Generalizations of the Model Minority

Education in the Evergreen area of San Jose, California is extremely competitive and is arguably the most important aspect of life for most living there. For me and my family I grew up knowing that my expectations for myself were to do the best I can in anything I do, which was more of a common way of thinking for the children in my elementary school because it was very diverse and I was one of five Asians. In middle school and high school the population of the schools were around 60% Asian and the school itself has a total minority enrollment rate of 92%. There, I learned that majority of these Asians had immigrant parents that were very hard on their children to not simply try at academics, but they must succeed at each level to attain a goal, such as a profession or amount of money they must make, in order to not be disowned by these parents. Since these students, which made up the majority of the school, were ultra-hardworking and studious, it forced the teachers into the mindset that everyone was like this. With the teachers thinking that all of us were overachieving, it allowed many teachers to be lazy because test scores would still be good without their help. Unfortunately, I saw many intelligent people that did not succeed in this environment and they either transferred public schools, went to private schools, or were homeschooled. My high school experience showed what the statistics in the book stated in that Asians are thought to be the hardworking, model minority and that 84% of highschool graduates enroll in college (Golash-Boza 218). Even with the lack of college readiness I felt, we were still expected to succeed because the majority of the “model minorities” of the school not only could, but did. At neighboring schools that were whiter, they were not as hardworking individuals as a group but they received a better education in my opinion because their teaching staff was more involved in the learning process.

In regards to the chapter on educational inequality, this story relates in various ways. First, that even within the city of San Jose, there is segregation in the neighborhoods because the city is only 26.86% Asian but the majority of my school was Asian. Our school was treated as the hub of the model minorities that didn't need the resources to succeed. Also, it relates to white privilege in that since we were a minority school, we didn't receive all the good teachers because the good teachers wanted to go to whiter schools with comparable test scores. These more involved educators would have been able provide human capital as mentors, references for college, and simply be there to help us succeed. Our educational inequality did not stem from what the book talked about directly because we were not treated like most minorities and not tracked like most minorities in a negative way. Rather it was harmful because we were minorities that were treated as if we were successful enough and did not need help, expected to do well because that is what Asians do, and to be part of the system that, no matter how hard we work, keeps whites at the top in the end. 

The idea of racism is a tricky concept for various reasons. For one, it is a concept that will never truly go away. Racism persists in society because we, as humans, feel the need to repeat history, whether it is incidental, on purpose, in small doses, or with different groups of people. Various racial groups have been oppressed over time such as Native Americans, Blacks, Japanese, and Hispanics. These historical cases of inequality and wrongful treatment have not fully been undone and the groups are still at least partly shackled down by these events. Even though Native Americans were on the land first, the white men took it and made them outsiders, much of this Native American stereotyping and sentiments towards them is still true today. Black people are still considered lower than whites today and it is shown in the current events regarding police brutality with black men and racial profiling of people of darker skin. The Japanese have continually been considered foreign but model minority no matter how many generations they have been in the United States. Hispanics are negatively stigmatized as illegal immigrants even though laws and policies like the "operation wetback" and the "Mexican deportation" do not exist anymore. The past is the future if we let it be, and we must not be complacent with making progress. Making progress is not enough; to right the wrongs of the past, we must construct a system of a better tomorrow for those groups that have been oppressed. The undoing of overtly racist laws will not fix society more than a a knife blade being pulled out will heal a wound. Racism persist because the only equalizer is to fix the harm that has been done throughout history.