Concerns of ‘model minority’ ignored

Thursday, May 14, 1998

Concerns of ‘model minority’ ignored

APC: Progress

of Asian Americans needs to continue

By Stephanie Wang

The time when sugar was made "king" on a stolen land and
railroads were built on the backbreaking labor of many yellow hands
now seems to beckon from a distant and cold reality. Many of these
mental images that have deep roots in American history have nearly
been severed from their deeply political and emotional
dynamism.

While many of us accept the abuses perpetrated against our
predecessors as truths, we are also surprised to find that the
turbulent struggle for empowerment continues to this day. Almost 30
years ago, Asian Pacific Islander (API) students and their fellow
students of color struggled very hard to establish ethnic studies
centers. The Asian American Studies Center at UCLA was born out of
such a movement – a fight against unfavorable odds and seemingly
insurmountable barriers.

Previously, our entire history in America was filled with
racist, exclusionary and economically discriminatory policies. We
only need recall the incarceration of Japanese-Americans in
concentration camps during World War II or the systematic denial of
naturalization to people of the "Mongolian race" to see how APIs
were marginalized in American society. So where was this activism
generated and how?

It began with the civil rights movement of the 1960s and spread
indelibly across race, class and gender constructions to touch
entire generations and communities. Out of this larger movement for
social change, we began to reclaim our Asian American identity. We
are direct descendants of that legacy.

In the beginning, many API students on campus were afraid of
Asian American studies courses and stayed away en masse, finding
even the identity "Asian American" too revolutionary. "Oriental"
was a palatable term then. As our numbers grew, along with our
consciousness about our unabashed right to live as we live in
America – free from incessant cultural and racial discrimination –
things slowly began to change.

While many of our families did not actively participate in the
civil rights movement, they most certainly live with the
reverberations of this and other social movements every day of
their lives. Many have obtained the right to become citizens (a
right only granted to Asian Americans in the latter half of the
20th century), to settle in areas free from racial covenants and to
ensure that their children will not be sequestered into "Oriental"
schools.

But simply because we have acquired a space for our histories
and our communities should not mean that we have become
de-politicized, stranded from the forces that have nurtured and
supported our right to be who we are. In fact, whatever gains in
social and economic mobility we have made as a community do not
belie the absolute need for APIs to continue developing their
social consciousness.

When the issue of affirmative action comes to mind, few people
bother to think of Asians Americans and how it affects us. With the
emergence of the "model minority" stereotype and because we have
little access to mainstream political processes, politicians have
been putting words in the mouth of APIs.

Through the alleged alliance of the conservative politicians and
the "model minority," our various Asian American communities have
been thoughtlessly thrown against other people of color. The
conservative arguments against affirmative action are preventing
API communities from forming necessary relationships with other
racially oppressed minorities.

These conservative forces have manipulated the model minority
stereotype to draw Asian American support away from affirmative
action. They are the very same morally bankrupt people who also
want to reduce Asian, Latino and all other "nonwhite" immigration,
slash critical social services for elderly Asian immigrants and
eliminate bilingual education programs.

From Proposition 187 to 227, APIs have been culturally attacked
as immigrant communities. The current crackdown on incoming
immigrants and the possible elimination of bilingual education has
also promoted notions of cultural and social subjugation among
these groups.

The passage of Proposition 209 provides another example of the
continuous attack on people of color. As this proposition serves to
restrict the diversity of our campus through admissions, these same
political and cultural attacks will eventually help to eliminate
programs serving the API communities within UCLA and the outside
world.

The dismantling of affirmative action has been a tremendous step
back for the Asian American community. Though some make the
assumption that we have benefited from Proposition 209 with a 1
percent rise in API admissions, the truth is that this gain is
ultimately irrelevant.

It would be serving a misguided sense of self-pride to gleam
upon the additional East Asians admitted to the system, while the
exclusion of our Pacific Islander and Southeast Asian communities
gains steam. Once Asian Americans leave college, we will still be
making 11 percent less than comparably educated whites.

Furthermore, we are much less likely to be promoted to positions
of management or administration because of racist stereotypes which
typify Asians as too complacent or passive to assume positions of
leadership. Despite the fact that white males constitute 43 percent
of all U.S. college graduates, they occupy 95 percent of senior
management positions and 90 percent of the officers of American
corporations.

Affirmative action levels the playing field, allowing
opportunities to Asian Americans who don’t have the benefit of
access to "old boy" networks or similar methods of "affirmative
action for white men." Because APIs have little access to the
mainstream media, politicians have been putting words in the mouths
of APIs.

We are dehumanized as a passive, "model minority" comprised of
hard working, high-achievers. We are portrayed as sterile computer
nerds, submissive housewives and money hungry businessmen rather
than three-dimensional human beings. Can you stomach living someone
else’s lie?

The Asian Pacific Coalition is actively involved in encouraging
our API student and community population to engage in the upcoming
Days of Defiance, May 14, 15 and 19, held by the UCLA Affirmative
Action Coalition.

Not only do we consider it important that we be present, but we
also recognize the moral responsibility we have for our ancestors,
our communities and our histories to be there in solidarity with
the same groups that have helped make our own empowerment
possible.

To all API students who have acquired a measure of pride in
their identity and in their unique place in America, affirmative
action is our legacy. We consider Chancellor Albert Carnesale’s
decision to throw himself a party in the face of declining numbers
of underrepresented students to be a deliberate insult to the
students at UCLA and to our communities. There is nothing to
celebrate. It is our duty to fight and defy.