I am not your model minority
Kinzie Gamaleldin,
West Lafayette, IN
Prejudice and Discrimination Course, Purdue University
Not Your Model Minority
Alexandria Le,
Hillsboro, OR
Sitting at home alone I watch as hate crimes against the Asian community spread like wildfire. It was about 4:00 PM on March 19 2021 when I received a text from a friend about the shooting in Atlanta. I read the text but had a hard time processing it…. I just felt numb. It was only a matter of time that the Asian community was rocked with something like this, a white twenty-one-year-old male was “having a bad day” and as a result lives were lost.
We are not your model minority. We have bad days too, after all we are human and will not stand to be objectified and disrespected as a white man’s fantasy.
You are not like other blacks.
James Tate,
Harvey, LA
Someone told me this intending a compliment
I am NOT your model minority!
Anonymous,
UW Department of Family Medicine and Community Health
The model minority stereotype is pervasive and cuts across all fields, including health. A few years ago, after several visits to the Emergency Room and then to Urgent Care (over a 5-day period), I was sent back to the ER for a CT scan to confirm the UC physician’s diagnosis of my condition. However, the ER physicians were not convinced of the condition that the CT scan confirmed. Their implicit biases about Asian-Americans as a model minority who do not have significant health problems prompted them to call another specialty department to examine me (twice). As the ER physicians discussed my case (in front of me), their main argument was that I was not white and therefore, assumed that I did not eat “American” food but rather ethnic foods, which they considered to be healthier. So, what I heard was, “she’s too young, too thin, not white, and doesn’t eat American food…” Thankfully, they DID start me on a round of two different antibiotics to treat my condition as they discussed this (I was pretty sick with a fever). Implicit biases, racial stereotypes, and microaggression in play in this situation.
Am I Asian enough for you?
Emily P,
Long Beach, CA
I am an Asian American that fell along the lines of a “model minority.” I was a straight-A student in high school and was in the orchestra for 8 years. Though people still assumed I was “whitewashed” or too “American.” I always thought about what it was that made me more “Asian.” Those who just perceived me from the outside just assumed I was whitewashed based on the clothes I wore and my proper English. I am currently a student at Chapman University and feel that I am still being looked at with a certain stereotype, especially with its lack of diversity.
Chapman University
The model minority myth blinds Asians
Dylan Ha,
Milpitas, CA
The model minority myth is the idea that Asians are the “perfect” minority. They don’t retaliate against the majority, conform to societal standards, and assimilate into American culture. This myth is used to create a divide between the minorities in America. The myth blinds Asians into thinking that they are not like other oppressed minorities like Black and Hispanic Americans. While minorities should be fighting together against the oppressive majority, things like this are used to create divides.
I am not your model minority.
Jennifer Ho,
Carrboro, NC.
I’m an Asian American woman and often times in my daily life I’m the only Asian American person in the room, sometimes the only person of color. And it’s exhausting to deal with the stereotypes people have, especially because they think Asian Americans are a successful “Model Minority.” And so I want to dispel that idea and work toward making Asian Americans visible.
Yellow monkey —model minority. Still oppressed.
Chris C.,
San Francisco, CA.
What is my place and where do I feel comfortable exercising my voice in the race dynamic? Having been raised as a model minority, I wasn’t confronted with race as non-consentually as other races, yet my people continue to be oppressed by the majority along levels of academia, professionally, in media, and more. Where do I plant my foot, and where do I lend my voice? It’s ready to be heard in firm nonviolence.
Asians ARE people of color, too!
Maureen Boyd,
Oakland, CA.
It is very hard when non-Asian people of color who are supposed to be your allies in racial justice do not honor your experience as an Asian person as an experience of a person of color. While the model minority stereotype, global employment markets and certain cultural values may have resulted in Asians being hired at high rates in Silicon valley, there are still many deeply impoverished Asian communities throughout America, and Asians and Asian Americans face almost daily racism. I have been called a gook by complete strangers, people have asked me where I am from, harassed by mother on the street, harassed ME on the street with fake “Chinese” sounding language, men have assaulted me and my mother, classmates, employers and colleagues have ridiculed our food, appearance, manner of speaking and cultural expectations. Men have told me they expected me to be “submissive.” These are real, ongoing and constant experiences of racism and it is time for other POC in the fight for racial justice made a greater effort to recognize and respect that fact.
Model minority myth perpetuates our oppression
Kristy Luk,
Cambridge, MA.
I am an Asian-American woman, and my racial identity is not to be used as a weapon of oppression against other people of color. My story, and that of my immigrant parents’, will not be held up as examples of how “some folks can make it, if they try hard enough.”
Model minority. Kinky ch*nk. Not relevant.
Sonya Wang,
Ballston Lake, NY.
Yes, Asian-American issues are not addressed with the same urgency as many other important issues However, they are not addressed because Asian-American issues tend to be placed under the blanket ‘model minority’ stereotype, and that is simply not true.
Number one bullied race in America
Hannah Lucky Tran
Philadelphia, PA
As an Asian American educator, I have personally experience and witnessed countless acts of bullying based on Asian identity and/or labeling. Society tends to disregard the Asian American experience, sugarcoating it with ‘model minority’ rhetoric. I hope to open up dialogue on the daily struggles of Asian Americans–beginning with the bullying that occurs in our schools.
