Model Minority Stereotypic Representations in South Asian Indian American Marital Newspaper Advertisements

• In Event: Intercultural Communication and Media: Bridging the Research Divide

Abstract

This paper critically examines discursive patterns South Asian Indian Americans (SAIA) use when searching for the ideal mate via matrimonial ads. I collected 278 ads published in 2014 in an online newspaper, India Abroad, and focused on 29 ads for my analysis. Six themes emerged from Fairclough’s (1992) critical textual analysis that demonstrate how these ads include and exclude particular groups and reproduce gendered hierarchies embedded in the model minority stereotype. These emergent categories represent the multiplicity of intersectional identities and a means through which social hierarchies are constructed in this mate seeking process. The content, producers, and consumers of the marital ads reproduce systems of elitism and classism within the SAIA community. The analysis shows how ad texts continue to marginalise SAIA minorities and other Asian American groups, especially those that do not fit the model minority stereotypes portrayed in India Abroad marital ads.

Author

• Noorie Baig, University of New Mexico