Analysis Of Falling Out Of The Model Minority

The assigned materials discussed the stereotypes society has developed to describe Asian Americans. The materials suggest that society has depicted Asian American students as excelling in academics, and has classified them as model minorities (Lee, 1994). The stereotype often referred to in both the video (Nguyen, 2011) and the article (Lee, 1994) is the Model-Minority.

The video, “Falling Out of the Model Minority” (Nguyen, 2011), which takes place at Santa Clara University, California, interviews different Asian American students about their experiences with academics. This video (Nyugen, 2011) also interviews Dr. James Lai, who is the director of Ethnic Studies Department at the university, about the history behind Asian Americans and academics. Dr. Lai states that the Model Minority stereotype represents Asian Americans as highly educated, but lack social skills, which began back in 1967 when Times Magazine published an article about Asian Americans. The video states that high expectations from family and peers are the result of the Model Minority stereotype, and the students that were interviewed support this statement with their experiences (Nyguen, 2011). Dr. Lai thinks that the problem society has is the idea that culture plays a major role in success, which is why people blame their culture as the cause of their failure. Dr. Lai discusses the history of Asians coming to America, and the students interviewed explain the reasoning behind their parents coming to America. The students have similar situations in which their parents came to America for educational opportunities, which their children feel the need to perform to their parents’ achievements. In the conclusion of the video (Nguyen, 2011), Dr. Lai believes that...

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...sk for help, however, because Asians have the belief that discussing any difficulties shames the entire family (Lee, 1994). Then other Asian American students who are included in the low-achieving group are those who just prefer to do the minimum to pass, and focus on other activities the perceive as more important. Their families are those who are refugees from other Asian countries, and wished to be accepted by non-Asians (Lee, 1994). Last, the students who classified as the Asian American group had different motivation. These students mainly only associated with other Asian American students, and have the desire to fight racism, which was their drive to do hard work (Lee, 1994). In conclusion, Lee’s data gave her the credentials she needed to show that there are varying levels of academic achievement, due to personal experiences, within the Asian minority group.