This article was submitted by Amy Wong, winner of the 2023 Johnny Wong Memorial Scholarship Award presented to a top college senior.
In the summer of 2023, the Supreme Court banned affirmative action in college admissions. The plaintiffs succeeded in part by arguing that preferences for Black, Latino and Indigenous students discriminated against better qualified Asian-American students – once again spotlighting Asians as the “model minority.”
A defining part of our Chinese-American experience is how our lives are impacted by the model minority myth. The model minority myth posits that the relative economic success of Asian Americans can be attributed to our compliance with the law, our deep dedication and insistence on being educated, and our not rocking the proverbial American boat.
But there are very clear reasons why the phrase is model minority “myth” and not model minority “theory” or “principle.” The model minority concept of Asian Americans being racially superior to other non-white ethnic groups is not a sincere compliment, nor a framework developed to empower Chinese Americans – certainly not since we’ve spent so much time battling to come and stay in this Gold Country.
Illusion of Merit
No, its purpose in defining us as a model minority has not changed – ever. It began as, and remains, a divider meant to prevent solidarity among America’s nonwhites, to prevent us from realizing that there is no justice until there is justice for all. It is meant to create an illusion that America is a true meritocracy, with no barriers to all who enter here, thus shifting the responsibility of ensuring our survival to ourselves and not to a government/social system that claims to fairly represent all of us.
So, the metaphor extends to every other racial group that claims America as a homeland – Asians are the model, while non-whites who are not Asian are not models. This provides justification to look upon the non-white/non-Asians with distaste at best and at worst, contempt, for their purported laziness and unwillingness to break out of their lowly socioeconomic status.
Still Waters
Of course, I don’t want to imply that the success and stability culled by my ancestors, the generations before us, was done so by way of anything except hard work that allowed them to assimilate. It is in our Chinese culture to revere our elders. They have seen more, done more, lived more. Their material survival was contingent upon their stilling of the boat in waters determined to capsize the vessel.
So, they opened laundromats, and takeout shops, and packaged vegetables to eke out a day’s pay from a stack of peeling cardboard boxes. To argue against the efficacy of this lifestyle, and assert our elders’ incorrectness, is disrespectful to the core. After all, it is unlikely any of us have had to live in comparable poverty. Who in my generation was living six or more to a room in a building that did not meet the fire code, changing bandages stained with fresh blood from their most recent 14-hour workday? How can we have the gall to enjoy the fruits of their labor yet criticize the way it was grown, picked, and served to us?
Not Lacking
Rejection of the model minority myth does not necessarily have to mean rejection of how our elders taught us how to survive and preserve our survival. I do not claim that the success I enjoy because of my ancestors’ immigration is not due to their hard work, sacrifice, or endurance. I do argue though, that compliance with the law, dedication to education, and not rocking the boat are not attributes that other ethnic groups fundamentally lack in comparison with Asian Americans.
It is not for their lack of hard work, motivation, or dishonesty that they do not enjoy the same privileges as us – if one could so easily transcend the barriers of race and class with just hard work, then both concepts would be rendered useless in a larger scheme to maintain vertical, hierarchical order in American society. And even among Asian Americans not all have overcome these barriers to escape poverty.
Stooges to Ideology
Korean-American poet, writer and professor Cathy Park Hong wrote in her book Minor Feelings, “We will not be the power but become absorbed by power, not share the power of Whites but be stooges to a white ideology that exploited our ancestors.” The thing about the application of race and racism by far too many Americans is that it makes too many of us fundamentally unequal. In this context, race and racism are interlinked and cannot be meaningfully divorced from one another. Race is used to hierarchize, to say that one is better than the other, and so long as that remains what so many Americans believe, being labeled as the model minority cannot uplift and empower us Asian Americans to a status equal to White Americans.
Amy Wong graduated with a political science degree at UC Irvine. She plans to become a lawyer. She is the granddaughter of Kung Bill Wong. Her interests include making and observing art, drinking tea, and cooking.
