Robert Teranishi
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"Why Can't You Be Content to Be the
Model Minority?"
By Robert T. Teranishi
The National Commission on Asian American and Pacific Islander Research in Education, in collaboration with the College Board and a team of researchers at New York University, recently published a groundbreaking report about Asian American and Pacific Islander participation in U.S. higher education. Immediately following the publication’s release at the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus Education Summit in Washington, D.C., the report received widespread news coverage including more than 150 stories in both print and broadcast media throughout the world. News about the report also became the focus of a number of blogs, one of which was titled “Why Can’t You Be Content to Be the Model Minority?”
This question is an appropriate one to ponder. What is so bad about a positive stereotype? After all, at least a good stereotype is better than a bad one. To respond to this question, I reflect on some findings from our report, my experience as co-director of the CARE Project and my broader interest as a scholar
interested in understanding and challenging racial inequality in higher education.
The title of our report, “Facts, Not Fiction: Setting the Record Straight,” reflects the fundamental philosophy of the CARE Project. The project was founded on the simple premise that education policy and practice must be based on fact, not fiction, if they are to be of value to educators, students, parents, and society as a whole. AAPIs have long been disregarded in education research and policy and remain in the shadow of America’s commitment to equality and social justice. Instead, the treatment of AAPIs has been driven by assumptions and stereotypes that characterize the population as the “model minority.” The consistent message in the academic and policy arenas, and in the mainstream media, is captured succinctly in a 1997 New York Times article that declared that “stellar academic achievement has an Asian face” and that others would be “fools” not to learn from these “perfect” students.
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AAPI immigrants bring more languages to the United States than any other segment of the U.S. immigrant population |
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We began the CARE Project by questioning the evidence of this claim — challenging that which has become an intuitive supposition. We quickly learned that there is actually very little empirical evidence to either support or refute the model minority myth, but despite the lack of interrogation, the model minority myth remains an enduring stereotype connected with the AAPI population; so much so that the treatment of AAPIs in research and policy has been based largely on deductive reasoning, rooted in the idea that the AAPI population does not face educational challenges. In many cases, studies exclude AAPIs altogether, and the research that does include AAPIs often misrepresents the population through inaccurate data.
Over the next three years, we mined federal, state, and institutional data, and worked closely with our constituents to try to shed light on the extent to which the model minority myth could either be confirmed or refuted. We found that while there are certainly data that can confirm the success story of some AAPIs, it was also not the only story that needed to be told. Consider the AAPI population in the community college sector, which is often overlooked. Despite the idea that AAPIs only attend selective universities, there are actually a greater number of AAPI students in public community colleges than in any other sector of U.S. higher education. In California, Nevada and Hawaii, three states with a significant number of AAPI college students, over half of all college students attend community colleges. In terms of projecting future trends in AAPI college participation, it is important to note that the community college sector is where AAPI college participation has increased the most over the
past decade.
The wide distribution in postsecondary participation among AAPIs needs to be considered in the context of the wide-ranging diversity among the population. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 48 ethnic groups fall under the larger AAPI racial category. These groups represent different immigration histories with many differences in the conditions under which they arrived in the United States. Evidence of the varied immigration histories can be found in the differences in English language usage and proficiency that varies widely across different ethnic populations. AAPI immigrants bring more languages to the United States than any other segment of the U.S. immigrant population. Even among immigrants originating from the same country, there can be many different languages and multiple dialects.
Social indicators vary widely across different ethnicities including differences in poverty and educational attainment. Some AAPI ethnic populations have a poverty rate that is similar to or below the national average, while others are experiencing higher poverty rates than any other sector of the U.S. population. Therefore, within the AAPI category, subpopulations have experiences with education that represent in many ways more differences than similarities.
While the model minority stereotype that is applied to AAPIs is different from the stereotypes that define other racial groups, it is important to recognize the ways in which it has similarities. It is tied to the idea that categories, such as race or class, can be used to define or even predict the social status of a population. Thus, accepting that a single story represents the AAPI population also means that we are to accept that a single story can define blacks, Latinos, Native Americans or whites. Policy and practice based on this line of thinking about race is simply dangerous, unacceptable, but unfortunately too common. Nobody should be content with stereotypes and generalizations as the basis for our practice and policy in education.
While the work of the project has made progress toward a deeper understanding of the AAPI population and their educational needs, there continues to be a great deal of work that still needs to be done. As with many projects, having addressed one set of needs has led us to identify many more. We need to transcend this way of thinking, which is too often the foundation for how we approach educational problems and solutions. We call on educators and advocates to dispel and replace the myths about AAPIs, along with their black, Latino, and Native American counterparts, so that higher education and society as a whole can fully develop and engage these students.
Robert Teranishi is associate professor of higher education in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University and co-director of the National Commission on Asian American and Pacific Islander Research in Education (CARE). Parts of this commentary were derived from a briefing before the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and members of Congress delivered during the summer of 2008.
