Vinay Maruri

Robins p.8
12/12/14
The Big Myth

Calculus is the bane of my existence. I loath it, I hate it, and I wish sometimes that I
could swing baseball bats, sledgehammers, and axes at it so that I could watch it bleed out on
the operating table. Yet, there is this strange myth out there that if you are any type of Asian
ethnicity, the chances that you are bad at math are worse than the odds that anybody could win
money off of a Vegas slot machine. I've tried. This is the insurmountable standard that I have to
face every day when I walk into this school or sleep in my house or walk in the streets.
This mindset, these stereotypes are what has given rise to the idea of the "model
minority". The model minority, according to the University of Texas, is when Asian Americans
are painted as "smart, naturally good at math, science, and technology, wealthy, hard-working,
self-reliant, living "the American dream", docile and submissive, obedient and uncomplaining,
spiritually enlightened and never in need of assistance(1). This idea, in Western society, was
planted by a war time United States Congress in order to prevent potential problems in their
Pacific Alliance with the Chinese when fighting Japan. As a result, Congress repealed the
Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943 and almost immediately after, started to spread propaganda
around the United States, portraying the Chinese as "law-abiding, peace-loving, courteous
people living quietly"(2). The effect of the governments propaganda was that a 180 degree turn
occurred in the public's view of Asians. Instead of being called the "yellow peril", they instead
became the ethnic group equivalent of John Winthrop's City on a Hill, a model for all the little
minorities to follow. This image spread like wildfire throughout Western society, as Asians were
continuously lauded for their relatively high rates of success compared to the rest of the
populace.

Today, this idea is still accepted by the majority of Western society and is still practiced
by that same majority as well. Even in Westlake, where ethnic relations are relatively good, this
idea is still practiced. Asians who get mediocre math grades are chastised by their peers.
Asians who get mediocre science grades are chastised by their peers. Asians who even get
mediocre SAT scores are chastised by their Westlake peers. Why should Asians like me be
subjected to these standards, when no other ethnic group at Westlake is?
Furthermore, even when faced with seemingly damning evidence, the myth lives on in
the Western mind. 33% of Asian American students drop out of high school or don't graduate on
time(3) and 11.8% of Asian-Americans are impoverished, with the fastest growing poverty rate
among all ethnic groups.(4) What the hell else can Asians like myself do to destroy this myth?
For those of you who say that say that this is just an Asian problem that can afford to be
ignored, oh how misguided you are. The model minority myth not only applies to Asians, but
also applies to African-Americans as well, who are "the invisible model minority". Don't believe
me? In the 2000 Census, our United States federal government found that African Immigrants
were the most educated immigrant group in the United States even when compared to Asian
immigrants. (5) Still don't believe me? Of the African-born population in the United States age 25
and older, 87.9% reported having a high school degree or higher, compared with 78.8% of
Asian-born immigrants and 76.8% of European-born immigrants, respectively. (6, 7) And you still
think that all Black people are dope slingers or gang bangers? What the hell else can AfricanAmericans do to dispel this myth?
Think about this. The Model Minority Myth, by encouraging World society to think about
ethnicities solely along the lines of cultural stereotypes, is promoting a form of slavery. Asians
like me and Blacks are all thought of only as computer geeks, math and science prodigies,
rappers, or future convicts. We are chained to this mindset and we cannot escape. In fact, our
enslavement to this idea is so strong and powerful that if an Asian or a Black person ever
subverts the myth, that person is ostracized and ridiculed in Western society. Lawyers, teachers,
businessmen, all of these classes of Asian and Black people are discriminated against by

Western society because they don't fit the Myth. They dont fit into the predetermined cage for
Asians or Blacks in the social hierarchy. By hanging on to the Model Minority Myth, Western
society is putting Asian and Black people in chains over and over and over again. And I thought
slavery was banned.
At this critical crossroads in race relations, the solution cannot be clearer. We have to
stop perpetuating the Model Minority Myth and let Asians or Blacks have their own identity that
is unshaped by societal expectations. Want to be an artist? A factory worker? An architect?
Even an ambulance chaser? We should all be fine with that because we as a society do not
have the right to determine what somebody should do in life. Let people do what they want, and
we all will be better for it because for all we know, the Asian who is forced to be an engineer or
is forced to endure the torture of calculus ,like me, may have robbed the world of the next great
rapper or the best Vegas gambler the world has ever seen. The black man who is forced to be a
rapper or is forced to join a gang may have robbed the country of its next president. If we as
Western society continue to perpetuate the societal scar that is Model Minority myth, more
people will get lost, more people will be robbed of their identity, and more people will have to
face the task of conforming to the Model Minority Myth, a task that is as likely to be
accomplished as the world putting a man on Mars. I know this firsthand because this is what I
face every day, but now I am drawing a line in the sand to put an end to the Model Minority Myth
once and for all.

(1)http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_minority#United_States
(2) http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0123-wu-chua-model-minority-chinese20140123-story.html
(3, 4) http://cmhc.utexas.edu/modelminority.html
(3) Cornell University (2004). Asian and Asian American campus climate task force
report.http://www.gannett.cornell.edu/downloads/campusIniatives/mentalhealth/AAATFreport200
4.pdf
(4) Catholic Campaign for Human Development, 2004 Poverty USA Campaign
(http://www.usccb.org/cchd/pusainsert.pdf
(5) African Immigrants in the United States are the Nation's Most Highly Educated Group. The
Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, No. 26 (Winter, 1999-2000), pp. 60-61
(6, 7) "Demographics and Statistics of Immigrants: Asian-Nation: Asian American History,
Demographics, & Issues". Asian-Nation. Retrieved 2010-11-08.
Characteristics of the African Born in the United States. Migration Policy Institute. January, 2006