Chapter 4 Contesting the Model Minority and Perpetual Foreigner Stereotypes: A Critical Review of Literature on Asian Americans in Education

Abstract

T he Asian American 1 presence in schools, as captured by cartoonist Garry Trudeau here, has a compelling grasp on the public imagination. Scholars (Dong, 1995;Wu, 2002) have utilized the pointed cartoon strip to emphasize the criticality of understanding how insidious and pervasive is the myth of Asian Americans as model minorities, especially in education. The Asian American model minority image is alluring yet troubling. On one hand, the supposed academic achievement of Asian Americans is used as a beacon to highlight the prototypical American success story, a group to be admired and emulated by others. At the same time, however, it is used to produce a heightened sense of fear, particularly in schools, where the Asian "horde" will take over the classrooms to raise test scores and ruin the grading curve, resulting in a new form of "White flight" (Hwang, 2005). These concerns exist at the K-12 level as well as in the realm of higher education admissions, as captured by Trudeau. In either case, one thing remains clear: Asian Americans are cast outside the peripheries of normalcy.

Career Development of Asian American Female Visual Artists

“…Asian American literature has highlighted the importance of examining the contextual factors that influence the career choices of Asian Americans (Fouad & Bryars-Winston, 2005;Tang, 2002;Ng, Lee, & Pak, 2007). Therefore, it is important to better understand how career theories can utilize these contextual factors to inform the conceptualization of career development process.…”

“…In addition to hard labor, such as working the mines or railroads, they were also found in occupations, such as laundry washers, gardeners, and cooks. These occupations were often accessible for Chinese immigrants as they posed little occupational desirability to the dominant Caucasian male population (Min, 2006 In the late 20 th century, the image of the average Asian American started to change around the time of the Civil Rights movement (Ng, Lee, & Pak, 2007). The…”

“…This surge of employment of Asian American immigrants in professional and highly-skilled fields continued on into the new millennium through the Immigration Act of 1990. In parallel with the success of higher academic and work achievement of Asian Americans in the 1960s, was the growing unrest of the racial ethnic minority population due to the oppressive powers that existed in American society (Ng, Lee, & Pak, 2007). The changing times influenced by the new immigration laws and of the Civil Rights movement would later contribute to the creation of the model minority myth.…”

“…The myth came about as a dramatic shift in perception of the Asian American community during the 1960s. Historically, Asian Americans employment has been associated with the label "yellow peril" (Cao & Novas, 1996;Min, 2006;Ng, Lee, & Pak, 2007). Yellow…”

“…This description of the Asian American population is broad and vague, due to the heterogeneity of the group which is difficult to succinctly encapsulate (Lowe, 2000;Ng, Lee, & Pak, 2007). Due to the large span of cultural and ethnic groups that comprise the Asian American population, they are often divided into geographic subgroups: East Asian Americans (e.g.…”