The Model Minority Myth Is A Myth?
When my Dad immigrated to the US in 1966 to get his masters degree, along with droves of well-educated and ambitious young Indian men and women, he was part of the wave of immigrants that would eventually make their way into the white neighborhoods, slowly securing their place in America by becoming the minority group with the highest median household income.
Mom and Dad Circa 1972
Arun Venugopal talks about this time period in his article The Truth Behind Indian American Exceptionalism -
“This scene played out in thousands of families as many of India’s best and brightest left for the U.S. From 1966 to 1977, according to the historian Vijay Prashad, about 20,000 scientists immigrated from India to the United States, along with 40,000 engineers and 25,000 physicians. The majority spoke English and came from upper-caste communities (as my parents did). The composition of the diaspora was representative of only a narrow slice of India: people who had the social capital and intellectual means to succeed far from home, and who had the resources to make the journey in the first place.The result was an intense form of social engineering, but one that went largely unacknowledged. Immigrants from India, armed with degrees, arrived after the height of the civil-rights movement, and benefited from a struggle that they had not participated in or even witnessed. They made their way not only to cities but to suburbs, and broadly speaking were accepted more easily than other nonwhite groups have been.”
So growing up, the model minority myth seemed like a positive thing for South Asians, in particular, Indian-Americans. And why not? Everyone I was surrounded by was well-educated, getting their second and third degrees, buying their million-dollar homes. We were the minority group that fit the American dream, that didn’t take hand-outs, earned every penny we worked for. Why shouldn’t all minority groups have the same experience?
Well, it turns out, for many reasons. Reasons that I naively never understood and shamefully never asked. I was in my bubble and happy to blend in as much as possible. Venugopal’s article goes on to answer that question and explains what our community had forgotten-
“What is forgotten is that before Indian-Americans became a model minority, we were regarded as a problem minority. Also forgotten is the extent to which the U.S. engineered the conditions that allowed certain nonwhite groups to thrive.”
There’s a lot more that I’m trying to learn and understand about the MMM (coining it) but after having many eye-opening conversations with guests, I realized that the MMM had only taken into consideration only a small sliver of the minority population that I happen to be part of. That sliver that immigrated during a particular time and under a particular state of circumstances.
Co-founder of nFormation, Deepa Purushothaman, beautifully explains some of the rationale behind MMM and why many of us feel a lack of support from one another in our own communities because of it. We discuss why now is the time, more than ever, that we must dissect who we really are as Americans and the values that we stand for.
The model minority myth that came along with our immigration story has turned into a dangerous stereotype- one that says all Asians are successful and we all keep our heads down. One that tends to pit us against each other. It’s an assumption that we as a whole don't need any assistance and as a result, are essentially left to fend for ourselves.
Look, I’ll admit, I was happy in my bubble for some time. But for the sake of future generations, it’s time to let it burst.