When reading the articles for this module, I started thinking about my own identity as an immigrant, more specifically an Asian immigrant.
My parents immigrated to New York City when I was 6 years old, but they had their own reason. As Kelly (2009) puts it, “It is important to avoid any inclination to collapse or homogenize all migrations and instead to note the specificity of context” (Kelly, 2009, p.31). My parents believed that raising me in the United States would offer better opportunities for my educational and professional future. They gave up their jobs and said goodbye all our family members to pursue a life in Brooklyn. Even though they both held college degrees, they returned to school in a community college to learn English. Due to language barriers, my parents could not find jobs that matched their years of skill and experience. My dad transformed from a manager in a medicine company to an assistant who cleaned medical equipment, and my mom went from a middle school teacher to a paraprofessional. They chased the “American dream”, but we did not experience much upward social mobility. We had to move back to China during the financial crisis of 2008 because of financial troubles.
I chose this article because it addresses a lot of the issues that I have thought about, both in general and through reading the articles in this module. Asian Americans are associated with the “model minority” term, and stereotyped to be hard and intelligent workers. On the surface, this may seem like a positive term, but the stereotype also includes quietly working without protest, or serving non-leadership jobs. Furthermore, this gives a false sense of success. Experiences are diverse across any racial group, and this over-generalization seems to single out one group. Just as the article mentions, there is still a high-income gap among Asian Americans. I agree with the article that not only does the myth mislead people, it also compares and pits different minority groups against each other. The myth views Asians in technical roles, and not as outspoken representatives in business or politics. Just like how English language learning does not necessarily lead to success (Warriner, 2007) discrimination simply cannot be avoided just by working hard and increasing income as the model minority myth suggests.
Works Cited:
Kelly, U. (2009). Migration and education in a multicultural world: Culture, loss, and identity. Springer.
Warriner, D. S. (2007). Language learning and the politics of belonging: Sudanese women refugees becoming and being “American”. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 38(4), 343-359.