhood, (2) AsAm girls use multimodal literacies to inquire into and story their identities in ways that resist dominant definitions of AsAm girlhood, and (3) AsAm girls are holders of emerging political identities that can be supported through supportive literacy curriculum. The work of the girls featured in this article has important implications for the ways the field understands AsAm girlhood and AsAm girl literacies. I put forth a necessary call for more AsAm feminist scholars to work alongside AsAm girls to create richer understandings of their needs and desires and how we might support them through literacy pedagogies.

The ‘Hiroshima Maidens’ on Different Shores: Decentralising Scarred Japanese Femininity in the A‐Bomb Victimhood

AbstractThis article explores uneven histories of hibakusha (survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings in 1945) activism involving publicly visible nuclear injuries. By looking beyond the famous ‘Hiroshima Maidens’ and expanding an intersectional analysis of gender, race and disability to Korean, Japanese and American hibakusha, this article decentralises the scarred Japanese femininity in our understanding of hibakusha history. As Japan's former colonial subjects, Korean hibakusha successfully obtained disability compensation from the Japanese government beginning in the 1970s, helping Japanese and American survivors, too, to gain better treatment by the government. By contrast, US survivors remained unrecognised by any official US entities, despite the rising activism in Asian America in the 1970s. This article argues, it was a redefined, postcolonial masculinity of Korean and Japanese hibakusha that brought them tangible state benefits. In America, transforming gender was not enough to deconstruct the ‘model minority’ myth, which trivialised any physical injuries and disabilities among Asian Americans as self‐healable. Indeed, racism might have overwhelmed gender by making both femininity and masculinity irrelevant to racial minority rights. This illuminates a need to analyse the intersection of gender, race and disability in trans‐Pacific contexts so as to better identify the roots of nuclear injustice.

Profiles of Ethnic-Racial Identity, Socialization, and Model Minority Experiences: Associations with Well-Being Among Asian American Adolescents.

Ethnic-racial identity, ethnic-racial socialization, and racialized experiences are fundamental to the development of youth of color. However, most prior studies have examined their developmental impact in isolation. The present study fills this gap using a person-centered approach to elucidate patterns of ethnic-racial identity, socialization, and model minority experiences among 145 Asian American adolescents (Mage = 14.3, SD = 0.59; 65% female). Three distinct profiles were identified. Overall, adolescents with stronger ethnic-racial identity and more cultural socialization but less preparation for bias (Salient, 13%) demonstrated better psychosocial and academic outcomes. Adolescents with moderate levels on the six indicators of ethnic-racial identity, socialization, and model minority experiences (Moderate, 72%) reported better sleep quality and less delinquency. Adolescents with low levels of ethnic-racial identity and cultural socialization but greater preparation for bias (Marginal, 15%) had the least adaptative outcomes across all domains. The findings observed the heterogeneity of ethnic-racial experiences within the Asian American group and highlighted the importance of examining the combined influences of ethnic-racial identity, socialization, and model minority experiences on health and well-being among Asian American adolescents from a multidimensional perspective.

Review: The Racial Politics of Division: Interethnic Struggles for Legitimacy in Multicultural Miami, by Monika Gosin

Review: <i>The Racial Politics of Division: Interethnic Struggles for Legitimacy in Multicultural Miami</i>, by Monika Gosin

Racial Triangulation, Interest-Convergence, and the Double-Consciousness of Asian Americans

This Essay is part of the 26th Annual Georgia State University Law Review Symposium, "Social Equality and Racial Justice: What's Next?" It integrates Professor Claire Jean Kim’s racial triangulation framework, Professor Derrick Bell’s interest-convergence theory, and W.E.B. Du Bois’s notion of double-consciousness, all to examine the racial positioning of Asian Americans and the dilemmas we face as a result. To do so, it considers the history of Asian immigration to the U.S., the model minority and perpetual foreigner stereotypes, Asian Americans’ positioning in the affirmative action debate, COVID-19 related hate and bias incidents, and Andrew Yang’s 2020 Democratic presidential candidacy. The Essay examines how racial stereotypes of Asian Americans have emerged through historical cycles of valorization and ostracism, as analyzed through the racial triangulation framework. It analyzes how the political interests of the U.S. government converged with those of educated professionals in Asian countries, leading to changes in immigration policy and the emergence of the model minority stereotype. The Essay considers various ways that Asian Americans have been simultaneously valorized as model minorities and ostracized as perpetual foreigners. It highlights the affirmative action debate, where Asian Americans have been cast as high-achieving victims of race-conscious university admissions policies and pitted against other groups of people of color, culminating with the current Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard lawsuit. Finally, the Essay focuses on Andrew Yang’s presidential bid—particularly how his navigation of racial stereotypes reflected a double-consciousness that parallels the dilemmas faced by many Black Americans. The Essay concludes by arguing that to build coalitions and work towards racial justice, Asian Americans, Black Americans, and other people of color need to recognize their own double-consciousness and also see how it relates to the double-consciousness experienced by others.

“You’re So Exotic Looking”: An Intersectional Analysis of Asian American and Pacific Islander Stereotypes

We applied critical race theory’s concept of intersectionality to analyze the experiences of discrimination among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (APIs) in the United States, across race, gender, and sexuality. We collected tweets from October 2016 through December 2017 using the hashtag #thisis2016 on the social media platform, Twitter. Data were scoped down to 3,156 tweets and were coded by four members of our research team—all of whom identify as Asian American female social workers. Only intersectional themes related to the convergence of race, gender, and sexuality among APIs are reported in this article. These six themes include the following: (1) API women are perceived to be exotic and are overtly sexualized, (2) API women are expected to be passive, (3) API men are perceived to be weak and asexual, (4) Both API men and women are the objects of racialized violence and sexual harassment, (5) Queer APIs have unique experiences of sexualized harassment and violence, and (6) APIs are the subjects of neocolonialist attitudes. Taken together, these themes portray an intersectional understanding of the Asian American experience that counteracts stereotypes of Asians as the “model minority,” who do not experience racialized, sexualized, and gendered microaggressions.

‘The Screaming Injustice of Colonial Relationships’

Abstract An insensitive poem published in 1935 sparked a wave of outrage among the Indies Chinese students in the Netherlands. Titled The yellow peril, it had started as an inside joke among Leiden’s Indologists, yet quickly aroused the fury of both moderates and radicals. Their anti-colonial activism flared up for months, attracting numerous allies and eventually taking hold in the Netherlands Indies. After the Indologists had apologized, the number of activists willing to push for more structural change dwindled. As such, this microhistory lays bare some broader dynamics of anti-racism. We argue that ethnic Chinese, who continue to be portrayed as an unobtrusive model minority, have a longer legacy of activism than they are usually given credit for. This is particularly relevant in the present, when Covid-induced Sinophobia, anti-Black racism, and a reassessment of the colonial past are inspiring new movements and forging new anti-racist solidarities.

‘I’m picking a side’: Thick solidarity, antiblackness and the grammar of the model minority

ABSTRACT This article explores efforts by San Francisco based Asian American youth organizers to build meaningful cross-racial coalitions. Based upon two years of ethnographic field work with Fist Up, I offer an analysis of how youth organizers carried out the unsettling work of practicing what Roseann Liu and Savannah Shange have described as thick solidarity. Interrogating the model minority myth required that Asian American youth organizers develop sophisticated understandings its relationship to anti-Black political projects.