From Model Minority to Yellow Peril to English-Only: Korean International Students in an American High School

• In Event: Counterstories of the Model Minority Myth

Abstract

This paper comes from a larger three-year long ethnographic study of the cross-national conflict caused by the introduction of South Korean youth into an American school with a focus on the narratives and observations of fourteen 10th-12th grade Korean students and their parents, as well as those of school personnel and American students. With the escalating numbers of the Korean population in a noncompetitive evangelical Midwestern Christian high school, conflict emerged around the competing educational and cultural expectations of these students, their parents, and Christian school personnel. English–Only was implemented; yet the conversations surrounding the issues and varying reactions to the implementation of the policy were hidden under a veer of civility. Through Foucauldian “history of the present” and “genealogical method,” here the author argues the school’s English-Only policy is a “yellow peril” policy, indicative of a racialized American hegemony. Using constant-comparative cross case analysis in an iterative manner, the author looked for themes within and across the individuals and the groups and formulated analysis codes. The discourses surrounding the issues with Korean nationals reflected the values and goals and power relationships of the various parties concerned. These discourses each had a history that needed to be examined. Therefore, the author paid particular attention to how power relations around the policy was structured, constructed, and rationalized in the daily practice of schooling. The author related these observations to how such mechanisms of power were utilized, complicated, and transferred by the anonymous workings of global hegemonic domination. Findings suggest that the school’s perception of Korean internationals changed from the stereotype of obedient, quiet, and studious Korean “model minority” to “yellow peril” characterized by unethical and manipulative qualities. The Koreans’ less academic orientation, excessive concern over grades, perceived unethical behaviors (cheating, lying, lack of respect), and inappropriate use of the Korean language did not meet the school’s expectation of Koreans as a “model minority.” When Korean students did not behave as a model minority, they were seen as a threat to the dominance of white, English-only, and Christianity. Perhaps they then became a “yellow peril.”

Author

• Hye-Young Park, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign