On the stage of this year's Winter Olympics, many Chinese athletes appeared, and several of them won gold and silver, which made the identity of Chinese and even Asians get a lot of attention. Gu Ailing and Zhu Yi, who grew up in the United States, are at the center of public opinion; the American figure skating team has four Chinese players, including Chen Wei, who won the men's singles gold medal.
The discussion of them also extended beyond the arena, where they were cheerful, top-notch and well-rounded, enriching the public's imagination of athletes who trained hard. Much of the report has focused on the narrative behind them that they all come from middle-class and above families and believe in the rewards of individual efforts. But its essence is a repetition of the myth of the Asian "model minority." Not only does it not represent the situation of Asian-American groups, but it also masks or reinforces inequalities within and between minorities.
In her book The Creation of Asian America: A History, historian Yilian Li traces the suffering of Asian Americans in the United States, the history they have created, and their ever-changing and complex roles. She points out in the following excerpts that the prominence of the Chinese elite is only the tip of the iceberg of the disparity between the rich and the poor within the Chinese community, and the living conditions of a minority should not be represented by the most "exemplary" those. Their situation is also often influenced by the struggle between the so-called "cultural mother country" and the host country.
We love to pursue Chinese who have achieved secular success, as if their success is a testament to the potential of Chinese culture and tradition. But if we really care about the blood and cultural ties involved, we should pay more attention to and empathize with the specific dilemmas faced by the Chinese community.
"The Rise of Asian Americans?" ：
Myth and reality
Author: Li Yilian
In recent years, the U.S. news media has hailed the "rise of Asian Americans." Not only are they the fastest-growing group in the United States, but they are also considered the most educated, the richest, and even the happiest. The Wall Street Journal reported on the "rise of the Tiger States," and economists labeled the "Asian Tigers" of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore as competitive, fast-growing, and successful also apply to Asian-Americans. The business magazine claimed that Indian immigrants "conquered Silicon Valley" and provided important models for "women and other races" seeking similar successes. Researchers at the Pew Research Center claim that the achievements of Asian Americans represent "important milestones in economic success and social assimilation" throughout U.S. history. While acknowledging the differences between Asian-Americans, the Pew Research Center researchers found that as a group, they enjoy shared economic mobility and a high level of education, and generally valued "cultural" characteristics such as the importance of family, respect for elders, and a "general belief in the rewards of hard work."
Asian Americans were once considered non-assimilable, racially inferior aliens who posed a threat to the United States; today, Asian Americans are a model of American success, sometimes even referred to as "honor whites." But this description is misleading. It masks the persistent inequalities and disparities in Asian-Americans and relies on a new, divisive racist discourse. Moreover, it obscures the precarious position of Asian Americans in contemporary America. Based on the U.S. economy and global political situation, some Asian-Americans are considered fully equal citizens in the United States, while others find themselves marginalized as dangerous outsiders. For example, since the 1980s, Japan and China's growing economic power, as well as the outsourcing of U.S. jobs to countries such as India, have affected Asian Americans as economic competitors in the United States. Tensions between the United States and China in particular cast a shadow over the loyalty of Chinese-Americans. The post-9/11 war on terror, which focused on Muslims, Arabs, and Muslims, had a huge impact on South Asian Americans and other immigrant societies. This simultaneous acceptance and rejection of Asian Americans reflects their complex position in contemporary American society and the myths and realities of the so-called rise of Asian Americans.
The concept of exemplary minorities remains the most common way Americans view Asian-Americans today. Asian-American model minorities that began during World War II and the Cold War garnered even more attention in american public discourse in the 1980s, when newspapers and magazines often praised the way Asian-Americans succeeded. In 1984, Newsweek reported that Asian-Americans "included all the honors of some of America's most respected schools." Year after year, they scored ahead of other races on the Scholastic Aptitude test (SAT) in mathematics. The following year, The New Republic magazine noticed that the group was "astonishingly" present in some of the best schools in the United States. Throughout the article, there are other words to describe Asian-Americans, such as "outstanding" and "stunning." Fortune magazine went a step further, describing Asian-Americans as "America's Super Minority." Asian-Americans are "smarter, more educated, and make more money than anyone else" because of their education and genetics. The magazine even asserted: "Asian Americans are smarter than other Americans." ”
Nathan Chen performed a short figure skating show at the Beijing Winter Olympics.
In the late 20th century, the praise for Asian Americans was similar to but different from previous decades. Just as the 1960s stereotyped Asian Americans as model minorities, the 1980s also explained Asian-American success through so-called Asian values and cultures that emphasized "respect for learning traditions" and strong family structures. Like the stereotypes of exemplary minorities before, this interpretation of Asians sets them apart from other Americans.
The educational and socioeconomic achievements of Asian Americans have also been used to compare them to other minorities, especially African Americans. African Americans are doing fewer and fewer blue-collar jobs, central cities and public schools are deteriorating, and centuries of institutionalized discrimination have led to a growing perception that African-American poverty is a byproduct of an unsound culture and poor family values, unrelated to the slow economic development of the United States.
Riots broke out in Los Angeles in 1992 after four Los Angeles police officers brutally beat up An african-American driver Rodney King. The media began to compare Asians with African Americans. The April 29 riots, dubbed "sa-i-gu" (4-2-9) by South Koreans, destroyed more than 2,300 South Korean businesses and drove more than 10,000 South Koreans out of their homes and stores. Nearly half of the city's $1 billion property damage came from small South Korean business owners. From the beginning, media reports described the incident as a clash between blacks and Koreans. Although participants in the march, nonviolent resistance, riots, and robberies included white, black, Latino, and Asians, mainstream media portrayed the incident as a cultural clash between blacks and Koreans. African Americans living in South-Central Los Angeles, portrayed as unprofitable citizens and welfare recipients, are dissatisfied with the economic growth of Korean Americans in their communities. Korean-American shopkeepers, by contrast, are portrayed as hard-working immigrants struggling to realize the American Dream, but they are stubborn and maintain their identity. According to media reports, conflict between the two ethnic groups is almost inevitable. Such media coverage pits African-Americans against Korean-Americans, ignoring the greater structural inequalities that led to the Los Angeles riots. South Korean journalist K. W. Lee W. Lee even called the report a "spurious race war between ethnic minorities instigated by the media." "Even before South Koreans and African Americans had the opportunity to learn about each other's shared struggles and grief... Both ethnic groups stared at each other and confronted each other on shrill sounds and glaring news headlines. ”
African Americans are not the only contrast group of Asian-American model minorities in the media. The success stories of contemporary Asian-Americans have also been used as a warning to white Americans. Behind the praise for Asian-Americans is an underlying anxiety that Asian-Americans are too successful on their own, hurting white Americans of the same caliber and competing with other more qualified minorities. In the 1980s, some ridiculed schools for being overinvalued by too many Asians. MIT is jokingly referred to as "Made in Taiwan," while UCLA is considered "a Caucasian university lost among Asians."
In contrast to the two — blacks and whites — Asian-American success is seen at the expense of other groups.
Sociologists, demographers, and policymakers agree that there is a problem with treating all Asian-Americans as model minorities. They do have many examples of educational and economic success, but their societies are far from homogeneous. Emphasise only on the characteristics of its success mask a significant percentage of Asian Americans who are still struggling to survive, living in poverty, unemployed or underemployed, and have low levels of education. In fact, Asian-Americans are what some call "contrasting groups," and there is tremendous diversity and difference between and within their different groups.
Asian-American students give lectures at American universities.
U.S. Census data confirm that Asian Americans are prominently represented at both the pros and cons of education and socioeconomic areas. In terms of the percentage of adults with college degrees, more Asian-Americans (49 percent) have college degrees than other Americans (28 percent). Those numbers include highly educated immigrants who come to the U.S. with advanced degrees, and those whose families have been in the U.S. for generations. Meanwhile, in 2000, the rate of people with less than four years of education was five times that of non-Hispanic whites. By 2010, there were still more Asian Americans (8 percent) of Asian Americans (8 percent) with lower education levels than the overall U.S. population (6 percent). For many ethnic groups, including recent immigrants from countries with uneven access to education, and refugees in refugee camps who lack formal education, school attendance can be a challenge for them and drop-out rates are high.
The 2010 census showed that the median annual income of Indian-Americans, Chinese-Americans, and Japanese-Americans was higher than the median of the overall U.S. population. At the same time, the median annual income of Korean-Americans, Vietnamese-Americans, and Filipino-Americans is lower than the median total U.S. population, and the poverty rates of these groups, together with Chinese and "other Asian Americans" (as described in the census), are also higher than the overall poverty rates of Americans. They work in low-wage service industries and live in crowded apartments. In the recent recession, many people already living on the periphery of the economy have sunk deeper into poverty and, like African Americans, have gone through more difficult times in maintaining economic stability. Some ethnic groups, such as Chinese-Americans, are represented at both ends of the economic ladder. In 2010, the median annual income of Chinese Americans was higher than that of the total U.S. population, but at the same time, 14 percent of Chinese Americans lived in poverty, a higher percentage of Asian Americans and the total U.S. population.
California, the state with the largest Asian-American population, confirms that Asian-Americans are a divided group. Between 2000 and 2010, the Asian-American population grew by 34 percent. They owned more than 500,000 businesses in 2007 and have gained more citizenship, voter registration, and political engagement in recent years. Some are the most educated in California, including Taiwanese and Indians, but on a statewide scale, Asian-Americans 25 and older are less likely than whites to have higher Chinese or equivalent diplomas (86 percent..93 percent). This rate for Asian Americans is similar to that of African Americans (87 percent). Hermons, Cambodians, Laotians, and Vietnamese Americans have the lowest levels of education in the United States. In addition, from 2006 to 2010, Asian-Americans had the highest unemployment growth of all racial groups (196 percentage points) across the state. Compared to whites, Asian-Americans have a higher share of the low-income population (20 percent and 24 percent, respectively) and lower per capita incomes ($42,052 and $29,841, respectively).
Finally, Asian-Americans have higher poverty rates than whites (10 percent and 8 percent, respectively). From 2007 to 2011, the number of Asian-Americans living in the state increased by approximately 50 percent to more than 500,000. The poverty rates of Hermon and Cambodian-American children (42 percent and 31 percent, respectively) are higher than those of African-American and Latino children (27 percent and 26 percent, respectively). However, Asian-Americans in California are not unique. Asian-Americans in New York have been mired in poverty in recent years and are now the poorest New Yorkers.
Despite definitive evidence of Asian American diversity, prominent poverty, unemployment and low employment rates, and low levels of education in some ethnic groups, the label of "model minority" remains. Some sociologists have pointed out the negative impact of this stereotype on Asian-American and American race relations. Historian Franklin Odo argues that the label "exemplary minority" "encourages Asian Americans, without complaint, to endure contemporary racial discrimination and to have the courage and loyalty of service that surpasses the needs of other Americans." It also left Americans generally "blind" to persistent inequality in the United States, he explained. Sociologist Lisa Sun-Hee Park has found that the model minority myth not only continues to play a role in perpetuating the marginalized status of Asian-Americans, but also hinders the transformation of second-generation social progress. Musician Vijay Iyer further argues that privileged and obscure Asian-Americans have become "complicits" in their acceptance of persistent inequality in the United States.
Chinese politician Andrew Yang has sparked controversy over his call for Asians to prove their contribution to society.
Others point out that America's continued celebration of Asian-American model minorities masks the growth of a new racism that affects us all. "Culture" rather than "race" has become a common word used to explain different and often related ideas about pros and cons. Proponents of this view argue that it is not a person's race or skin color, but their abilities, their culture. There are two kinds of mistakes in this line of thinking. First, these views tend to overlook institutional factors such as immigration laws, which give priority to highly educated individuals and those with technical skills. Career class status and family reunification are currently the two most common ways Asians immigrate to the United States. This means that before moving into the U.S., they already had a high level of education (which may have led to a stable, high-income work visa). For others, relatives already in the U.S. can help provide economic capital and personal resources to help them immigrate and succeed in their new lands. The integration of Asian Americans as model minorities into the existing racial hierarchy in the United States has also undergone some changes in the communities, schools, and types of social resources in which they are involved. As anthropologist Nancy Foner explains, Asians face less discrimination when it comes to housing, meaning they are able to live in areas with good public schools, which in turn helps their children succeed academically.
Second, the cultural interpretation of success and failure is the same as the way we talk about race, that is, culture is seen as an immutable, inheritable trait that determines intelligence, morality, and ability. Some cultures, such as Asian culture, are considered superior, while others are considered inadequate to compete with American culture. Beginning in the 1960s, Asian-Americans competed with what they called traditional Asian cultures against African-Americans, whose families and cultures were considered dysfunctional. In the 1990s, some pundits cited the growth of hispanic population as an example of cultural inadequacy. For example, Samuel Huntington, a professor at Harvard University, claimed that "Hispanic traits," such as "distrust of people outside the family, lack of initiative, self-reliance, and ambition," not only dragged Latino-Americans back, but also had a huge impact on American culture and brought a profound "Hispanic challenge" to the United States. The new racists don't just denigrate specific cultures like Huntington. They also use some (like Asian-Americans) as role models and make obnoxious comparisons with others to explain serious problems such as achievement gaps, poverty, and crime among certain groups in the United States. Racism is different from what has been the case in the past few decades. However, this new racism remains destructive and divisive.
Last year in Chicago, people carried "I am not your model minority" rally slogan.
While most media discourse about the rise of Asian Americans is rooted in changes in the social, economic, and political environment in the United States, the international context that shapes The status of Asian Americans is equally important. As in the past, Asian-Americans continue to be associated with Asia and with America's changing relationships with asian countries. These media create connections that are different from those maintained by the migrants themselves. Instead, Asian-Americans are considered Asian, not American, and they bring the same threat to this land as their ancestors brought to it.
In the 1980s, "Japan Inc." achieved astonishing economic success by developing automobiles and electronics at an astonishing rate, in stark contrast to the sluggish economic conditions in the United States, where unemployment and inflation remained high. In Detroit, once the proud auto capital, its auto workers find themselves unemployed. Japanese cars, Japanese auto workers and the Japanese auto industry are considered disasters for the American auto industry and workers. In this context, the old anti-Asian racism has resurfaced, including the equal treatment of all Asians and the representation of Asian Americans as representatives of the asian countries concerned. Beginning in the 1980s, a string of hate crimes — including murder, intimidation and other acts of violence — increasingly targeted Asian-Americans. The killing of Chinese-American engineer Vincent Chin at his bachelor party in 1982 became a hallmark of the trend.
The clashes began at a bar in Detroit, where Mr. Chen got into an argument with Ronald Ebens and his stepson, Michael Nitz. Things escalated, and then two white American auto workers chased Chen Guoren and beat him with a baseball bat. Ebbens and Nitz claimed that Chen's death was accidental and pleaded guilty to manslaughter. But witnesses suggested a clear motive. Ebbens, a foreman at an automobile factory, called Chen "Japanese Yankee" and shouted, "It's because of your dog days that we're unemployed!" When Ebens and Nietz were sentenced to three years of probation and a $3,800 fine without having to serve their sentences in prison, an important new phase of Asian-American activism and political awakening began. For many, Chen's experience represents a double tragedy: the murder of a promising young man and a criminal justice system that did not severely punish the killers. Civil rights activist and journalist Helen Zia was one of those who gathered at a local steakhouse to discuss possible action. Initially it was a boiling public outrage and disappointment. "Suddenly, people who have endured a lifetime of humiliation begin to suspect that their silence about suffering may not be a virtue," she recalls.
The Chinese community was the first to organize, but soon after, Japanese-Americans, Korean-Americans, Filipino-Americans, and African-Americans joined in, forming the first large-scale pan-Asian-American and interracial movement that called attention to crimes that hate Asian-Americans. Under the name American Citizens for Justice, the multiracial activist group is dedicated to demonstrating the racially motivated motives behind the killing. They must also convince the skeptical public and the justice system that Asian Americans in the United States — these so-called model minorities — can indeed be victims of serious discrimination. In 1983, the American Citizens Justice Federation filed a civil lawsuit on behalf of Chen Guoren, and a federal grand jury accused Ebbens and Nitz of violating Chen Guoren's civil rights. At the end of the 1984 trial, a federal jury found Ebbens guilty and acquitted Nitz, but the verdict was overturned on appeal. In 1987, the final verdict was acquitted.
The results were so disappointing that filmmakers Christine Choy and Renee Tajima-Peña sharply criticized the lack of justice in the case, asking in her famous documentary of the same name, "Who killed Chen Guoren?" "Ebbens and Nitz did kill Chen, but American racism and the stereotype of Asian Americans as a threatening outsider also killed Chen.
At the end of 1983, Detroit Protested Chen Guoren.
By the 1990s, another Asian country was on the rise. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, China began to emerge as a military and economic power, potentially rivaling the United States. At the same time, the deindustrialization of the U.S. economy fell into recession for the first time in the 1980s and then again in the early 2000s. China is now seen as an important business partner and dangerous competitor to the United States. The sensational bestsellers "When China Rules the World" and "Deadly China" have raised fears that China will subvert U.S. hegemony, and some have even described China's rise as a comprehensive threat to the United States from the inside out.
As in the past, Chinese Americans find their loyalty to the United States questioned. They are considered dangerous foreigners rather than fully qualified U.S. citizens. This happens in countless daily interactions, but also in high-profile investigations, violence and discriminatory racial landscapes by government agencies. For example, there are many Chinese-American scientists accused of spying on behalf of the People's Republic of China. Aerospace engineers, computer scientists and others were monitored by FBI officials who were unjustifiably accused of passing intelligence on Chinese. The most shocking and erroneous allegation is the Wen Ho Lee case. Wen Ho Lee is a researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The Taiwan-born American physicist was investigated in 1999 when The New York Times suspected the Los Alamos Laboratory of being involved in the transfer of nuclear warhead technology to China. Stemming from his ethnic background and access to weapons information, U.S. intelligence officials quickly focused on Mr. Lee. Lee was held in prison and held in solitary confinement for more than 200 days. After a 5-year in-depth investigation, the U.S. government found no evidence of espionage, and the U.S. District Court judge in New Mexico, who was in charge of The Textu Lee case, publicly apologized.
The rise in Asian-American status and the rise of Asia are also linked to intense media coverage of Yale law professor Amy Chua's best-selling family memoir, Battle Hymn of The Tiger Mother, published in 2011. Ms. Tsai describes the strict "Chinese" approach she learned from her Chinese immigrant parents, successfully raising her children to ivy league schools, while the image of "Tiger Mom" as an overbearing, stern, success-oriented Asian-American mother has become a powerful cultural symbol. The Wall Street Journal published an excerpt from the book with an inflammatory headline: "Why Chinese Mothers Are Better." The article goes on to suggest that "Chinese parents have produced these typical successful children (who are math prodigies and musical prodigies)" by rejecting tolerance, American-style playtime and sleep, while instilling strict discipline and practice.
Some commentators praised Tsai for instilling high expectations and hard work in her children and "the asian way to success," while others were frustrated that her work reinforced the very different stereotypes of Chinese and American cultures. One mother and journalist, Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, told the San Francisco Chronicle: "It's one thing to say, 'This is my particular way of parenting, either accept or give up and do whatever you want.'" But what this article says is, 'that's what Chinese do, that's what we all do with our children. You spend a lot of time trying to break racial stereotypes, and then after an event like this, it all comes in vain. Many commentators also fear that Tsai's book opposes U.S. concerns about the "rise of China," which will further provoke anti-China rhetoric already in the media and congress. Scholar Mitchell Chang explains that Tsai's retelling of the myth of exemplary minorities "can easily turn into a support for asians who are ruling the current world... The dangerous narrative of the Yellow Peril".
The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, underscored the U.S. global war on terror that led to another hostility against certain Asian-Americans. For South Asians in North America, terrorist attacks and the war on terror have brought a new wave of anti-immigrant sentiment, racial profiling, and intensified government censorship, deportations, and hate crimes. In the search for perpetrators, entire Middle Eastern, South Asian and Muslim immigrant communities are vulnerable to attacks accused of being terrorists, potential terrorists or terrorist sympathizers. The new "Islamic crisis" discourse was a model for finding scapegoats for immigrants during the war, as was the case for Japanese-Americans during World War II, and Muslims and other immigrant groups felt similar effects.
The impact of post-9/11 policies on Asian-Americans underscores the speed with which some Asian-Americans have transformed from model minorities to a dubiously dangerous immigrant threat. It also reveals how fragile America's tolerance for Asian Americans is. In the early 21st century, Asian-Americans were in a contradictory position in American society. While Asian-Americans have made tremendous progress economically, academically, and politically, they remain vulnerable to changes in the global economy and political struggles. Vijay Prashad commented: "The miasma of international relations constantly interferes with our lives. "Because U.S. intervention in terrorism in Asia and the Middle East has led to some Asian-American communities and other communities being unjustly treated and marginalized in the United States." In this case, they become threatened foreigners, not members of American society. It's a pattern that the Japanese experienced during World War II, and what Chinese Americans experienced during the Cold War. For some, the much-touted "rise of Asian Americans" seems more myth than reality.
(Excerpted above from The Creation of Asian America: A History,)
Courtesy of CITIC Press)
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