Language, Identity, and Stereotype among Southeast Asian American Youth: The Other Asian (original) (raw)
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The ‘smart Asian’ stereotype, part of the model minority discourse, depicts Asian students as studious and academically successful. We draw on critical race theory, with a focus on critical whiteness studies and the concepts of democratic and cultural racism, to examine the racialising effects of this seemingly positive stereotype. Drawing on in-depth interviews with over 60 self-identified smart, teenagers from schools in the Southern Ontario, we identified three themes which together illustrate how the ‘smart Asian’ stereotype reflects and reproduces a hegemonic white center. First, a number of our participants deployed, and then trivialised the ‘smart Asian’ stereotype as ‘just joking’. Second, through discussing this stereotype, white participants often excluded students with Asian backgrounds from conceptualisations of what it means to be Canadian and to fit in. Finally, this stereotype was experienced ambivalently by Asian-identified students who found it brought academic rewards, but at the expense of exclusion.
'Fresh off the Boat' and the Model Minority Stereotype: A Foucauldian Discourse Analysis
VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, 2018
This project studies how the American sitcom Fresh Off the Boat performs the model minority discourse. The performance, in line with the Foucauldian tradition of discourse analysis, is understood based on the networks of events and meanings that have rendered the model minority stereotype intelligible. The study informs that the model minority stereotype entered the discourse on Asian Americans through mainstream media's rationalization of Asian Americans' economic success in 1960s, marking a significant change in social perceptions of Asian Americans. It demonstrates that the discursive status of the stereotype has been conditioned by three power networks namely the black-white paradigm, the Asian American family, and the stereotype-based humor in American sitcoms. Fresh Off the Boat, the authors argue, participates effectively in shaping contemporary model minority discourse as it employs the three power networks in an approach more realistic and humane than mere oversimplification of Asian American experience. Trương, H. M. & Phùng, T. H. (2018). 'Fresh off the Boat' and the model minority stereotype: A Foucauldian discourse analysis. VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, 34(5), 85-102.