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, 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 article 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.

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. 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). Other studies can include how racial stereotypes affect other minorities and their cultures differing from the Asian 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.