Perpetuating the Model Minority Stereotype in the Face of Highly Visible, and Highly Negative, External Events

• In Event: Counterstories of the Model Minority Myth

Abstract

This paper seeks to understand the perspectives and experiences of Asian American undergraduates at Virginia Tech following the April 16th massacre, and the Graduate Life Center incident. On April 16, 2007, a Korean American Virginia Tech student committed the most deadly mass school shooting in modern U.S. history, commonly referred to as the “Virginia Tech Massacre.” A little over one year later, another Virginia Tech student, a Chinese male, decapitated his female Chinese companion in a café housed in the Graduate Life Center on campus. This paper explores the model minority stereotype and the racial threat thesis. The basic tenet of the racial threat thesis is that as the relative size of the minority group increases, members of the majority group perceive an increased threat to their position of power. Based on this perceived threat, members of the majority group will take steps to maintain power (Blalock 1967). The threat of race-based competition for scarce resources causes conflict between racial groups (Blumer 1958; Blalock 1967; Blauner 1972). Within the racial threat thesis, there are three central hypotheses that attempt to further explain this phenomenon: competition over political power; competition over economic resources (Blalock 1967); and threat of black on white crime (Liska & Chamlin 1984). A central limitation of the racial threat thesis is its limited scope. As Parker, Stults and Rice (2005) note, research on additional minority groups should be given increased attention. Therefore, this paper helps to fill this significant gap in the literature as it explores the racial threat thesis with regards to Asian Americans at Virginia Tech, the largest minority group on campus.
Conclusions drawn in this paper address respondents’ knowledge of, and concern with, recent horrific events at Virginia Tech, and respondents’ support, or lack thereof, for the model minority stereotype. The paper considers how these two dispositions may be related. Contrary to earlier predictions, respondents were unconcerned with, and in some cases unaware of, the recent horrific events that occurred at Virginia Tech. Alongside this, respondents maintained a strong model-minority narrative throughout their discussions of themselves: as children, as Virginia Tech students, as their future-selves. Each respondent at some point in their interview conformed to the model minority stereotype; most respondents did so repeatedly and throughout. This paper suggests that respondents may cling to the model minority stereotype as a way to distance themselves and group members from these horrific events

Authors

• Nicholas Daniel Hartlep, Metropolitan State University

• Daisy Ball, Framingham State University