#18. The Model Minority

The date is best immortalized in a painting by Howard Pyle, and his drawing depicts an event vastly important in the history of the civilized world.

1619. The year Black people were first introduced to the North American continent and to the land that would 160 years later be the United States of America:

“On August 20, 1619, a Dutch ship arrived at Jamestown. Twenty captured Africans, who were sold as slaves at Jamestown, were on board. The initial Blacks to arrive were considered indentured servants (servants who were bound by contract), like many whites in similar circumstances. The Blacks were freed many years later, when terms of their servitude contract ended.”

Since this auspicious event, Black people have been disingenuous white liberal’s favorite object of ameliorating – to mixed results – and were (until only recently) historically the largest minority group in America.

Black people will soon be celebrating their Quadricentennial anniversary on this continent, and yet the past nearly 400 years haven’t been the greatest experience nor produced results on par with other racial groups that lack predominate ancestry from Europe:

“Despite a seventh straight year of improved test scores statewide, results released today show California schools failed to make a significant dent in a historically immovable achievement gap - one that leaves black and Hispanic students lagging well behind their white and Asian peers.

Based on the rate of improvement from 2003 to 2009, it would take up to 105 years to close the white/Hispanic achievement gap and at least 189 years to close the white/black gap, which has failed to narrow by even a point in English since 2003, according to scores released today.”

Asians – a term used to describe any non- European white who also has white skin – have been around in the United States for a long time. Worse, they have experienced discrimination as well, putting them at the historic disadvantage of Black people (although Black people were saddled with the chains of slavery for a few hundred years):

“In 1763, Filipinos established the small settlement of Saint Malo in the bayous of current-day Louisiana, after fleeing mistreatment aboard Spanish ships. Since there were no Filipino women with them, the Manilamen, as they were known, married Cajun and Native American women.^[7]

Chinese sailors first came to Hawaii in 1778 the same year that Captain James Cook came upon the island. Many settled and married Hawaiian women. Some Island-born Chinese can claim to be 7th generation. Most Chinese, Korean and Japanese immigrants in Hawaii arrived in the 19th century as laborers to work on sugar plantations. Later, Filipinos also came to work as laborers, attracted by the job opportunities, although they were limited.

Numerous Chinese and Japanese began immigrating to the U.S. in the mid-19th century for work, because of poor economic conditions in their home nations. Many of the immigrants worked as laborers on the transcontinental railroad. Although the absolute numbers of Asian immigrants in the late 19th century were small compared to that from other regions, much of it was concentrated in the West, and the increase caused some Americans to fear the change represented by the growing number of Asians. This fear was referred to as the "yellow peril." The United States passed laws such as Asian Exclusion Act and Chinese Exclusion Act to sharply restrict Asian immigration.

During World War II, the United States government declared Japanese Americans a risk to national security and undertook the Japanese American internment, authorized by President Franklin Roosevelt with United States Executive Order 9066. This controversial action forced the relocation of approximately 112,000 to 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans, taking them from the west coast of the United States to hastily constructed War Relocation Centers in remote portions of the nation's interior.

This chapter in US history was a result of war hysteria, racial discrimination, and economic competition. Sixty-two percent of those forced to relocate were United States citizens. Starting in 1990, the government paid some reparations to the surviving internees in recognition of the harm it had caused them and their families.”

Wait a second. Black people aren’t the only minority racial group in America – 5 percent of Americans are of Asian ancestry? Wait. Asians experienced discrimination at the hands of the majority as well?

Hold the presses… why aren’t Asian-Americans impacted as severely as Black people by the historical stain of racism? Could it be because they are the ultimate manifestation of the “Model Minority”, when compared to the other minority groups in the United States?:

“Model minority refers to a minority ethnic, racial, or religious group whose members achieve a higher degree of success than the population average. It is most commonly used to label one ethnic minority higher achieving than another ethnic minority. This success is typically measured in income, education, and related factors such as low crime rate and high family stability. The term is often characterized as a myth which amounts to racial stereotyping.

In the United States, the term is associated with Asian Americans, primarily Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Indian and to a lesser extent, Vietnamese and Filipino Americans.

A common misconception is that the affected communities usually hold pride in their labeling as the model minority. Statistics are often cited to back up their model minority status such as high educational achievement, overrepresentation at Ivy League and other prestigious universities, and a high percentage of Asian Americans working in white collar professions (jobs such as medicine, investment banking, management consulting, finance, and law).”

Black people and Asians have faced discrimination in the United States (Chinese were excluded from immigrating to the United States for the fear of overwhelming the Western states in the late 1880s) and yet, crime rates among Asian-Americans are lower than whites:

Defenders of the relative accuracy and reliability of the racial demographic component of crime statistics in the US point to international crime statistics showing remarkably similar results. INTERPOL statistics on homicide, forcible rape and aggravated assault from the years 1984-1996 are reported to show the same racial disproportionality, with Asian (Mongoloid) and White (Caucasoid) populations rating consistently lower than Black (Negroid) populations.

In 1996, the rates per 100,000 were estimated at 35 for Asians, 42 for Whites and 149 for Blacks, yielding a Black rate more than 3 times the Asian or White rate.”

Black crime however, is a color all unto itself.

Black people look at the continent of Asia and the success of Asia with disbelief. These non-European, white-looking people have built a massive civilization, had tremendous success in the United States and have dealt with historical abuses from the same European-people, yet still try and act white!

Some would argue the “Model Minority” act more white than European-descended people!

However, the notion of “Model Minority” is hardly one of veneration:

The report, by New York University, the College Board and a commission of mostly Asian-American educators and community leaders, largely avoids the debates over both affirmative action and the heavy representation of Asian-Americans at the most selective colleges.

But it pokes holes in stereotypes about Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders, including the perception that they cluster in science, technology, engineering and math. And it points out that the term “Asian-American” is extraordinarily broad, embracing members of many ethnic groups.

“Certainly there’s a lot of Asians doing well, at the top of the curve, and that’s a point of pride, but there are just as many struggling at the bottom of the curve, and we wanted to draw attention to that,” said Robert T. Teranishi, the N.Y.U. education professor who wrote the report, “Facts, Not Fiction: Setting the Record Straight…

The report, based on federal education, immigration and census data, as well as statistics from the College Board, noted that the federally defined categories of Asian-American and Pacific Islander included dozens of groups, each with its own language and culture, as varied as the Hmong, Samoans, Bengalis and Sri Lankans.

Their educational backgrounds, the report said, vary widely: while most of the nation’s Hmong and Cambodian adults have never finished high school, most Pakistanis and Indians have at least a bachelor’s degree.

The SAT scores of Asian-Americans, it said, like those of other Americans, tend to correlate with the income and educational level of their parents.

“The notion of lumping all people into a single category and assuming they have no needs is wrong,” said Alma R. Clayton-Pederson, vice president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, who was a member of the commission the College Board financed to produce the report.

“Our backgrounds are very different,” added Dr. Clayton-Pederson, who is black, “but it’s almost like the reverse of what happened to African-Americans.”

Yet, almost every major city has an area denoted as “Chinatown”, an ethnically homogeneous spot where Asian-Americans have crafted peaceful existences for themselves and their progeny, while building small businesses and creating an environment where their off-spring can join the American majority in the middle-class.

A hilarious 1980s film, "Big Trouble in Little China" dealt with the notion of "Chinatown".

During the LA Riots of 1992, the “Model Minority” found their stores looted and pillaged by the “Model-Idiot Minority”, and these Black people found AK-47’s pointed directly at them.

People love to visit Chinatowns. Black people don’t like to mention what their towns are called, and worse, why few people wish to visit them.

Another 1980s film, "The Guardian" showed life in the ghetto, and how white liberals react to it.

Stuff Black People Don’t Like includes the moniker of Model Minority, for if a people who have spent nearly four hundred years on this continent alongside the white majority can’t be denoted the “Model Minority”, then Asian-American’s shouldn’t get that title either.

After all, Black people know their the "Model Minority" anyway, for McDonald's went 365 Black, not 365 Asian. Of course, crusading white pedagogues find the ability for "The Model Minority" to outpace all other racial groups grounds for concern, for positive images for this group don't require sports alone.