The model minority myth and the pressure to be perfect
Professor erin Khuê Ninh is the author of the recent book "Passing for Perfect." Photos courtesy Temple University Press and University of California Santa Barbara
As a group, Asian American are often stereotyped as a “model minority,” and students often find their experiences are defined by markers of success and failure. Under the pressure, some have reached breaking points, taking extreme measures to cope. There’s the story of Azia Kim, who pretended to be a Stanford freshman, even going so far as to live in a dorm. There’s also Jennifer Pan, who hired a hitman to kill her parents so they wouldn’t find out she never received her high school diploma.
The 21st was joined by the author of a book exploring these stories and the myth of the model minority, as well as a clinical social worker and a student who shared her own experiences with the pressure often placed on Asian American students.
GUESTS:
erin Khuê Ninh
Associate Professor, Department of Asian American Studies, University of California Santa Barbara | Author, Passing for Perfect: College Imposters and Other Model Minorities
Rayna Wuh
Student, Computer Science and Philosophy, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Nghia Le
Clinical social worker | Therapist
The experience of being Asian in America has been rigidly defined by a framework of success and failure, @huahsu writes. As the scholar erin Khuê Ninh argues in a recent book, this framework has been internalized, even by those who resist it. https://t.co/ZFYKg3lVmE
— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) March 30, 2022
Prepared for web by Owen Henderson
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