According to the Claire Jean Kim reading, the model minority myth holds its roots in a politically charged time of American history, around the 60’s to the 80s. The forever foreigner trope seems to have lent a hand in the crafting of today’s model minority. As Asian-Americans are viewed as more Asian than American, this distinct quality means that As-Am’s hold tight to Asian values of family, work ethic, and apolitical opinions. The implication of the model minority myth is that what makes Asian-Americans distinct is their ability to prosper using their “ethnic differences” or what a New York Times article of the era called “Tokugawa values” of diligence, frugality, and achievement orientation. The creation of the model minority myth buckles Asian Americans down to serve as a foil for Black-Americans of the era. With the ability to point a finger at Asian-Americans and boost their achievements as “successful immigrants”, conservative society is able to distinguish Black-Americans as unable to succeed for ingrained reasons and due to their outspoken activism. The article “Success Story: Outwhiting the Whites” is particularly interesting and revolting in this case. “The author…contends that the internment experience motivated Japanese Americans to become better Americans. In other words, no amount of externally imposed hardship can keep a good minority down” (Kim, 120). For starters, it is purely outrageous and borderline blasphemous to claim that one of the most traumatizing and inhumane political actions of the century served a greater good in that POC learned some sort of lesson from it. To make matters worse, this statement of a “good minority” implies that there are other minorities which are bad and that minority groups exist as a cohesive monolith sharing inherent traits that determine their societal value.
We see the minority myth pop up in the affirmative action lawsuit. The AAAA seems convinced that Asian-American students are somehow more deserving than other communities of color. While there are certainly bright As-Ams, it is simply a false conviction and, as stated by Hasan Minhaj, perhaps not the hill we should choose to die on. Asian-Americans against affirmative action now seem to forget that it was originally implemented to benefit all communities of color and that we may not have been able to ascend in academic ranks if not for this allowance. This assumption on the behalf of Asian-Americans also makes me wonder at how our views of our own communities may have been shaped by outside sources and biases. If society has been fed false flattery about us for years, why would we ever have questioned it? What incentive was there for us to say, “actually, thanks, but I’m not sure that’s entirely true.” It’s this propping up of Asian-Americans as successful regardless of circumstance that has led to this entitled view toward college admissions. The referencing of “legacy kids” as another form of affirmative action is also particularly interesting to me. When we examine the percent of students admitted to Ivy Leagues based on legacy status, it causes us to re-evaluted why this has been an accepted norm for so long. Perhaps, this is the hill we should be dying on if fairness is what we’re after.
