“The emotions between the races could never be pure; even love was tarnished by the desire to find in the other some element that was missing in ourselves. Whether we sought out our demons or salvation, the other race would always remain just that: menacing, alien, and apart.” -Barack Obama
The stairwells in the Louis Pink Houses public housing projects were dark the night of the shooting. Peter Liang, a rookie cop, patrolled the hall’s weapon drawn alongside his partner Shaun Landau. This was (and still is) a typical practice for police officers to patrol the hallways of public housing; New York is no exception. It was clear to some that Peter Liang was simply caught up in the moment. Fed by stories of the dangers of public housing Liang’s perceptions of his situation no doubt led to an increase in adrenaline which then led to the accidental discharge. On the flip side, Akai Gurley, a family man who was fiercely loyal to his “krew” and longed to one day be famous, was getting his hair done at his friend Melissa Butler’s apartment in the Pink Houses. After getting his hair done, Gurley and Butler decided to go out. Instead of taking the elevator that was constantly broken, they took to the stairs. At that moment, Liang’s gun was discharged and the bullet ricocheted off the wall and struck Gurley where he stood. In Liang’s statement he reportedly said that following the gunshot he was unaware that he had hit anyone. Laws defending police officers are often complex and precedent has always held on duty cops at a different standard. In the eyes of the court, police officers face more danger than your average civilian. Therefore, they should be given more leeway when it comes to defending themselves in a potentially dangerous situation. However, what happened next, is a perfect example of the unique position of Asian Americans as the model minority. Peter Liang was the first police officer in nine years to be convicted of second degree manslaughter following the incident.
The tragic incident however, soon became the poster child for racial inequalities faced by both Asian and African Americans alike. In the wake of the shooting of Kendra James, Alton Sterling and Michael Brown, to many, it was clear that this systemic continuation of violence was unacceptable. However, what made this case unique was the fact that Peter Liang was the son of Chinese immigrants. In the case that took African Americans to do the streets in celebration of a cop finally facing the consequences of a discharged weapon, Asian American activists took to the street shouting that Liang was simply a scapegoat in the long chain of police shootings that had occured in the last few years with no repercussions to white cops. In the mind of Chinese activists, the incident involving Liang was hardly manslaughter in comparison to the even more violent murders committed by police officers who were never convicted. Darren Wilson, a white police officer shot eighteen year old Michael Brown fifteen times in Ferguson. In Baton Rouge, Alton Sterling was held to the ground by police officers and shot at close range while Kendra James was shot by a police officer in Portland when attempting to drive away from a police officer who had pulled the car over and recognized her for not appearing in court. There is clearly a double standard when comparing these cases of police officers consciously shooting at their victim in comparison to a negligent rookie cop with clearly bad aim and bad luck. Liang’s conviction was later reduced in the Brooklyn supreme court due to the strong precedent of the courts when dealing with police officers -much to the dismay of the African American protesters outside. A New York Daily News article covering the trial called Liang “mild mannered” and the Asian American activists protesting outside of the courthouse “cop supporters”. This is a true demonstration of how the model minority is portrayed in the media. Asian Americans are at the point of being treated differently (receiving a rare conviction) but also as though the racial inequalities in this situation are one sided. A New York City council member Torres spoke on the nature of the accident stating: “It depends on what you mean by accident,” he said. “If you’re referring to the behavior of the individual officer, I suspect it was accidental. But if you’re situating the story of Akai Gurley in a sociopolitical context, then it was hardly an accident. There’s nothing accidental about the disinvestment from public housing” (Ronan). Clearly, this institutionalized cycle of racism, poverty and an overactive police force in public housing facilities fill prisons across the United States. While the use of Asian Americans as a minority and at times the anti-minority shapes a unique identity for all those who feel American, act American yet will never truly be American.
Racism faced by Asian Americans is rarely prioritized in the mainstream media coverage of race relations in the United States. Often seen as the “middle ground” Asian Americans are often referred to as the model minority group partially due to the large numbers Asian Americans who graduate from higher education and maintain high paying professional jobs. These statistics and stereotypes however, don’t tell the full story and perpetuates an “us vs. them” mentality between minority groups. Although many Asian Americans do experience more overall success than other minorities, their success is often based on situation. Chinese immigrants who come to the United States with professional degrees have a very different experience than those who arrive as refugees from Korea or Vietnam. People who leave a situation of poverty often arrive and remain in poverty while those coming from privileged backgrounds often have an easier time. Those immigrants often face the same cycles of poverty and hardship that is felt so heavily by other minority groups. Not only is the model minority myth harmful for Asian Americans who don’t fit the stereotype, it is also an insult towards other minority groups in saying that they are the only ones responsible for getting themselves out of a bad situation like poverty the idea is that if Asian Americans have such high success rates, if other minority groups put in the same effort, they will have the same rewards. The people who argue this are often strong promoters of meritocracy and the American dream and disregard institutional constraints faced by other minority groups.
For many first generation Chinese immigrants, assimilation is the unattainable dream. In the mid-1800s, Chinese Americans set off to the United States in search of gold. However, upon arrival, many sought jobs to help feed their families back home. Railroad companies found that they could pay Chinese Americans less; so a majority of these workers found work building the continental railroad. As Chinese migrant workers flooded into the new world, American citizens began to notice the influx of immigrants from Asia. The period of “yellow peril” started shortly after as Americans attempted to stop Asian American immigrants from “taking over”. Fast forward to today, what was once the only race who had ever been legally excluded from immigrating to the United States is now referred to as the model minority. People assume that Asian Americans have completely assimilated into American society. However, this assimilation is not color-blind; instead they have assimilated into a set of stereotypes that continue to place them in the light of being “the other”. On top of this, “model” in this case is not as positive a statement as one might believe. Many of the stereotypes surrounding Asian Americans perpetuate their position as ‘the other’ in this way, making their assimilation place them into a category of their own rather than just another aspect of mainstream society.
In the time before the United States entered the second World War, Asian immigrants found that they were becoming successful in their new homes. Becoming friends with their neighbors, many second generation Americans felt that they looked and acted just like everyone else. However, following the attack on Pearl Harbor, many were blindsided by the racist nature of those that they once considered to be friends. Within weeks all that they had built was taken away from them because they were once again the enemy. In Home From the Eastern Sea a Japanese man recounts his astonishment when his community turned their back on him without a second thought. Growing up, he saw no difference in the way that he looked as an American in contrast to those who were white. On top of this, an American newspaper ran an article giving Americans a basic guide on how to tell the physical features of Chinese people apart from those of Japanese people since at the time, Japan was an enemy and China was an ally. However, there was no article detailing how to tell a German from an Englishman showing the subtle differences of racism even in a time of war. This proves that regardless of how long an immigrant has been in the United States an Asian American will always be associated with the country they came from while eventually, all European Americans will assimilate and blend into the white majority.
The Model Minority Myth originated in the 1960s following a story written by William Peterson entitled Success Story, Japanese-American Style which was published in the New York Times. The story talked about the success Japanese Americans entertained so soon after the internment camps saying that defying all reason, Japanese Americans had quickly overcame prejudice and criticism to become one of the most successful minority groups in the country. This snowballed from including just Japanese Americans to all Americans of Asian descent starting the stereotype that Asian Americans are the ideal law abiding minority. Asian Americans culture often causes the individuals to keep their heads down and stray from conflict in order to better assimilate. However, This stereotype is an almost explicit jab at the Civil Rights movement which was happening at the same time. This myth shows that there are strict guidelines when identifying who is an American and who is not. It tells minorities that as long as they self identify as different from the mainstream and stay out of people’s way they will be tolerated. Although America has always been considered the great melting pot of ideas, immigrants have never been welcomed with open arms. This constant othering has prevailed throughout American history starting with the Italians, however with the arrival of people from Africa, Asia and South America it became clear to Americans who was “foreign” and “exotic” simply by skin tone Therefore, regardless of how similar Asian values may be to Americans, they will never truly be seen as on the same level as their white counterparts although they are the closest of all the minority populations.
Although it seems that Asian Americans get a relatively free pass in terms of race relations, research on the mental health of Asian Americans proves otherwise. People in the United States have a very narrow view of what “Asian” is. A typical American is aware of only a few Asian nations and rather than see each nationality as a separate entity, views all Asian Americans as one body of people having similar values and experiences. In Xiao-Huang Yin’s Article The Two Sides of America’s Model Minority, he talks about the dramatic gap between what he called the “uptown” Asian American and the “downtown” Asian American (referring to socio-economic status). In reality, although some Asian American groups have large percentages of their population graduating from colleges and universities, the circumstances of immigration are often what makes an Asian immigrant “uptown” or “downtown”. Many Chinese, Japanese and Indian immigrants emigrate as business or medical professionals while other Asian groups from Vietnam or Korea emigrate as refugees or unskilled laborers. Therefore, they did not have equal access to resources like individuals from other nations. According to Yin, people from China, Japan, India and the Philippines are second to whites in terms of their population at colleges and universities or holding positions in professional spheres. However Asians from countries like Vietnam and Laos at times don’t have a high school degree let alone a diploma from a university. Due to the model minority myth, people often assume that since these people are of Asian descent, they are not part of an immigrant class who needs support from government agencies to help adjust to life in the United States. This is clearly problematic for immigrants from those countries because in a culture that promotes meritocracy, they are ultimately blamed for whatever hardships they face.
There is unique language when discussing Asian Americans in contrast to those in other minority groups. People typically call Asian Americans the successful minority as though those successful and minority are two words that aren’t typically associated. This is clearly an institutional issue (rather than Asian Americans simply being a more successful group of people in comparison to other minorities. The model minority myth promotes meritocracy. The American Dream feeds this concept by implying that those who work hard, succeed and those who do not deserve whatever misfortune and poverty they face. The values of education and family that are associated with Asian culture fit into this idea of minority meritocracy making the model minority myth a tool to place blame on those who don’t have the resources to support themselves. In this way, the model minority myth highlights what American society views as the shortcomings of other minority groups in terms of social mobility. Yet it also puts Asian Americans in the unique position of being both discriminated against and accepted into the upper class worlds of high education and high paying jobs.
This acceptance of Asian Americans being the model minority makes for the conversation surrounding any racism faced by the group almost non-existent. Since the stereotypes are typically considered “good ones” people use Asian Americans as a justification that racism is on the decline. One strong example of the racism that is continually faced by Asian Americans today is the status of Asian Americans in Hollywood. The 2016 Oscars was very controversial because of what media outlets called the “whitewashing” that occured that year throughout Hollywood. Although it was clear that the nominees throughout the categories were not diverse, there were many African American actors that should have been nominated for phenomenal performances in movies that year. But although many African American actors were snubbed, there were no movies featuring Asian American or Hispanic actors that could be considered at all. On top of that, the controversy surrounding the pay discrepancies between the Asian American actors and the white actors on the hit TV show Hawaii 5-0 illustrates how Hollywood in particular discriminates against Asian American actors. After seven successful seasons, Grace Park and Daniel Dae Kim chose to leave the show rather than to agree to what they considered unfair contracts placing them at a perpetual secondary class within the show in contrast to the two white stars Scott Caan and Alex O’Loughlin. Although both had equal screen time to the white actors they were still considered secondary characters illustrating the inclination of society to place Asian Americans down a step in the most subtle way.
In 1932 my grandmother was born in San Francisco’s Chinatown. She was the only daughter in a family that had already had three sons and would have three more after her. She grew up in extreme poverty telling me stories of living in apartments without basic facilities. However, by 1966 she would be taking her second child home from the hospital to a large house in San Francisco’s Twin Peaks neighborhood. Although this may seem like the American Dream, my grandmother would tell me stories of the harsh bullying she received for wearing her brother’s old clothes and having parents who were unable to speak English. As a child, I assumed that this bullying was simply because of how poor her family was, but now looking back on the stories she told me it is clear that they were based on racial prejudices at the time. After giving birth to my mother, my grandmother made the home a strictly English speaking zone. Although she would speak her dialect to her friends, since she and my grandfather spoke different dialects they wanted to ensure that their children would grow up as true Americans without the accent. To this day, my mother regrets that decision since she is unable to speak another language other than English. This desperation to be perceived solely as an American is shows how shallow assimilation truly is. As a multiracial child, I was constantly badgered to join my middle school’s “students of color” club. Before this point, I had never been singled out for being multiracial and it confused me because I believed us all to be Americans so it didn’t matter. It is clear that through the span of three generations, the way racism occurs in the United States has changed, however regardless of its subtlety the constant othering of Asian Americans persists solely through physical appearance.
Although many people would acknowledge that the racism faced by Asian Americans is considerably less dire than the violence African Americans face at the hands of cops on a daily basis, this is the primary reason why it is an undiscussed issue. Although it is unclear how the right balance can be made, it is important to discuss all aspects of race relations in classrooms and in the media. In the future, I hope to advocate for further discussion on the complications between all racial groups rather than making it white vs. minorities. If the conversation is too polarizing making one singular race the “bad guy” the issue will continue without much progress in either direction.
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Diaries of a Dancing Queen 