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You can google “model minority myth” for information.

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It is the most important ratio there is to determine who faces more danger from the police.

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Plenty of dense journal type writing out there. Here’s a decent more palatable article.

Why we must talk about the Asian-American story, too — Andscape

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The vast majority of the police shootings are carried out against armed people breaking the law. Unarmed people shot and killed by the police make up 6% of the total shootings. Females make up 4% of those shot, why don’t we have a male lives matter rally? Seriously, that’s the insanity here. Why? Because females aren’t as violent and don’t commit as many crimes, therefore, they’re less likely to be killed by the police.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/police-shootings-2019/

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Here’s a pretty good article.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/29/the-real-reason-americans-stopped-spitting-on-asian-americans-and-started-praising-them/

So the shift from “yellow peril” to “model minority” started in the early 40’s. WW2 was ramping up, and there were diplomatic concerns in the Pacific Theater. After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, China was sought as an ally, but the racism against the Chinese and the Chinese Exclusion Act made the diplomacy difficult.
Chinese Americans publish propaganda stories of their own as well, touting traditional family values, how their kids respected elders, etc. With US propaganda and Chinese American propaganda, attitudes by white Americans began to shift, and by the 60s, Asian Americans were being pointed to as a model minority, used as an example as why things don’t need to change, in regards to blacks and civil rights.
There is a bit more as well. Merit based immigration, meant that it was educated, and trained Asians that were coming over, adding to all the propaganda.

Here’s a neat journal as well, talking about the Propaganda war that waged between the US and the Japanese, when it came to treatment of Asians, and how it led to the repeal of the Chinese Exclusions Act.

http://www.jaas.gr.jp/jjas/PDF/1998/No.09-121.pdf

“It is with particular pride and pleasure that I have today signed the bill repealing the Chinese exclusion acts. . . . An unfortunate barrier between allies has been removed. The war effort in the Far East can now be carried on with a greater vigor and a larger understanding of our common purpose.”

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That is neither a good article nor a good source.

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The WP is a pay wall.

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I doubt we will find something to meet your standards.

Here’s the often quoted research paper.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w22748.pdf

Here’s something from the Washington Post (I know that publication won’t cut it).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/29/the-real-reason-americans-stopped-spitting-on-asian-americans-and-started-praising-them/

PBS News Hour (nope, I know).

I hate to say it, but typical right leaning sources tend to ignore or downplay racism and therefore rarely cover it unless it fills a need.

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A bit more:

International imperatives of the 1940s and 1950s anchored the nation’s recasting of Asian Americans into assimilating Others—persons acknowledged as capable of acting like white Americans while remaining racially distinct from them. Unlike the progeny of turn-of-the century southern and eastern European immigrants who melted into unambiguous whiteness in the crucibles of mass consumption, industrial unionism, New Deal ethnic pluralism, and military service, Japanese and Chinese did not disappear into whiteness after the end of Exclusion. Instead, state authorities, academicians, cultural producers, and common folk renovated Asian America’s perceived differences from liability to asset to benefit US expansionism. In the throes of the worldwide decolonization movement, more precisely, Cold Warriors encountered the dilemma of differentiating their own imperium from the personae non gratae of the European empires. As nonwhites, the entrance of Asian Americans into the national fold provided a powerful means for the United States to proclaim itself a racial democracy and thereby credentialed to assume the leadership of the free world. The rearticulation of Asian Americans from ineradicable aliens to assimilating Others by outside interests bolstered the framing of US hegemony abroad as benevolent—an enterprise that mirrored the move toward racial integration at home.

Above all, Japanese and Chinese Americans harbored a profound interest in characterizing anew their racial image and conditions of citizenship, and they often took the lead in this regard. By yoking US officialdom’s world-ordering logic to their own quests for political and social acceptance, they actively participated in the revamping of their racial difference. They made claims to inclusion based on the assumption of not only Americanness but also and particularly diasporic Japanese and Chinese identities. Recognizing that the Asian Pacific region loomed large on the US foreign relations agenda, community representatives strategically typecast themselves, asserting that their own ancestries endowed them with innate cultural expertise that qualified them to serve as the United States’ most natural ambassadors to the Far East. Therefore, they suggested, admitting people of Japanese and Chinese heritage to first-class citizenship made good diplomatic sense.

Equally decisively, Asian Americans’ self-stereotyping convinced others
not only because of its payoff for foreign relations but also because it corroborated the nation’s cultural conservatism at midcentury. Ethnic Japanese and Chinese emissaries consistently touted their putatively “Oriental” attributes, such as the predisposition to harmony and accommodation, the reverence for family and education, and unflagging industriousness to enhance their demands for equality. These descriptions endorsed not only liberal assimilationist and integrationist imperatives but also the Cold War cultural emphasis on home life rooted in the strict division of gender roles. Self representations of Japanese and Chinese American masculinity, femininity, and sexuality, purposefully conforming to the norms of the white middle class, were crucial to the reconstruction of aliens ineligible to citizenship into admirable—albeit colored—Americans.

Excerpt from Dr. Ellen Wu’s book, “The Color of Success: Asian Americans and the origins of the model minority”

Geopolitics, propaganda from the US, Asians embracing the propaganda and new stereotypes, all led to Asian Americans being less stigmatized in the US.

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The first article you posted was not good at all and yours are usually good.

I’ll look at these later, although WP is behind a paywall and an F6 source.

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If it’s not the ethics, what is it? Because they are successful.

What are your thoughts on assimilation?

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That sucks. I haven’t hit the free article limit yet for WP. It really is the best one I have found. There is another good one from the LA Times, that I was able to grab at work. But I hit the paywall limit here at home, so I didn’t post it.

A lot of what I find, talks about the “model minority” myth, and it being used against the civil rights movement. Not many go into the origin of the myth, and it’s geopolitical beginnings.

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If it is a myth, why are they successful?

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The majority of the WaPo article was quoted above.

My summary. Take it for what it’s worth.

  • Prior to WWII racism was rampant for Asians, blacks, whoever.
  • Following WWII, blacks became more vocal as to civil rights, inequality, etc. They were the largest and most vocal minority group.
  • Asians were used in rebuttal, as an example of a minority group which was able to be successful and excel on their own, despite being a minority and without help. They were the “model minority.”
  • This “model minority” belief, helped reduce racism towards Asians.
  • Later studies showed at the time of the label, Asians were no more successful than blacks. That’s the “myth” part of “model minority myth.”
  • It’s not the only factor (but it appears to be most significant), but the decreased racism and increased opportunities that followed the “model minority” label allowed Asians rapid improvement in their socioeconomics.
  • There are residual effects of the label, such as “smart Asian” and other stereotypes which are not always positive.
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Thank you.

I think this is the key point. If that is the case, why policies like the Harvard entrance that went to the court? Which they promptly screwed up.

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I’m going to quote @SottoVoce a bit, since he did a better jobs summarizing, what I’m trying clumsily say.

  • This “model minority” belief, helped reduce racism towards Asians.
  • Later studies showed at the time of the label, Asians were no more successful than blacks. That’s the “myth” part of “model minority myth.”
  • It’s not the only factor (but it appears to be most significant), but the decreased racism and increased opportunities that followed the “model minority” label allowed Asians rapid improvement in their socioeconomics.

At the time the myth was taking hold. Asians were no better off than blacks. Poverty was rampant, at the time, Asians were viewed as lazy, and less than. It was a deliberate campaign, to shift the view of Asians from the “yellow peril” to “model minority” that allowed for the quick upward mobility, giving access to opportunities that blacks did not have access to from the 50’s-70’s. By the 70’s, Asians had closed the wage gap, and were being paid as much as whites.

Then there was the merit based immigration system. Educated, trained, and skilled Asians immigrated to the US. These educated Asian immigrants were able to take advantage of a US that was less racist towards them. And to compound this, highly educated parents encouraged their children to become highly educated.

Asians were able to take advantage of an opportunity that opened up in the 40’s, which leads to where they are today.

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I think it’s important to be able to assimilate a little into ones new country, without losing ones cultural identity. Assimilating a bit can lead to better opportunities.

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Yes, but how did the myth take hold?

Why did it start?

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Fine line, isn’t? Personally I don’t care for the word.

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  • WWII - initially used towards Chinese-Americans to improve overall feelings towards China ally. During WWII Japanese-Americans had the opposite treatment.
  • Immediate WWII - Japanese-Americans now included to hasten recovery and bad feelings towards Japanese following the war.
  • 1950s-1970s - continued use as an example for other minorities that success, equality, justice could be achieved through hard work and character. There was no reason other minorities should complain or be favored since Asians did it all by themselves (myth part).
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