Model Minority Stereotype - Essay Example

Model Minority Stereotype The model minority within the borders of a certain country refers to a group (ethnic, religious) achieving higher results in various spheres of their lives. Talking about America, the term ‘model minority’ is referred to Asian Americans there including Indians, Chinese and Filipinos (Kramer). The general tendency preconditioning this status for Asian American is rather simple: Asian Americans manage to be more successful in income, business, and education than the members of other minority groups and even the average residents.

This tendency forms a stereotype of ‘model minority’ inside American society applied to main groups of Asian Americans. This ‘model minority’ stereotype that has formed around Asian Americans has a wide array of impacts on their lives nowadays, both positive and negative. Talking of positive influence one could mention the following: Asian Americans make up a small percentage of the US population and thus they understand that they need to organize themselves and cooperate in order to achieve success and ensure their well-being.

Hence Asian Americans tend to live in their close communities and take care of their families taking them for the highest priorities. As a result, the crime rate even among Asian American youth is very low, and the number of dysfunctional families is scarce. Moreover, the willing to be financially independent drives Asian Americans to perform better academically and professionally earning more money and saving them rather than spending them recklessly.The negative effect of the stereotype is also present, particularly in the area of state and federal care of Asian Americans.

Unlike African Americans and other minority groups, Asian Americans don’t receive adequate financial aid from the state which probably has become one of the main preconditions for their hardworking and financial as well as academic success in USA. However, despite their high capability of overcoming these obstacles, the stereotype actually gives way to a kind of discrimination which – combined with racial discrimination issues that remain relevant to some extent even nowadays – worsens life conditions for Asian Americans.

This point is also a burning issue for those members of the minority who fail to succeed and may be in need of help on the side of the state – they still might be unable to get the financial or other kinds of aid as the amount of spending on the whole minority is fixed and rather low.This stereotype might have an effect on other ethnic groups either in favorable or unfavorable way. First, positive influence is actually observed in the amount of spending other minorities receive in comparison to ‘successful’ Asian Americans.

Moreover, the success of the latter can become a motivation for other groups. At the same time, the stereotype might form distorted perception of Asian Americans among other groups as well as ‘white’ Americans: in education it may result in envy and uneven treatment towards the students and other students feeling discriminated whereas Asian Americans are ‘given their grades for the fact they belong to the model minority’ (Lim). Works Cited:Lim, Bernadette N. I Am Not a Model Minority, from: http://www.

thecrimson.com/article/2014/2/13/harvard-model-minority/Kramer, Eric Mark, The Emerging Monoculture: Assimilation and the ‘Model Minority’. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003, from: http://books.google.com/books?id=x9-yOGSyKrYC&pg=PA213