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ID: 143651

Collective action, mobility, and shared struggles: how the so-called model minority can come to deny the myth / Dhingra, Pawan

Dhingra, Pawan	Article
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Summary/Abstract

The model minority remains one of the most durable images assigned to immigrant groups despite ample critiques of it. Those persons considered to be a model minority often promulgate the myth themselves. Common arguments against the stereotype do not effectively speak to these people. In this article I demonstrate the disconnect between the critiques of the stereotype and the views of Indian American professionals, a group widely considered to be a model minority. I then offer an alternative approach to dismantling the stereotype that can resonate more with those invested in it. This approach highlights groups’ history of collective action in response to racialised and class obstacles. Three case studies illustrate this approach: study of Indian American motel owners, of physicians, and of taxi drivers. Taxi drivers are thought to be on the opposite end of the model minority binary than doctors and successful motel owners. The case studies highlight the grassroots activism shared by all three groups.

Key Words

Racism ; Mobility ; Occupations ; Collective Action ; Model Minority ; Indian America

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ID: 080623

What it means to be a 'model minority': voices of ethnic Koreans in Northeast China / Gao, Fang

Gao, Fang	Journal Article
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2008.

Summary/Abstract

Ethnic Koreans in China have been widely recognized as a 'model minority' primarily for academic success. Using the data collected as part of a larger ethnographic research on Korean elementary school students, this paper examines how 27 Korean families construct meaning out of the model minority stereotype in the context of their lived experience in Northeast China. Research results indicate that Koreans constructed the multi-faceted nature of 'model minority' as a matter of cultural superiority and dual economic marginalization in the Chinese and South Korean mainstream societies, and valued education as a practical means to achieve economic upward mobility into the Chinese mainstream. This paper argues that the model minority stereotype with the cultural explanations for Korean success may reinforce the cultural deficiency argument about the academic failure of 'backward' minorities, silence the disadvantages suffered by Koreans in China's reform period and lead to no active intervention to remedy them

Key Words

Social Hierarchy ; Model Minority ; Cultural Superiority ; Dual Economic Marginalization ; Educational Aspirations

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