Why Asian Americans are not the Model Minority | Alice Li | TEDxVanderbiltUniversity

a few years ago I had my first college admissions interview it wasn't at Vanderbilt if you're curious but it was at a similarly selective school at the time I thought this was a big deal so on the day of the interview I show up to the admissions office wearing a button-down shirt dress pants you know pretty formal attire my admissions officer on the other hand walks out wearing a t-shirt shorts and sneakers so immediately I know that the two of us are looking at this interview from different perspectives he walks over and he says to me don't worry this is a very relaxed informal Affair and at this point I'm just mortified and I'm thinking you're telling me now but anyways we talk afterwards I felt like we had a good conversation but I couldn't shake off this nagging feeling that something hadn't gotten quite right you know outside of my wob choice so as I'm driving back home I go over in my head the things that I had told my interviewer I remembered saying to him well I'm Alice I play piano and violin I like math and science and I'm thinking about being Premed in college and suddenly I realized that by sharing these uh traits about me I'd unintentionally portrayed myself not as a unique candidate but rather as the walking embodiment of almost every Asian stereotype known to man if my admissions officer had wanted to check my academic record he would have also seen the grades and test scores that Society has come to quite frankly expect from asian-americans in short he would have seen almost all of the Asian stereotypes that Society has woven into something called the model minority myth now traits like having all and and playing piano shouldn't be things to be ashamed of but at the time they made me feel guilty I was reminded of all the times that I'd been perceived and even exemplified as proof of the model minority myth even though there are millions of asian-americans who are nothing like what the myth prescribes but if you're Asian-American or even if you're not how do you object to stereotypes that sound like compliments for instance if someone walks over to you says hey you seem really smart your response probably wouldn't be no I'm not or how dare you yet the bulk of my experience tells me that there's a dark side to being perceived as the model minority and the consequences of this perception affect all of us as Americans regardless of our racial background so today I'd like to discuss why none of us should subscribe to the model minority myth let's start out by taking a look at some data that haven't gotten nearly as much attention in the media as say Amy ch's Battle hym of the tiger mother if we look at poverty rates within different subgroups of the Asian-American population we see that there's enormous variation across the Spectrum keeping in mind that the national poverty rate is around 15% we see that different subgroups within the Asian American population exhibit everything from half the national rate to almost twice the national rate similar variation shows up for median incomes in both of these cases the variation that we see isn't exactly what we might expect from the homogeneous quote unquote model minority the danger here is that when governments and charitable organizations are allocating their resources the common assumption that all Asians are high income earners makes it easy to overlook the many asian-americans who are truly in need as it turns out poverty is not the only chapter missing from the Asian-American success story discrimination is also a major component in the results of a Gallup survey 31% of asian-americans surveyed reported experiencing instance of discrimination in the workplace this made up the highest percentage of any racial or ethnic group and African-Americans made up the second largest percentage at around 26% although obviously it's not competition shockingly though despite experiencing a high rate of discrimination asian-americans only filed about 3% of the total employment discrimination complaints received by the US equal employment opportunity commission in contrast African African-Americans filed over 80% of these complaints so why this discrepancy that is why are asian-americans so much more reluctant to file the these kinds of charges could it be that as a result of the model minority myth many asian-americans feel as though a lot of people won't believe in the truth of these kinds of experiences another question we can ask ourselves is why the high rate of discrimination to begin with of course there's no way to pinpoint a single answer to this question but my contention is that it has something to do with the conceptual divide between asian-americans and other Americans this divide has been reinforced by the severe underrepresentation of asian-americans in everything ranging from films to political talk shows to leadership positions in businesses and corporations the cumulative result of all this is something called the Perpetual Foreigner syndrome which has social psychological and political ramifications to give you a better idea of how the Perpetual Foreigner syndrome can manifest itself myself I'd like to share with you something that happened to me during my very first week of college I was eating dinner when this guy whom I'd never met before suddenly asked me what are you and I'm thinking Homo sapiens in essence simply because of my race he perceived me as someone who didn't belong who wasn't normal I mean think about it the question that he asked me is essentially the same question you'd ask if a two-headed leprechaun appeared in your living room and I wasn't even wearing green that day so no excuses and on a more serious note because of what was said to me in that moment I felt as though my race alone prevented me from belonging in the community that I was trying to be a part of let me also give you some examples outside of my personal experiences in both the 1998 and 2002 Winter Olympics in figure skating an American won the gold and an American won the silver the silver medalist was Michelle Quan yet the media announced the set of headlines using American beats out Quan and American outshines Quan as though somehow Quan weren't as American as her teammates another example in 2001 Congressman David Woo was temporarily denied entry into the US Department of energy headquarters where the guards didn't believe he was American even after he'd already shown his Congressional ID and just as a final example there's the common insult go back to China although one not all Asians are Chinese and two many of us aren't from China but rather from places like New York New Jersey and Tennessee what all of these examples show is that we as asian-americans are often perceived as not quite American no matter where we were from or how much we identify as American we may feel that it's not a contradiction to be both Asian and American but as long as this contradiction exists in the minds of others how do we as asian-americans find a sense of belonging in our communities if we're prepared actually seen as foreigners what does that mean for our voice in politics why is it that there's something odd about the idea of an Asian-American becoming president now up to this point I've mentioned a lot of different issues that challenge the model minority myth poverty underrepresentation discrimination the Perpetual Foreigner syndrome and so on but there's a common theme that ties all of these issues together and it's this at its core the model minority myth really isn't about Asians being smart or Asians being good at math what the myth is really about is manipulating apparent signs of Asian-American success into a tool that denies all of us the right to voice our race related experiences whether we're Asian or not at the end of the day the model minority myth tells people race is irrelevant because well look at the agents but the truth is race still matters it matters for Asians it matters for all minorities and it matters for whites regardless of our cultural background we all have a story that's important to understanding the big picture of race relations in America we can all contribute to improving these relations by sharing our stories and very importantly by keeping keeping an open mind while listening to the stories of others what we cannot do is let our identities be defined by stereotypes because ultimately we can only move forward as a Multicultural Society by acknowledging the validity of all of our different experiences so if you have a story to share please do thank you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 202,566

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United States, Humanities, Community, Consciousness, Culture, Curiosity, Discrimination, Higher education, Human Rights, Identity, Immigration, Life, Personal education, Race, Social Justice

Id: 87QkjfUEbz4

Length: 10min 36sec (636 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 14 2016