From Philly to Boston: Re-thinking the Model Minority

[studio]

http://www.aamovement.net/viewpoints/modelminority.html

By Charles Chea



When I first arrived at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, transferring from Drexel University in Philadelphia, I had my eyes set upon the vast collegiate connections and resources that Boston had to provide. As an outsider to Boston, I saw it as the stereotypical liberal hub of academia that it is perceived as by most outsiders. I had high hopes of finding a family of Asian Americans activists whose experience and expertise I could be a student and friend of.

Academically, I found many resources and “older” people whose longevity in Asian American Studies and activism helped me plenty in my own personal development. This was in stark contrast to the predominately Southeast Asian circle I grew up with, where it was quite rare to even find an elder or young person even referencing himself or herself as “Asian American”. My situation was further complicated by the lack of college degree carrying first generation adults and the lack of second-generation children who were set for college or the completion of college. I felt quite blessed to find Asian Americans in Boston who were highly educated and whom I had assumed would be fighting for what my community needed. After all, we both acknowledged each other as Asian American and felt a common bond in our ancestral continental origins.

I found myself amongst a group of loud Asian Americans who didn’t resist the urge to criticize the racism we witnessed on a day-to-day basis. I joined in, and as I learned more from their analysis and what had seemed to be troubling them the most, my voice grew louder in the hopes of further strengthening our alliance as brothers and sisters. Before coming to Boston, I didn’t notice the social problems that these Asian Americans were complaining about the most. I didn’t feel most of these conditions applied to me, but in the effort for a stronger alliance, I re-conditioned myself to see these problems as a unified one for all Asian Americans.

Almond Eyed Lens in Boston

One of the first problems I ran into came from Asian American men (and some Asian American women) about the alarmingly high proportions of white men with Asian women. These voices were disgruntled, exposed me to the historical development from war brides until now, and pushed me to do my own personal research and analysis of the situation as it had been in my own life. It made me think more about my experience walking as an alien amongst University of Pennsylvania students on their campus, a white Russian man who had stalked my mother, and my now daily experience visiting my girlfriend at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I had seen what they had seen, what had been testified of at the ModelMinority.com message boards, and the books and websites referencing the notorious Yellow Fever. My eyes became sharp and insistent on noticing every white man who was in an interracial relationship (Asian or any other woman of color, regardless). I’d catch the white man with an Asian woman who was probably twice his age, the reformed white nerd on MIT who discovered the easily approachable Asian MIT woman who probably grew up on white men on television while living in a predominately white neighborhood, and my ears became extra sensitive to the aggressive advances of white men onto Asian women at parties and clubs. I felt very vindictive at this point against white men, the sell-out Asian woman, and the ignorant Asian brothers who were once just like me – too busy trying to climb the corporate ladder to work for a solution.

Another thing that fell into my lap, connected to the proportions of interracial relationships, was the problem of the Asian American image as according to many Asian American students in Boston. They called it the “model minority”, the Asian American female or male student who had fit in a picture perfect frame of academic and socioeconomic success, who had won countless awards for achievement, and who was able to master a classical instrument or two as well. Asian American students who were self professed activists or politically “conscious” people expressed their fury at this stereotype, some extending to negate it as a total myth. I learned that the model minority was not seen just as a model of success, but that it also encompassed negative connotations for asexuality (particularly amongst Asian American men), introversion, and a common inability amongst Asian Americans to be leaders, but rather nerdy workhorses. I learned that it was the reason why Asian Americans found themselves to be picked on a lot by non-Asians at an interpersonal and national level (through mass media), why Asian Americans students had to rally against the likes of Abercrombie and Fitch who profited from disrespectful Asian caricatures and names, and why Asian Americans had to face a glass ceiling in corporate America. Additionally, I was taught that the model minority stereotype had hindered communities like mine in Philadelphia, where quite a few Asian American teenagers found themselves dealing with gangs, drugs, urban racial territories, and the byproducts of such an environment. There wasn’t enough attention given to the problems of poverty that lay within Asian America and it was suggested that en route I had to help fight the model minority stereotype if I were to productively fight poverty – the very first reason why I looked for Asian American activists.

Losing Sight

It’s been over year since I’ve first come to Boston and I’ve served my time. I was taken under the wing of people in higher education and made allegiance with Asian American students from some of the most elite schools in the world. I studied hard and attempted to fight hard for Asian American rights according to the general consensus of the students whom I associated with in Boston. They made me feel certain that their foundation for change was mutually beneficial, and that my efforts would have positive affects on my own community in Philadelphia. I was promised tools to fight for labor and welfare rights, effective methods to fight poverty in both Southeast Asian and black neighborhoods of greater Philadelphia, power in numbers that weren’t simply just made of armchair activists, and “conscious” Asian Americans who truly understood the diversity and complexity of Asians in the United States. En route, however, I’ve reached a dead end destination for my people – my people being people of Southeast Asian refugee roots and clusters of poor Chinese immigrants found in cities like Philadelphia. In Boston, amongst certain circles of Asian Americans, I feel that my people and I have been used and completely misunderstood.

My revelations came to me over this past summer, where I made repeated trips between Boston and Philadelphia. It was a solemn time for me because of my grandfather’s death and something of such immeasurable impact made me take further inquiry into my own life. A lot of pondering happened and I re-examined the people who had surrounded me during my first year in Boston. I felt quite accomplished in serving the duties they had coordinated for me, but I felt that I had lost my zeal and original direction. Friends and allies whom I originally saw as loud and supportive simply became loud to me. I hadn’t learned one productive thing from them that would contribute to my community because I was too busy learning to be louder in criticism of the problems they felt were most important to them. I forgot why I originally came to Boston. I forgot where I was originally from.

I was coerced into being a representative for the state school Asian American, particularly Southeast Asians, for students at Harvard University who were “sick and tired of being labeled the model minority”. I made a realization that many of these Ivy League students, without realizing what they were saying, were using my less than average school career to shield their high proportions at Harvard, Boston University, Tufts, and MIT from criticism. Many of these students, enchanted with the high socioeconomic disproportion between the different ethnic Asian groups, became staunch supporters of advertising the poverty of the Laotians and Hmong. Lost in defending their image, they invested a lot of time advertising the poverty of people (whom some of these students have never met or sincerely tried to meet) and never discussed or acted upon possible solutions to these statistics of poverty. For the few who’ve actually done work in communities of poverty, I found an even fewer amount who did without benefits like internships, grants, college credits, self-gratitude, or image. I was surrounded by people who needed my people for a thesis, for a one hour ten dollar experiment, for them to tutor for 15 dollars an hour at some charter school or after school program, for a real authentic feel of what is “ghetto”, and for “wild” teenagers to tame like monkeys. I faced a group of upper middle class and/or Ivy League students who professed empathy in the fight against the problems of poverty on the weekdays, but returned to their lofty dorms for irresponsible drinking, drugs, and sex during the weekends. In these wild weekend nights, these students in their drunken and blunted element found much comedy in ghetto slang, ghetto appropriation, and sexist comments/actions that demoralized Asian women in the way that they complained white men were doing. I was shocked, but it made me realize the reality I was in and what needed to be done. No one’s perfect, but there needs to be an earnest effort for change – which many of the students had not shown through their progress. I found it counterproductive to stand amongst these Asian Americans who were staunch in changing and criticizing, but were not staunch in changing themselves and evaluating their own privilege as interethnic and class divided Asian Americans.

Journey Back Home

I brought my heart to Boston only to have it broken. It made me realize how different Asian Americans are from each other, and how much we don’t understand about each other.

I respect and follow the “peasant ideals” my parents highly value, while other Asian American students are staunch in defending that “American” suffix of their identity and the imperial and capitalistic values that stand behind it. My hometown, Upper Darby, PA, is predominately made up of people of color and it is a town where the overwhelming majority of interracial couples are made up of Asian men and white women. I grew up knowing the difference between a Chinese and a Cambodian. I grew up subconsciously knowing the differences between a poor Asian and a poor black, and an indescribable sense that one had advantages over the other in terms of preferences by white people – something I personally experienced. I have family and friends still in the refugee sections of South Philly, family that’s hood rich (sometimes interpreted as a crappy home finely furnished) and those who’ve made it into the deep suburbs trying hard not to reveal the fact that they are non-degree carrying refugees. I feel very comfortable spending my time in Lowell, Lynn, and Revere, Massachusetts, and I feel very endangered when I walk around campuses like MIT and Boston University. I was raised in an environment where the model minority student carries very little weight, and when it does exist, it is most of the time in the dreams of refugee parents hoping for Ivy League destined children. I was raised to admire the Asian students and professors at the University of Pennsylvania, and to find them as allies and role models for achievement.

We never socialized with the “educated” Asians, but we rooted for them in the distance. Being so far apart, we could never tell if they were supporting us, too.

But I made it past the borders and now I know.

[SunWuKong]

hah. good article. i like that paragraph about how Asian American students are so staunch in defending that "American" suffix of their identity. some "Asian Americans" are very far from understanding what life is like for poor immigrants.

[raacluse]

Upper Darby? I've visited there, one time. Coincidentally, I do know an AM/WF couple, there.

But anyhow, I think the author should spend his time with folks at U Mass - Boston. They're a lot more oriented to the (off-campus) urban Asian communities, whether Chinatown or the SEA's in nearby Dorchester.