On March 3, 1991, Rodney King, an African American man was brutally beaten by police officers. This incident was caught on tape and the beating was shared across America through mass media and the national press. The jury for the trial of the officers acquitted all four. The eruption that followed in many cities was anger against the blatant racism of white America. But the vehement attacks fell on a third party, the other minorities in multiethnic inner cities, Latinos and Asians. The reasons, such as anger and frustration, at the existing system of justice, for such displaced reactions, are not far removed from the, black and white, conflict although the victims of such were not primary actors of the incident. In the infamous case, the 1992 L.A. riots, the African American community burned and looted the Korean American community. Many argue, the real motivation underscores a complex set of circumstances; social, economic, class, race, and poverty. In any case, stereotypes play an important role as it connects the two races, African Americans and Asian Americans, to the dominant white America.

These relationships perpetuate and are caused by stereotypes that create a hierarchy of races with the whites on top, minorities on bottom. The deceptions of this precarious structure are that Asian Americans are somehow in between, rising above other minorities and going up. In fact, recent study discloses that, race and gender, relationships rest on the perspective of American society and of its culture, as masculine ideals, subjecting Asian minorities-both male and female-as their feminine codependents. This paper attempts to support the argument of interconnected, race and gender, relations by identifying the, multiple definitions and perceptions, of the model minority stereotype, appearing in the popular press since the early 1960’s, for Asian Americans. It discusses how these stereotypes exist in multiplicities, starting with a pervasive general myth, the glass ceiling within the model minority myth, the dual stereotype placed on Asian women, and the consequences of all the stereotypes for the distinct identity of Asian men. Then, the latter part of the paper applies and parallels this complex, hierarchal structure of stereotypes to the historical context of Korean Americans in the L.A. riots, making evident the disillusionment of the American dream based on the “model minority” as a myth, the rise of Korean merchants in relation to the glass ceiling, the real role of Korean women in merchant families, and the emasculation of the Korean community parallel to the Asian man’s.

The sources necessary to support this study depended on several areas of interest, although the central topic discussed by all the sources is the model minority stereotype. Three of the seven sources were found in the journal India Abroad. Simply these suggest that the prevalent stereotypes of Asian Americans are common for all Asians, South as well as the Far East. Two other sources included the word “Asian,” suggesting inclusion of all groups. Only one reference was linked directly to a guide concerning the model minority, the website: http://modelminority.com. The last source remains central to understanding the Korean American experience, particularly in the L.A. riots. The book entirely devoted to this was Blue Dreams, which appears to be the recent primary source most thoroughly devoted to the experience currently available.

First, “model minority” has to be identified as a general term. The media and popular culture dispense this notion generally to all Asians. In India Abroad, Aziz Haniffa (1999) says, an Asian American attorney ascertains the myth, created by mainstream America and the media, that “… fuels the false stereotype that all Asian Americans are successful all of the time” (p. 27). It sounds very simple. But the laudable attribution to Asian Americans consists of many dimensions of this falsity, all at once, almost defeating its purpose, and binding Asians to a very certain ideal. According to Ela Dutt (1995), in India Abroad, the Federal Glass Ceiling Commission (FGCC) described just how high of a standard must be kept with descriptions like “intelligent, hardworking, highly educated, occupational successful, patient, polite, nonconfrontational, nonviolent, law-abiding, politically passive, culturally resourceful, detail-oriented and good at science, engineering and technology” (p. 6). But these attributes, supposed accolades, almost set the minority up for a fall, having nowhere to go but fall short of being the model minority. In Asian Pages, Karen Muchenhirn (1993) features the ideas of Asian American poet Nellie Wong who ascertains that the label suggests, “… we’re so good that we have no problems. We are dehumanized by that” (p. 6). In fact, minorities remain human, and having such onerous expectations put on them perhaps makes their discrepancies (or shared human weaknesses) in character magnified and more unacceptable.

The model minority stereotype may set the minority of Asians in America apart, as a standard and also by merit, but it precludes their present reality. Believing this myth for Asian Americans means buying into another myth, the American dream. If they maintain this model image, Asians believe that America offers them a good life of rewards, success, wealth, status and power.

But in reality, Asians curiously hit an invisible barrier to the American dream. Dutt states that this glass ceiling “… blocks minorities or women from the upper levels of corporate management” (p. 42). The glass ceiling in fact reveals the other side (of the coin) of the model minority and its racism implication. Dutt elaborates on what the FGCC finds about the first myth and reports “… these same stereotypes do turn negative,” and Asians become also perceived as “… passive, unassertive, indirect, more equipped for technical than people-oriented work, and therefore not leadership material” (p. 42). These images do more widespread damage than just in corporate American, though. In the media, Muchenhirn notes, Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” depiction of Korean grocers as “money grabbing, thankless workers was derogatory” (p. 6). Portrayals such as this are frequently digested by consumer America from popular media. Moreover, Wong suggests “These films reflect our reality. They express the pervasive anti-immigrant and anti-Asian sentiment among the dominant culture” (p. 6). Even if the model minority stereotype fails, as a myth, its positive attributes have become darkened by the daily conceptions of hatred against Asians, forcing them to live with the reality of disillusionment with no upward mobility, the reality of the glass ceiling.

The common misconceptions like those depicted in the media, have become more pervasive than they appear, for example, as Spike Lee’s Korean grocer. The generalities appear definitely trans-cultural among Asians, but they have spread, tacitly, against Asian women as well as their male counterparts, and to a similar degree. The FGCC says “Though there are few reports on attitudes toward Asian and Pacific islander women,” the commission said, “they faced the same kinds of obstacles as the men” (p. 42). In fact, women receive almost identical, negative notions. The FGCC finds “Women from these ethnic groups are perceived as content with the status quo, inflexible and lacking interpersonal skills and political savvy. And co-workers do not consider Asian women to be threats to their jobs, but neither do they consider them to be tough enough to be groomed for leadership” (p. 42). Once again, Asian Americans, not necessarily male, encounter the sentiment behind the expectations placed on them.

Unfortunately, women do not get excluded from coming short of their American dreams, also, hitting the same glass ceiling. Haniffa elucidates the understanding of the invisible barrier as “discrimination on the basis of accent, religion, race or national origin, and sexual harassment at the workplace” (p. 27). The glass ceiling works against many identities, including women. Then, the question is whether these identical male and female hindrances engender different experiences for the two agents.

Biologically and traditionally, by characteristics, men and women function differently and produce disparate gender responses to many of life’s identical circumstances. Reasonably, the argument that the feminine response to Asian American stereotypes varies from the masculine should exist. In Haniffa’s article, she explains Asian American civil rights attorney Deepa Iyer’s opinion that “while the issues of the glass ceiling and workplace discrimination were difficult in themselves, dealing with them as Asian-American women made these problems even harder to solve” (p. 27). This makes sense, when the agent of the Asian American minority identifies themselves by gender because gender also has its own stereotypes. More concisely, Haniffa reports the Asian American woman considers herself a “minority within a minority” (p. 27). But this radically suggests these women have more strikes against them than the men, placed at a lower disadvantage than them. So in following the answer of the dichotomy of experiences, the next question concerns what occurs apart from the Asian American males’ setbacks.

A separate, stereotypical portrayal of Asian women has historically developed also in the media, underscoring the strong history of the stories brought back West from merchants exploring the Orient. Race does not necessarily cause these images used against Asian women. Masculine, Western society already saw women as the Other, not part of it. Race and the Western view of Asian minorities also as the Other only substantiate this exclusion for Asian women. This gender divide can partly blame the market of consumerism (dating back to overseas trading). Eventually, America markets what sells. And the dominant American culture has accepted the marketing slogan, sex sells. Wong explains:

"This dominance is not based on the skin color of white people but on the economic system which is based on a system in pursuit of profits not on human need..." (p.6)

The American market idealizes Asian women as weak, exotic, and erotic objects of fantasy and pleasure for possession, without any less, enticing or attractive, human qualities. Muchenhirn shares Wong’s strong feminist focus on the issue that she believes “Asian Pacific American women have been sexualized in American society and viewed as sexual objects, not as human beings” (Muchenhirn). These views have degraded Asian women as things which serve the men, whether Asian or white, creating the female Asian American stereotype and engendering a far divergent role for women in American society. In Asian Week, Jane Bahk (1993) claims Jude Narita’s Asian one-woman show presents clichés of Asian women in order to dispel the stereotypes of them, “the Vietnamese prostitute, the mail-order bride, and the ‘nice’ Japanese American daughter” (p. 1). Some of these images may only allude to sexuality, but all provoke another standard of the Asian American altogether. They do not preclude the generalizations that are placed upon Asian Americans as a homogeneous minority group, but overburden the women with yet more expectations. Narita identifies the standard image of the Asian female is exotic, docile, and servile (p. 1). Such that she claims the only roles (in the nineties) for Asian women actors included only prostitutes.

Yet, if the minority within a minority means a disparaging identity in mainstream American culture, this should not repudiate the distinct Asian male identity. They too deserve a voice. Yet, with the general stereotypes in place by dominant society, men have lost also identity by gender as well as women. In his article “Yellow Porn,” Harry Mok (2003) acknowledges both the women and men and ascertains “… Asian-American sexuality, which he says has been damaged by years of colonialism and racism that has turned Asian women into a sexual fetish and Asian men into eunuchs” (p. 1). The sexual accentuation of Asian women has, in fact, left her counterpart with no sexual identity. The Asian American voice became trapped between the illusion of having the means to attain the American dream and the reality of a glass ceiling, but a discriminating, dominant culture delimited a sexual identity only to women, reestablishing white male dominance, while the Asian male identity is negated in the process, leaving them oppressed and caught between the dominant, white, male power and their oppressed Asian women counterpart.

In this progressive argument believing the model minority myth results in a downward degradation of the Asian American identity. The next level to this discussion will try to realize the misconceptions of Asians as an evident part of American society, in this case the Korean American relations in its community during the L.A. riots. If Asian minority stereotypes have generalized all Asians into such an excluded, feminized status, the Korean Americans, as only one subgroup, do not go exempt from falling under the pervasive American impressions of minority races. When the clash of racial divides triggered (what some say is) the nation’s first multiethnic urban riot, L.A. has become an ideal field to palpably find evidence of a detrimental hierarchy of, Asian and gender, stereotypes.

The model minority myth has its qualities of harmlessness because they present the Asian American in a positive light. But these accolades have a suspicious expectation of perfection. No one, including minorities, could possibly exemplify every desirable attribute relating to meekness and the hard work ethic-perhaps only a divine servant such as Christ could claim that, and even then, Christians believe he is God. Though, if (say) by some miracle the myth holds true, America has fulfilled its prophecy as the land of opportunity and the American dream. During the time of the L.A. riots, Asian Americans did not realize their dream. Instead, the American dream proved itself a myth, owing to the chaos and destruction of Koreatown, where many worked and toiled every day. In Nancy Abelmann and Jon Lie’s (1995) accounts of Korean Americans and the L.A. riots, Blue Dreams, attest to the uncertainty of the American dream:

None of the portraits of Korean Americans across the American ideological spectrum captured the complex realities of Korean American lives. In part this was because writers mobilized Korean Americans for one or another interpretation of the riots. There are, of course, glimpses of the truth in many of these accounts. Yet we must be mindful both of the transnational dimension of Korean Americans and their irreducible diversity. In turn, understanding their situations and listening to their voices challenges some of the dominant assumptions about the United States. (p. 10)

America may have enticed immigrants with the lure of opportunity and material success, and they had no reason not to buy into it, but 1992 shattered the glossy image of the model minorities’ aspirations. The Korean community realized their demise for chasing just a dream, revealing an American creation of a foreigner’s hope. Abelmann and Lie retell a young Korean student expressing his crushed adorations, “How do I explain it? … I have been here seven months. When I came here I said to my friends, this is gorgeous. This is beautiful. Now my American dream is broken. I am so disappointed in American people” (p.39). What transpired in the L.A. riots did reduce many noble images of American life, but they also fueled the media’s desire to capture new images to sell to the public.

In this way, they (and mainstream America) began to use portrayals of minorities in new ways yet reinforcing the myths that already existed. Abelmann and Lie say, “Images of armed Koreans, smiling looters, a framed photo of Martin Luther King, Jr., amid riot mobile, and arrested looters laid out on the pavement were among the canonized views of the riots” (p. 39). The images of American media used broken stereotypes to inflate the victim status of Korean American shop owners only to demonize the rioters perhaps in order to save face, for the black community largely responsible for the riot acts believed they had the right to justice as the real victims against white America. Although the media did vary their portrayals, moreover, the media tried to turn the public’s attention away from any damaging to and faultfinding with the white American authority even at the expense of contradicting the prevalent model minority stereotype. For instance, Abelmann and Lie agree, “… armed Korean Americans on rooftops and in cruising vehicles overturned the stereotypes of meek and diffident Asian Americans” (p. 9). Even with such images, most media reports continued to present Korean Americans in a positive light, trying to denounce the mob violence, and yet again promote America as still an ideal place of opportunity. Although Koreatown helped only to segregate wealth in L.A. between black and white communities by using the income from black patrons to move to the suburbs, Abelmann and Lie claim, “Korean Americans emerged as the model minority, immigrant entrepreneurs who had realized the American dream” (p. 9). Nevertheless, media could not hide the fact that this dream remains within the purview of the mini-mall in Koreatown.

The preservation of the, model minority status and their dreams, did not reveal the true nature of the lives of Koreans in America, the land of plenty. If hard work meant realizing their American dream, it seems Korean Americans (and other minorities) should have risen in society much higher than the confines of the mini-malls of L.A. The harsh realities of, hard work and no pay off, seem all to true. In their book, Abelmann and Lie mention the following to describe just how difficult the climb many immigrants have experienced in the past and in relation to the present situations of Korean Americans:

A Korean American businessman who came to Los Angeles for the first time in 1964 recalled the sight of illegal Korean immigrants who had arrived via Saigon, mess bits dangling from their belts, using outdoor public faucets to brush their teeth and wash their faces. Their collective image was negative. A 1972 report, for example, printed a bleak picture of Korean Americans in Los Angeles: “Their rudimentary agrarian background has not equipped them with the skill essential to breaking their way in their sophisticated new world” (Kwan 1972, p. 17). (pp. 99-100)

Undoubtedly, many Koreans had no where to go in America but up. Furthermore, Abelmann and Lie note, “In early 1970’s we find none of the accolades that were to stereotype Korean Americans in the 1980’s (pp. 99-100). These stereotypes were created, not depicting the reality of American sentiment over the plight of Korean immigrants who did not have all the capability as the expectations set on them, now, suggest, proving the myths do more harm than use. And the picture of immigrant life in America, although better, still bring light to the restrictions they indeed have, a glass ceiling over years of work and toil, producing only places in society, such as the shops in L.A., where they see the dollar but only with, long hours and sacrifice.

If the future has looked bleak, or less promising, for most immigrants in American, the endless servitude appears more haunting for the Asian woman trapped under another “glass ceiling” within her own home. According to Abelmann and Lie, “For many women, moreover, the traditional patriarchal family-both its gender and inequality and its familial obligations-became increasingly loathsome in their private lives. The normative Confucian family structure in South Korea burdens married women with duties to nurture their husband’s immediate and extended families” (p. 70). In reality, Korean women are not living the exotic lives as sexual objects of American fantasy and desire. This stereotype neglects to see the immigrant women as part of what Abelmann and Lie identify as “cheap labor-whole families work absurdly long hours for minimum returns” (p.117). According to one Asian American woman, those taking advantage of the stereotype of Asian woman are military brides who have obtained lives at a “high level” (p.117). But the cost for either commitment usually means giving her life over as a slave to the myth of the American dream or the American man, both not perfect ideals. The discussion in Blue Dreams fails to recognize Korean women (any Asian women) as anything else in America or as participants in the L.A. riots. Since sex was not sold in the media, as an issue in the riots, and mainstream American has known Asian women primarily as sexual objects, it seems their voice(s) was not necessary to reveal or even recognize.

Consequently, the loss of voice for Korean American women of L.A. in both the dominant American society and in the Korean community alludes to male dominance. For the Korean man can claim the patriarchal power in his family, but this does not assume he has a voice, or identity, in the greater American community. Ji-Yeon Yuh (2002) explains in her book Beyond the Shadow of Camptown, “The relationship between Korea and the United States is itself gendered, with Korea inscribed as the feminine other in need of protection and the United States playing the role of the masculine superior and guardian” (p. 10). The uselessness of an onerous model, broken dreams, the setback by an invisible barrier, and emasculated by a sexist desire over their Asian women; the poor, Korean American man has found his domain shut out. Before the riots, the stereotypes of a weaker, servile Korean people helped perpetuate a community that went unrecognized and disappeared from the greater Los Angeles America community. The clear negation of Koreatown is described by Abelmann and Lie:

Although devoid of a center, Koreatown is recognizable by its Korean-language signboards, South Koreans and Korean American business establishments and some Korean-style buildings with blue roof tiles. According to a 1986 study, however, more than half the Korean Americans surveyed could not name a recognizable characteristic of Koreatown. Koreatown was, in other words, “illegible.” This is symptomatic of the minority presence of Korean Americans in Koreatown, despite its Korean façade. The "illegibility” is not confined to Korean Americans. In spite of its size and proximity to downtown, Koreatown remains a foreign territory for many Angelenos. (p. 102)

The unrealistic stereotypes have allowed negative attitudes to shape the relations in America, in and around L.A., and in Koreatown. But these opinions remained highly influenced by the, images and portrayals, found in the media during the riots, perhaps becoming more negative against Korean communities. Abelmann and Lie continue to discuss the attitudes that shaped the sentiment toward Koreatown after the riots. They tell accounts of the-current and old-notions of the minority community and use words such as “bad,” “violent,” and “dangerous” (p.103). It appears the media’s view of the, black (and white) and Korean, conflict put more fear into the situations than provoking any recourse. In any case, Koreans who can have largely left and moved to suburbs and smaller cities, while many of the places remain decimated.

In conclusion, the future of Korean communities, like L.A. Koreatown, will continue to find unrest if people try to avoid looking at, race and gender, relations without a bigger picture in mind. Clearly, the circumstances moments before the riots did not explain why the wrath fell on the minority community. In fact, the riots also included and affected Latinos who comprise much of the service as dishwashers and cooks for Korean store owners. If the perpetrators of the crime did an injustice to, Rodney King and the African American people, this does not explain why the black American communities directed their vengeance on other minorities. The backlash needs a bigger scope finder. The intertwining connections running through race relations in America, especially in L.A., finds its nexus with a model minority stereotype, which effects a glass ceiling, perpetuates gender stereotypes, and reveals a defunct American reality.

For further study, the repercussions of the dominant, generalizing stereotype of the model minority myth can generate many more levels of negative identities and consequences for Asian minorities (and others). A study of stereotypes placed on Korean Americans in L.A. only draws out one group of Asians. Other studies can include how racial stereotypes affect other minorities and their cultures differing from the Korean experience. And more about the minorities in this discussion can take this study far deeper. For instance, the analysis of the Asian woman’s identity still does not reveal her voice or where she belongs in American society and in her relationships. Perhaps for the sake of an Asian American female’s future in America, she should seek and gain more attention over her tremendous lack of control in the dominant male culture. Of course, this begs the question, what can an Asian woman do to relieve the burden of stereotypes and expectations. And this query also applies to the Asian American man (and his seemingly dominant male power) under the reality of myths (and the glass ceiling). The source of problems for Asian Americans is a simple problem, stereotypes, so it does have a simple answer, awareness. People can eradicate any stereotype with some awareness of its truth. But finding how to, encourage, develop, and foster, awareness is a difficult challenge that only works with people participating and engaging in their own cummunities’ cultural centers at all levels. As a last note, not many sources appeared available covering this topic of racial stereotypes in, race and gender, relations. This presents an even bigger problem when generations of new Asian Americans continue to proliferate and encounter the similar or the same problems of racial, conflict and tension, as the first generation. Perhaps the next wave of studies still unavailable should pertain to the model minority stereotype and how it affects children, not only adult minorities, of, working class immigrants and Asian Americans.

References

Abelman, N. & Lie, J. (1995). Blue dreams: Korean Americans and the Los Angeles riots. Cambridge and London, Harvard UP. 

Bahk, J. (1/22/1993). “Narita uses clichés to dispel stereotypes.” AsianWeek. V.14; N.22, 1.

Dutt, E. (3/31/1995). “Stereotypes helped initially, now negative.” India Abroad. V.XXV; N.26, 42.

Dwarakanath, K. (9/29/2000). “Passion for researching issues of ethnicity, gender.”

India Abroad. V.XXX; N.53, 38.

Haniffa, A. (7/30/1999). “Coping with the “model minority’ myth: Sexual harassment and discrimination are cited among problems faced by Asian-American women.” V.XXIX; N.44, 27.

Mok, H. (2003) “Yellow porn.” http://modelminority.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=551.

Muchenhirn, K. (4/30/1993). “News: Asian American conference explores identity issues.” Asian Pages. V.3; N.16, 6.