| Description |
In the United States, Asian Americans have been dubbed the "model minority", having seemingly overcome racial barriers to achieve socio-economic success all on their own. In reality, Asian Americans still face racial discrimination on an institutional and societal level. The Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard lawsuit has brought to light the many facets model minority myth and how it impacts racial politics in the US education system. The myth of the model minority both masks existing Asian American discrimination as well as contributes to new forms of discrimination against People of Color in the US. By valorizing Asian Americans as the model minority, other racial minorities are made to bear the blame for their own inability to overcome racial barriers like Asian Americans supposedly have, making race relations highly adversarial. The shift of contemporary political discourse from racial terms to nonracial terms - cultural terms, in the case of the model minority myth - has led to the development of more nuanced forms of racial discrimination. In the case of Asian Americans, the model minority myth has imposed the expectation of academic prowess and financial success while doing nothing to help Asian Americans who are disadvantaged by living within a society created, maintained, and dominated by White Americans. This thesis will examine the ways in which the model minority myth has created a biased view that dismisses the discrimination that Asian Americans face within the US by investigating the origins of the Asian American model minority myth and recognizing how it functions within the context of the education system. |
