Asian Americans are supposed to get perfect SAT scores and attend the country’s most prestigious colleges.
While that fits some, in reality 50 percent of Asian Americans students after high schools attend community college.
USA Today talked to Asian American students about how the model minority myth impacts them personally.
“My aspirations are not culturally programmed. I have struggled with anxiety, fought with my parents about my future and faced microaggressions growing up in rural America,” said Katie Zdunek who attends Western Kentucky University. “These stereotypes negate individual needs, talents, and experiences. It’s demeaning!”
Her experience is similar to Eng Gin Moe, a junior at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.
“White students view me as part of the minority, but different communities of color may not include AAPIs like me in conversations about diversity and disenfranchised populations,” says Moe.
The problem is even exacerbated further for members of some of the smaller Asian American and Pacific Islander subgroups.
“We are commonly disregarded in this huge ‘AAPI’ category. People only see Asian American — they don’t even know what ‘PI’ means,” exclaims Veronica Zamani, a junior studying politics, public policy and education at the University of California, Los Angeles.
In an attempt to alleviate this, the White House recently released extensive disaggregated data on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
You can read more about that and the impact of the model minority stereotype in USA Today.
