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Chinese Americans: Don't Call Us 'Model' Citizens
by Michael Lipin
In this segment of VOA's continuing report on [1]What Americans Think
About China, we turn our focus to Chinese immigrants in the United
States. One of the most common U.S. stereotypes of Chinese Americans
is that they are a "model" minority in a nation of diverse ethnicities.
That perception may seem flattering. But, for many Chinese Americans it
is a myth - one that they have been trying to combat for decades. In
this report, VOA examines how Chinese Americans became a "model
minority" and why many find that label offensive. - Editor
What is a 'Model Minority'?
In the last major U.S. survey of attitudes toward Chinese Americans, a
2009 report said their fellow Americans viewed them as "educated,
having strong family values and [being] hardworking, intellectually
bright, and committing less crime than other ethnic groups."
The [2]opinion poll by the Committee of 100, a New York-based
organization of prominent Chinese Americans, also said 57 percent of
those surveyed believed Asian Americans "often or always achieve a
higher degree of overall success than other Americans." It said those
perceptions were unchanged from an earlier poll in 2001.
[3]Another study by U.S. market research company Nielsen describes
Chinese and other Asian Americans as "affluent, well-educated,
geographically-concentrated, and technologically savvy."
The December 2013 report called Asian American consumers a "powerful
economic force that can represent significant growth opportunities for
the nation's businesses."
These flattering characterizations are a major factor behind the
stereotyping of Chinese Americans as a "model minority" group.
But there is more.
Charles Gallagher, a sociology professor at LaSalle University in
Philadelphia, says white Americans typically see themselves as
embodying the same values as Chinese and other Asian Americans. He says
whites - who make up about three-quarters of the population - also feel
an affinity with Chinese Americans because both have lighter skin
relative to African Americans and other minorities.
"Whites and Asians cluster together," Gallagher says. "Since they
regard each other as alike, they want to share 'social space' by living
in a neighborhood, going to school, riding the bus or working
together."
In a [4]2012 study, the Pew Research Center asked Chinese Americans how
their community gets along with white Americans. It reported that 69
percent of respondents said "pretty well," and an additional 17 percent
said "very well."
Gallagher says whites and Chinese Americans also have a predisposition
to gravitate to each other when it comes to romance. The Pew survey
estimated that 26 percent of Chinese American newlyweds in the years
2008 to 2010 married a non-Asian American.
'"Chinese Americans marry out at a very high rate, and when they marry,
they marry into the dominant ethnic group," Gallagher says.
The acceptance of Chinese Americans in contemporary U.S. society
contrasts sharply with American attitudes toward the first Chinese
immigrants in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
History of discrimination
'
The first significant immigration from China to the United States began
in the mid-19th century, when Chinese laborers came to the American
West to build the trans-continental railroad and work in other
industries such as mining and agriculture.
Despite those contributions to the economy, many white Americans viewed
the Chinese as competitors and racial inferiors.
William Wei, a history professor at the University of Colorado in
Boulder, says Chinese workers suffered exploitation and violence at the
hands of whites, who forced the migrants to live in ghettos and pursue
low-skilled occupations such as laundry and restaurant work.
"Chinese Americans were condemned as social pariahs incapable of ever
becoming culturally assimilated into American society," Wei says.
Those attitudes culminated in the U.S. government adopting the
[5]Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which barred Chinese people from
migrating to the United States and becoming citizens. It was the first
and only U.S. law to ban a specific ethnic group from the country.
''The United States made the ban permanent in 1902. When China became
an American ally in fighting imperial Japan during World War Two,
Washington passed another law repealing the immigration ban.
The 1943 law established quotas that initially permitted only 105
Chinese migrants per year. In 1965, Washington abolished the quota
system with the [6]Immigration and Nationality Act, ending an
eight-decade barrier to Chinese immigration.
Valuing education
Frank H. Wu, chancellor of the University of California Hastings
College of the Law, says the selective nature of Chinese immigration to
the United States in the initial post-war decades is one reason why
Chinese Americans have gained a reputation as highly educated.
"The Chinese people who were able to immigrate were talented, they were
students on scholarships, they were people who had great potential," Wu
says.
"Both of my parents came from China via Taiwan to the United States in
the late 1950s and early 1960s because they won scholarships," he says.
"They represented the 'cream of the crop'. So some of this (reputation)
is what happens when you take the most educated, most promising young
people of China and invite them here."
Wu, who blogs about Asian American issues for the [7]Huffington Post,
says even after U.S. immigration laws were relaxed in 1965, the new
wave of Chinese migrants continued to have high rates of college
attendance.
"So there is truth to this notion that Asian Americans value higher
education," Wu says.
Today, the United States is home to at least 3.7 Chinese Americans,
according to the [8]U.S. Census Bureau's 2012 data. They have led the
modern immigration wave from Asia for the past 60 years.
''
Asian Americans - foreign and U.S.-born - number at least 18.3 million,
accounting for almost 6% of the U.S. population (as of 2012). That's
up from less than 1% in the 1960s.
Wu says some Chinese Americans take pride in being seen as a "model
minority."
"They proclaim that they are 'Tiger Mothers' (who impose traditional
strict parenting on their children) and call on others to follow their
lead," he says.
But, Wu says his community should not embrace an image that also tends
to contain resentment.
Drawbacks of a `positive' stereotype
"Imagine someone standing up and saying, 'my race is better, you should
be like me'," Wu says. "In a diverse democracy like the United States,
I can't think of a worse way to invite other kids to beat your kids up
than to say, 'yes, we really are the model minority'."
LaSalle University's Gallagher says the idea that Chinese Americans are
over-achievers also creates problems for those who do not live up to
that image.
"When an Asian kid enters my class, some students will think, is he
going to be good in math? That is true for a subset of the Asian
population, but it is not true for everyone that is Chinese or Asian
American. So what happens if you are a Chinese American and you don't
do well in school? (People may wonder,) `are you not Chinese?'"
Helen Zia, a Chinese American former journalist and author of [9]Asian
American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People, says the "model
minority" stereotype has another harmful consequence for less fortunate
ethnic Chinese citizens.
"It leads American policy makers to think they do not need to worry
about the health problems or poverty of Asian Americans, because we are
seen as so diligent that we will overcome everything on our own," Zia
says.
Other impacts of the `model' image
Historian Wei says the stereotype also is damaging to non-Asian
minorities in the United States.
"Some Americans say: `Look what we did to the Chinese - we
discriminated against them, committed violence against them, excluded
them from the country, yet they still have achieved (success).
Therefore, if your minority has not succeeded in our land of
opportunity, it is clearly your fault.'"
Wei says such thinking leads people to blame racial prejudice and
discrimination on the victims themselves, rather than the perpetrators.
Zia says the notion that Chinese Americans can overcome adversity feeds
into the second key stereotype of the community - that ethnic Chinese
U.S. citizens are "foreigners" with sinister intent.
"If we are perceived as being able to endure everything, it also means
that we can be perceived as being able to take over everything," she
says.
Editor's Note: VOA explores the evolution of the "foreigner" stereotype
of Chinese Americans in the second part of this report.
Timeline and graphics by Idrees Ali. Additional research by Haleema
Shah.
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[10]http://www.voanews.com/content/chinese-americans-dont-call-us-model
-citizens/1955111.html
References
1. http://www.voanews.com/content/new-series-what-american-think-about-china-/1913088.html
2. http://www.survey.committee100.org/C100_2009Report.pptx
3. http://www.nielsen.com/content/corporate/us/en/insights/reports/2013/significant-sophisticated-and-savvy-the-asian-american-consumer-report-2013.html
4. http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/06/19/chapter-3-intergroup-relations/
5. http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=47
6. http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/publication/2008/04/20080423214226eaifas0.9637982.html
7. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-h-wu/
8. http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_12_1YR_DP05&prodType=table
9. http://us.macmillan.com/asianamericandreams/HelenZia
10. http://www.voanews.com/content/chinese-americans-dont-call-us-model-citizens/1955111.html