"American Dream" and Nightmares: Illuminating the Racial Shadows of the Model Minority Myth

• In Event: Reframing Asian American Racialization and Interrogating the Specificity of Anti-Blackness

Abstract

Purpose. Educational studies about Asian Americans often amplify the model minority myth (MMM) to reflect the "success" and "privilege" of Asian American students, while discluding colorism, ramifications of neoliberalism, racism, and anti-Blackness in higher education (Kim, 1999). Few studies examine the specificity of Southeast Asian American students’ (SAAS) racialized experiences, and the implications of racism on their learning and academic success for SAAS in U.S. higher education (Museus, 2012). As a first-generation Khmer-Lao American—both ethnically marginalized identities—I was born and raised in a racially diverse city. I am not the "model minority" reflected in the MMM. I argue that placing SAAS like me above other minoritized groups not only perpetuates student belongingness in higher education, but also amplifies anti-Blackness and white-colonial setter ways of being (Wing, 2007). In this paper, I interrogate the racial harms and shadows of the MMM informing my sense of belonging in the academy as a SAAS. I ask: How does the MMM inform my experiences and belongingness in higher education? What implications does my racialization as MMM and SAAS have on the experiences of other Black and non-Black peers and colleagues of Color?


Framework. Grounded in the theoretical underpinnings of Critical Race Theory, this study acknowledges that racism is permanent, and race is central to understanding the daily experiences endured by racially marginalized people of color (Bell, 1991). In conjunction with CRT, I also employ AsianCrit to focus on the differential racializations of Asian Americans within the U.S., and the differential racialization among the multitude of Asian American ethnicities (Iftikar & Museus, 2018). Racial realism (Bell, 1991) within CRT also informs the ways that differential racializations among Black and non-Black people of Color function to ensure ongoing Black subjugation. Hence, the racializations of SAAS can offer critical points of analyses to understand how MMM reifies white supremacy and anti-Blackness.


Methods and data sources: I employ Johnson’s (2017) racial storytelling to illuminate the racial harm of the MMM affecting my own experiences of belongingness as a SAAS in higher education. Racial storytelling allows individuals to “(re)enter and to bear witness of our racialized past to assess where we are in the present'' while recognizing the influences and outcomes of interconnected social identities and systems (Johnson, 2017, p. 483). My data includes yearlong researchers journal, literature on belongingness, fieldnotes of cultural practices/values at my institution, and personal and cultural artifacts. To code, I looked for ways I talked about my senses of membership in the academy, and my perceptions of/relationship to the MMM. Themes uncovered include : racial trauma responses, racial consciousness, and racial repair on the sense of belonging and inclusion of SAAS in higher education.


Results/Significance. This study illustrates the differential experiences of SAAS in higher education in relation to other Asian Americans. It highlights a Southeast Asian American scholar-practitioner’s responses to trauma related to racial belongingness. It can inform projects focused on creating possible pathways for racial healing and consciousness to support SAAS in higher education.

Author

• Jenny Sak, University of Maryland