Asian-Americans are a model minority.
Myth: Asian-Americans are a model minority.
Fact: Asian-American immigrants to the U.S. have been highly self-selected.
Summary
Asian immigrants to the U.S. tend to be already highly educated
and from the middle or upper class, for a number of reasons. Thus,
they get a completely different start in life in the U.S. compared
to other minorities. Although Asians achieve a much greater degree
of success in the U.S., the "model minority" stereotype is a myth
because Asian-Americans still bump into the glass ceiling, receive
lower pay even with the same qualifications, and have higher poverty
rates. The image of boat people escaping the ravages of war and
communism to take full advantage of American opportunities is also
a myth, in that Southeast Asians actually have the lowest success
rate of all Asians.
Argument
Supporters of affirmative action argue that discrimination and
racism have held down minorities in the U.S., and that affirmative
action is needed to correct it. In response, critics ask: "If blacks
and Mexicans are being held down by discrimination, then why do Asians
come to this country and do so well for themselves?" According to
this myth, Asians immigrate
to America with little or nothing, often as boat people fleeing
communism, and through hard study and work become even more successful
than European-Americans. Their success would suggest that the U.S.
does not really discriminate against minorities.
Supporters of the "model minority" myth cite many
statistics in their favor. For example, among college-bound seniors
in 1989, Asian-Americans had a high school grade point average
of 3.25, compared to 3.08 for all other students. A study of 7,836
high school students in the San Francisco area found that Asian-Americans
spent 40 percent more time doing homework than non-Asians, a fairly
common finding. (1)
Asian-Americans also have higher levels of education and income:
Educational attainment by ethnic group (1990) (2)
Completed 4 years or more of:
-----------------------------
Ethnic group* High School College
-------------------------------------
Asian 80.4% 39.9%
White 79.1 22.0
Black 66.2 11.3
Hispanic 50.8 9.2
Median family income, by ethnic group (1993) (3)
Asian $44,456
White 39,300
Hispanic 23,654
Black 21,542
(For brevity's sake, "Asian" in this essay includes
Pacific Islanders, and "Hispanic" includes Spanish,
Cuban, Puerto-Rican and Mexican Americans.)
The model minority myth
Although it is true that an unusually high percentage of Asian-Americans
have enjoyed success in the United States, large parts of the
"model minority" stereotype are a myth, and cannot be
used in debates on affirmative action.
We should first note that Asian-Americans form one of our smallest
minorities:
U.S. Population, by ethnic group (1994) (4)
Whites 74.0%
Blacks 12.0
Hispanics 10.0
Asian 3.2
When the percentage is this small, many factors can skewer the
composition of a minority. Indeed, this turns out to be the case.
Unlike blacks, Asians have migrated to the U.S. voluntarily. The forced
capture and transport of Africans
means that the U.S. black population is more likely to be a true
cross section of African society, whereas Asians, who migrate
voluntarily, tend to be self-selected.
What type of voluntary immigrant would take residence in the U.S.?
Naturally, those who could afford to make the trip. For immigrants
from neighboring nations, like Mexico, this is relatively easy,
a matter of crossing a land border. Again, this would tend to
make the U.S. Hispanic population a true cross section of its
original society. Asians, however, must be able to afford a trans-oceanic
journey. Not surprisingly, those who could afford such a trip
would tend to belong to their homeland's middle and upper classes.
In a thorough study of Houston's Asian American population, Dr.
Stephen Klineberg confirmed what sociologists have long known
about the advantaged backgrounds of Asian immigrants. "The
survey makes it clear that Asians have been relatively successful
in Houston primarily due to the educations and middle class backgrounds
they brought with them from their countries of origin," Klineberg
says. "One of the key messages from the survey is that we
have to discard the 'model minority' stereotype that is so often
applied to Asians in America. [It overlooks] the fact that a high
proportion of Asian immigrants come from an occupational and educational
elite." (5)
Furthermore, U.S. immigration policy has long been discriminatory,
favoring immigrants with professional skills and higher education.
(6) This policy began as early as 1907, when President Theodore
Roosevelt and the Japanese government negotiated a "Gentlemen's
Agreement" restricting the exit of unskilled Japanese laborers
to the United States. (7) Asian immigration has been heavily restricted
for most of this century, and has only recently become liberalized.
Other aspects of the myth
The above income chart shows that Asians make the nation's
highest median family income. But this statistic doesn't tell
the whole story. Asian families have a higher percentage of their
members employed in the workforce, so their family
income is naturally higher. Also, the U.S. Census does not distinguish
between Japanese-American citizens and Japanese residents in the
U.S. who maintain their Japanese citizenship. Therefore, this
figure includes many highly paid Japanese businessmen in the U.S.
on extended business. (8)
Asian-Americans aspiring to job promotion are also familiar with
the "glass ceiling." According to the U.S. Commission
on Civil Rights, Asian-American men born in the United States
are 7 percent to 11 percent less likely to hold managerial jobs
than white men with the same educational and experience level.
Median income for Asian-Americans with four years of college education
is $34,470 a year, compared with $36,130 for whites, according
to the U.S. Census Bureau. (9)
Also, many people who buy into the "model minority"
myth do not realize that income inequality is severe within the
Asian-American community. In 1994, the individual Asian-American
poverty rate was 15.3 percent, compared to a national rate of
14.5 percent, and a white rate of 12.2 percent. (10) In fact,
the poverty rate for Asians in Los Angeles, San Francisco and
New York is nearly twice as high as that of whites. (11) Leaders
of the Asian-American community complain that, because of the
"model minority" myth, their poverty programs have been
drastically underfunded compared to other communities. Thus, needy
cries for help among Asian-Americans are going unmet.
Many who subscribe to the "model minority" myth also
presume that Asia is a homogeneous society with a shared family
and work ethic. Actually, Asia is a land of 27 different countries,
sharply delineated by oceans, culture, language, religion and
economic systems. This produces wide disparities in the success
of Asian immigrants. The following chart shows the percentage
of Asian-Americans over twenty-five years of age who have completed
four or more years of college and who live below the poverty line:
Asian group Poverty level (12)
----------------------------
Laotian 67.2%
Hmong 65.5
Cambodian 46.9
Vietnamese 33.5
Indonesian 15.2
Notice these groups come from Southeast Asia. Many believers in
the "model minority" myth claim that Asians have succeeded
so well in America because they escaped the ravages of war and
communism, and are thus highly motivated to take full advantage
of the opportunities offered in America. However, the above chart
gives lie to this myth.
It is true that many Asian cultures, like China and Japan, have
traditionally placed a very high value on education. However,
Asians have historically used education to create an intellectual
caste system. Those who proved themselves went on to receive more
education, while those who failed were relegated to menial labor.
Higher education was not a universal right, but a test of caste
membership. As we have shown above, Asian immigrants to the U.S.
tend to come from the middle and upper classes.
Finally, there are many who believe that Asians excel because
they have the highest IQs in the world. But there is no evidence
to support this assertion. One study, conducted by Harold Stevenson,
tested the IQs of children in Japan, China and America, carefully
matching them for socioeconomic status and demographic variables.
He found no differences in IQ. (13) Another set of studies conducted
by Richard Lynn supposedly found a higher IQ in Asians, but his
research has been heavily criticized on methodological grounds
-- among other problems, his Asian test group was tiny and unrepresentative
of the population at large. (14)
In the U.S. during the early 1900s, Asians -- like Jews -- scored
much lower on IQ tests than native whites. Their tests scores
improved over time as highly educated immigrants continued arriving
in the U.S., and their social positions improved. (15)
Implications for affirmative action
Given the above information, it is difficult to hold Asians
up as members of a model minority who have pulled themselves up
by their own bootstraps. Asian immigrants to the U.S. tend to
be more educated and affluent than the compatriots they leave
behind. They generally have not suffered extreme poverty, racism,
legal discrimination or hateful prejudice within their own nations.
Compare this to black Americans, who have struggled with these
problems for hundreds of years. The two groups have experienced
completely different starts in the U.S., and cannot be
compared to each other.
The model minority myth does a disservice to Asian-Americans,
because it suggests they do not need, nor could benefit from,
affirmative action. As we have seen, the glass ceiling exists
for this minority as well, not to mention the poverty and income
inequality that afflict all other groups of Americans. Unfortunately,
the myth blinds others to these realities.
Return to Overview
Endnotes:
1. Lieutenant Commander James G. Foggo, III, U.S. Navy, "Review
of Data on Asian-Americans," Defense Equal Opportunity Management
Institute, May 1993.
2. U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Census of Population,
U.S. Summary, PC80-1-C1 and Current Population Reports
P20-455, P20-459, P20-462, P20-465RV, P20-475; and unpublished
data.
3. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports,
P60-188.
4. U.S. Bureau of the Census, unpublished data.
5. Stephen Klineberg, "First Houston Area Asian Survey Explodes
the 'Model Minority' Stereotype and Explains the City's Changing
Demographics," Press Release, Rice University, Office of
Development, March 8, 1996.
6. American Writing Corporation, "Research Briefs on Poverty:
Poverty and Asian Americans," Equal Opportunity for the Urban
Poor Program, National Community Building Network, Rockefeller
Foundation.
7. Foggo.
8. Ibid.
9. Carolyn Jung, "Asian-Americans Say They Run into Glass
Ceiling," San Jose Mercury News, September 10, 1993,
p. 1B.
10. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports,
Asian-American rate: P20-459 and unpublished data; U.S. rate:
P-60 series; white American rate: P20-480 and unpublished data.
11. Nancy Rivera Brooks, "Study Attacks Belief in Asian-American
Affluence, Privilege," San Jose Mercury News, May
19, 1994, p. 1A.
12. Foggo.
13. Harold Stevenson et al., "Cognitive performance of Japanese,
Chinese, and American Children," Child Development
56, 1985, pp. 718-34.
14. Charles Lane, "Tainted Sources," pp. 133-5, in Russell
Jacoby and Noami Glauberman, eds., The Bell Curve Debate
(New York: Random House, 1995).
15. Thomas Sowell, "Ethnicity and IQ," The American
Spectator (February, 1995), pp. 32-36.