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By Michelle Kroes

Daily Bruin Contributor

Labeled America’s “model minority,” many Asian Americans struggle with an unfair stereotype.

According to history Professor Henry Yu, the population of Asian Americans is so diverse that no generalization can be made.

“Even though some segments of the population have high incomes, the percentage of Asian Americans who are below the poverty line is significant and higher than the percentage for the general population as a whole,” he said.

Statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau show discrepancies in the education levels among Asian American groups as well. While more than 57 percent of Indian Americans have received a bachelor’s degree or higher, only 5 percent of Hmongs completed college. Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians all rank below the national level in education.

Success is not universal across Asian American groups. In the experience of Lyeng La, a second-generation Cambodian and fourth-year Asian American studies student, the model minority myth is harmful.

“Many of our parents came to America around the time of the Vietnam War, making us only second- and third-generation immigrants. We have not had as much time as other Asian groups to assimilate to this country, learn the language as well and other skills,” she said. “Many of the students couldn’t meet up to the expectations on them for being Asian when they went to school and ultimately had to drop out.”

Also associated with the myth of the hard-working, economically successful, academically over-achieving Asian American is that they never complain, are self-reliant, have strong family values, and have a close-knit, interdependent community, according to Model Minority, an online publication seeking to empower Asian Americans.

Furthermore, Asian Americans are often believed to be only interested in and committed to a select few subjects, such as math and the sciences.

“When I first went to school, people asked me a lot if I was going to study biology or something like that,” La said. “People just assume things before they even get to know you.”

The model minority image, according to historians, has been based on a few successful Asian American groups but applied to the minority as a whole.

Asian American problems are often ignored because no one knows they truly exist – not only on the societal level, but on the federal level as well, as Asians lose out on minority programs, said Anthropology Professor Kyeyoung Park.

“The myth denies the needs and demands of the community. It claims that Asian Americans can deal with it themselves,” she said “Model minorities don’t need intervention from society.”

The myth keeps the glass ceiling for many Asian Americans in the professional world intact.

“I don’t see many Asians in positions of leadership,” said Calvin Tchiang, a second-year undeclared student. “People speak of the success of Asian Americans but I see them working more at the grunt level than high managerial positions.”

According to Park, the model minority myth was constructed most actively in the ’60s as a means to quiet discontented minorities.

“Asian Americans were used as ‘role models’ for other minorities to follow,” she said. “They were told to stop complaining about racism because Asians showed that the system can work for you.”

This ultimately placed a wedge between Asians and other minorities. This abuse of the myth is evident to this day, said Professor Glenn Omatsu.

“With the attacks on affirmative action in the UC system, it is not surprising that several politicians have promoted the model minority stereotype as a way to deflect attention away from the growing educational crisis and intensification of racism,” he said.

The media is also seen as a contributor to the model minority myth. Since “Success Story: Japanese American Style” was published in the January 1966 edition of New York Times Magazine, numerous publications have lauded the achievements of Asian Americans and their assimilation into the dominant culture, according to the Model Minority Web site.

“Since the model minority aspect is so easily used politically and personally as a way of denigrating other minorities ... It also feeds into incredibly racist pseudo-sciences such as that displayed by the ‘Bell Curve,’ which proved Asian Americans to be smarter than whites and whites smarter than blacks,” Yu said.

Many people could distort the fact that at UCLA, UC Berkeley and at UC Irvine, nearly half the students are Asian American. But this has less to do with something inherent in Asian Americans than factors of immigration, Yu said.

When matters like this are taken into consideration, “We’re much less likely to indulge in racial generalizations that collapse all Asian Americans, no matter what their income or educational status, into some meaningless category of ‘model minority,’” he said.

ASIAN PACIFIC ISLANDER EDUCATION PROFILE Education levels help perpetuate the "model minority" stereotype

• One of every two Asian and Pacific Islander adults ages 25 to 29 had attained a bachelor's degree or higher in 1997, contributing to that population's high percentage of college graduates.
• Almost 1 in 3 whites (29 percent), 1 in 7 African Americans (14 percent), and just over 1 in 10 Latinos (11 percent) in the 25- to 29-year-old age group had at least a bachelor's degree.
• Among all persons ages 25 and over in 1997, Asians and Pacific Islanders had the greatest proportion of college graduates of any racial or ethnic group, at 42 percent. This is compared with 25 percent for whites, 13 percent for African Americans and 10 percent for Latinos.

SOURCE: Census Bureau Original graphic by VICTOR CHEN/Daily Bruin Web adaptation by BEN TSENG