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Kenneth Eng & The Myth of the Model Minority: Asian Americans Facing Racism

In this pathbreaking book sociologists Rosalind Chou and Joe Feagin examine, for the first time in depth, racial stereotyping and discrimination daily faced by Asian Americans long viewed by whites as the “model minority.” Drawing on more than 40 field interviews across the country, they examine the everyday lives of Asian Americans in numerous different national origin groups. Their data contrast sharply with white-honed, especially media, depictions of racially untroubled Asian American success. Many hypocritical whites make sure that Asian Americans know their racially inferior “place” in U.S. society so that Asian people live lives constantly oppressed and stressed by white racism. The authors explore numerous instances of white-imposed discrimination faced by Asian Americans in a variety of settings, from elementary schools to college settings, to employment, to restaurants and other public accommodations. The responses of Asian Americans to the U.S. racial hierarchy and its rationalizing racist framing are traced—with some Asian Americans choosing to conform aggressively to whiteness and others choosing to resist actively the imposition of the U.S. brand of anti-Asian oppression. This book destroys any naïve notion that Asian Americans are universally “favored” by whites and have an easy time adapting to life in this still racist society.

See an interview with Rosalind S. Chou at Rosalind S. Chou Interview

• • In this pathbreaking book sociologists Rosalind Chou and Joe Feagin examine, for the first time in depth, racial stereotyping and discrimination faced by Asian Americans.
• Their data contrast sharply with white-honed, especially media, depictions of racially untroubled Asian American success.
• Long viewed by whites as the “model minority,” many hypocritical whites make sure that Asian Americans know their racially inferior “place” in U.S. society and live lives constantly oppressed and stressed by white racism.
• The authors explore numerous instances of white-imposed discrimination faced by Asian Americans in a variety of settings, from elementary schools to college settings, to employment, to restaurants and other public accommodations.
• The responses of Asian Americans to the U.S. racial hierarchy and its rationalizing racist framing are traced—with some Asian Americans choosing to conform aggressively to whiteness and others choosing to resist actively this anti-Asian oppression.
• This book destroys any naïve notion that Asian Americans are universally “favored” by whites and have an easy time adapting to life in this still racist society.

Rosalind S. Chou spent six years working at a nonprofit camp for at-risk girls before moving to Texas in 2005 for graduate studies in sociology at Texas A&M University and to play rugby for the Austin Valkyries.

Joe R. Feagin is Professor of sociology at Texas A&M University. He is author of 52 books, including Black in Blue: African-American Police Officers and Racism (Taylor and Francis 2007); and, most recently, Two-Faced Racism: White in the Backstage and Frontstage (Routledge 2007).

“The authors show how the ‘model minority’ is a myth, too inaccurate to be useful. They reveal how it reflects invidious assumptions and is abused for political purposes. Anyone who cares about Asian Americans—indeed, who is interested in the dynamics of diversity—should be interested in this detailed critique. Very highly recommended.”
—Frank H. Wu, author of Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White

“Through a compelling analysis of white racism experienced by Asian Americans in their everyday lives, Chou and Feagin offer a powerful examination of the psychological and emotional burdens imposed by racism in contemporary society.”
—Leland T. Saito, University of Southern California

“Most Americans believe Asian Americans are content, do not suffer from discrimination, and are all in the path to whiteness. Bravo to the authors for bringing to the fore the racial oppression endured by Asian Americans!”
—Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Duke University

“This book captures how individual Asian Americans encounter racial hostility and discrimination in a variety of social and institutional spaces, and the distinct ways they strategically respond to such treatment. Some respondents resign themselves to situations while others challenge and actively resist stereotyping, inequitable treatment, and harassment. But as Chou and Feagin convincingly argue, all are both blessed and cursed with the ‘double consciousness’ shaped by a pervasive ‘white racial frame.’”
—Michael Omi, University of California–Berkeley

“As an often invisible and silent minority, Asian Americans can at last find voice in this brilliant book that recognizes the reality of their experience. The courage, nobility, and honesty of the authors will assist all involved in the struggle for equity and inclusion.”
—Edna B. Chun, Broward Community College

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments

1 The Reality of Asian American Oppression

2 Everyday Racism: Anti-Asian Discrimination in Public Places

3 Everday Racism: Anti-Asian Discrimination in Schools and Workplaces

4 The Many Costs of Anti-Asian Discrimination

5 Struggle and Conformity: The White Racial Frame

6 Acts of Resistance

7 Reprise and Conclusions

Notes

I started looking even more closely into this issue after doing some research on science fiction, and coming across the controversial case of Kenneth Eng. I understand that at the time he achieved notoriety, Eng was among the youngest persons to have ever had a science fiction novel published. Naturally I cannot endorse the views he espouses in the following interview, but I am more objectively able to view this series of events in terms of some pretty selective filtering, and perhaps even obliviousness, by the Australian news media (in fact I can't recall any Australian media outlet reporting this story). Eng was also known to have not only remarked that he understood why the [Korean American] perpetrator of the Virginia Tech Massacre committed such a violent act, but that he would have liked to have switched places with him if given the opportunity. I understand that Eng was subsequently committed to a secure mental health facility for a period after threatening a neighbour, and at least as far as I know, he hasn't written anything else since.
But all this background information only leaves me wondering if Science Fiction Studies has, or letalone could even consider, studying Eng's novel more closely? How would it be classified and critically evaluated with respect to the existing paradigms in sci fi? I've seen references to David L Eng's Racial Castration: Managing Masculinity in Asian America in relation to various literary works, but have yet to find anyone who looks at Kenneth Eng through anything other than the liberal lens of the popular news media; i.e. as nothing more than a case of individual pathology or a cynical attempt to generate publicity.

Disco Marxism

I'm conscious of not wanting to appear as if my post on the Continental philosophy blogosphere was merely shadowboxing with any of the substantive issues such a mode of reasoning might potentially raise. Therefore I think it incumbent on me to also map out the two of the basic options it makes available. I wonder only if each eventually coalesces with my typology of the noosphere. Simon Critchley has made a case that one should ideally set out to avoid espousing what he describes as "Disco Marxism", as briefly explained in the following clip:

Critchley has elaborated on this position in the edited collection, Radical Democracy. From my initial inspection of the contents, there is some potential compatibility with the expressed preference on this blog for utilising the critical concept of the public sphere (as discussed in one chapter by Laclau). But I'm yet to discover any convergence with the emphasis in social theory on cosmopolitan public spheres as necessary in the negotiation of global cultural identities. It is not clear to me that general references to "difference" are up to the job. In this respect, Pheng Cheah's work on cosmopolitics could mark a more convincing intervention of a Continental perspective, in light of the fact that he has also considered Chinese cosmopolitanism, and finds the Habermasian vision wanting on account of its [alleged] Eurocentric view that solidarity can be evoked by entwining national and global public spheres. A long time ago I posted an audio of Gerard Delanty talking about cosmopolitanism, and I know he has done subsequent work on Europe and Asia: Beyond East and West, so I suspect he is mindful of critiques of Habermas, and notwithstanding their differences, one thing that connects them is a willingness to include empirical work, thereby moderating the tendencies that can be found in the noosphere, and by association, Disco Marxism.

However, the latter point requires some qualification, as the 2 authors which dominate the Continental blogosphere, Deleuze and Zizek, can in some sense be put to work against the presumptions of Disco Marxism. I've just referenced an article by Wark, and I do not endorse his own use of Debord and Deleuze as any great advance over the forms of cultural studies he critiques in the piece. I do, however, suggest the piece is useful in setting out the basic telling conceptual differences between Disco Marxism, lack and abundance, which I imagine would be accepted as a conventional characterisation by the Continental blogosphere.
Be this as it may, it does not dissuade me from wanting to further pursue the mapping of this blogosphere as discussed in my earlier post. Therefore I remain interested in its conditions of emergence and dissemination, and stand by my noting of the characteristic lack of empirical robustness. It can still be said that the Continental philosophy/cultural studies blogosphere functions as depicted in The Matrix, with an Agent Smith running amok through the network, converting everyone into a clone of Zizek and Deleuze.

I had no idea what Wark was talking about in his piece when he complains about the imperative to always be "resisting something", so I sought solace instead in this vivid illustration of Herbert Marcuse's vision (think Eros and Civilization particularly):

How Kevin Bacon cured cancer

This interesting program, which was clearly intended to popularise science, screened on the ABC last night. Disappointingly though, sociology was conspicuous only by its absence (and the same could be said of the graph theory of Leonard Euler). Network science was heralded as "the science of the 21st century", and Duncan J Watts provided a major focus for the program. Now I just happen to also own a copy of Watts' book, Six Degrees: the Science of a Connected Age, in which an intellectual debt to sociology is frankly acknowledged. Simmel is specifically mentioned on account of his theory of triads as the fundamental unit of group structure (p58), and this long sociological pedigree extends right through to today, as evidenced by the Journal of Mathematical Sociology and actor network theory.
Elsewhere on this blog I have referred to actor network theory in critical terms, which by extension makes me less sanguine than the makers of this documentary that network science is going to necessarily have a positive democratising effect by reminding us all that every problem is essentially a "small world" problem because of our interconnections. Indeed, the program counteracts its own intentions in these respects by demonstrating the increasing penetration of network science into the Westpoint Military Academy. Its proselytisers at Westpoint even credit it with helping them to capture Saddam Hussein.

Another point of interest for me was how it is particular hubs, or nodal points if preferred, that are instrumental in how a network distributes its flow of information. By extension, referencing my earlier post, one could use BlogPulse as a bibliometric tool to determine the major hubs in the Continental philosophy blogosphere, by tracking conversations to see who most consistently captures the attention space in the first instance.

But I should finish by returning to my point that the program was not reflexive enough to situate its complicity in maintaining the hegemony of science as a public discourse. Watts mentions Asimov's Foundation series in his book, Asimov's novels positively reference sociology, and another scientist mentions Asimov again [without mentioning sociology] in the film, reminding us that we are living in a world where science, and even science fiction, are afforded more public legitimacy than sociology. Although that thought is quite depressing, it is still worth watching the program as evidence of the phenomenon of homophily, where that which is similar tends to cluster in a network. I regard homophily as a heuristic relative of the term I like to bandy about, seriality.

"She Was A Butcher"No Bra

Let the Right One In

NO END IN SIGHTOscar-nominated documentary about the war in Iraq is available for free

The Oscar-nominated documentary “No End in Sight,” which chronicles the early months of the American occupation of Iraq, will be available on YouTube starting Monday and continuing through the presidential election on Nov. 4. Charles Ferguson, the director of the film, which won the Documentary Special Jury Prize at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, said in a statement that he had underwritten its screening on YouTube because “I wanted to make the film, and the facts about the occupation of Iraq, accessible to a larger group of people.” He added, “My hope is that this will contribute to the process of making better foreign policy decisions moving forward in Iraq and elsewhere.”

The New York Times