Disrupting Asian American Stereotypes Through Children’s Literature

• In Event: Disrupting the Single Story: Transformative Children’s Literature for Social Justice

Abstract

Recent advocacy and legislative mandates for the teaching of Asian American studies in K-12 classrooms in states including Illinois, New Jersey, and Connecticut are important efforts toward more inclusive and representative curriculum in schools. However, as most educators have not formally learned about Asian American (hi)stories, they may not be aware of the many stereotypes about Asian Americans pervasive in U.S. society and their racist origins. This paper historicizes several Asian American stereotypes and offers picturebook recommendations to disrupt them while offering young learners more nuanced representations and perspectives of Asian America.

For example, the Model Minority myth is deeply entrenched in U.S. society from PK-20. This seemingly positive stereotype has insidious roots based on racist immigration policies as well as social shifts during the Cold War and anti-Blackness in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement. These histories will be summarized briefly, followed by examples of disparities in education level and income among Asian Americans that can be revealed when data is disaggregated (Lee & Ramakrishnan, 2020). Children’s literature recommendations that disrupt the Model Minority myth include The Best At It by Maulik Pancholy; Front Desk by Kelly Yang; Hana Hashimoto, Sixth Violin by Chieri Uegaki; and Stargazing by Jen Wang.

Next, the paper will address the Yellow and Dusky Peril stereotypes that originated in the 19th and early 20th centuries but have reemerged in recent decades. Carl Linnaeus divided humankind into four “species” based on both geography and color, progressing from white to Black (Keevak, 2011). Initially, Linnaeus categorized the group we now refer to as Asians as Asiaticus fuscus, translated from Latin as “brown” or “swarthy.” Linnaeus’ taxonomy later expanded exponentially with many changes to his initial classifications, including the renaming of Asians as Asiaticus luridus, translated as “yellow,” “sallow,” “pallid,” and “ghastly” (Keevak, 2011, p. 45). As Chinese immigrants arrived in the United States in the mid-1800s, they were perceived as paganistic heathens, diseased opium addicts, shifty villains, and undesirable degenerates. After the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed, Yellow Peril imagery persisted in newspaper caricatures, comic strips, and cartoons that depicted Chinese men with slanted eyes and bright yellow skin–including in the work of the beloved children’s author Dr. Seuss.

“Dusky Peril” was part of a Puget Sound American headline in 1906. The article described the invasion of “more than a dozen swarthy sons of Hindustan” considered “diseased” and “undesirable” (para. 15). A century later, these stereotypes returned. In 2001, after the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, South Asians Americans were viewed as undesirable and threatening. In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, then-President Trump and some conservative politicians referred to the coronavirus as the “Chinese virus,” “Wuhan virus,” and “kung flu”—all terms that associated the virus with East Asia and an unwanted invasion (Author, 2021). To disrupt the stereotypes related to the Yellow and Dusky Peril (including playground chants where children make their eyes look slanted), we offer a wide range of children’s book recommendations.

Authors

• Noreen Naseem Rodriguez, Michigan State University

• Sohyun An, Kennesaw State University

• Esther June Kim, College of William & Mary