Asian-American Model Minority

Asians have been called the model minority and have been accepted more than any other minority group for several years. The term was first used in print by William Peterson in 1966 in his New York Times Magazine article about the success of Japanese-Americans (Chin, 2001). Peterson said the values and work ethic of the Japanese made them accepted more and not considered a problem minority (Chin, 2001). Another in U.S. News and World report described Chinese-Americans the same way later in 1966 (Chin, 2001). Some even say that Asian-Americans are no longer thought of as a marginal minority (McNamara & Burns, 2009). Even though they were not slaves, Asians did not have it easy in this country at first. China was going through both political and economic unrest in the 1840s and that together will the gold rush in California and building of the transcontinental railroad brought many Chinese to

Perhaps it’s partly because of misinformation that has been believed for many years or that Asian-Americans “make few political demands and keep their heads down” (Bronner, 2012). Some Asian-Americans believe their parents taught them they must honor their family name and find ways to make the grades instead of causing trouble (Bronner, 2012). I do believe that Asian-Americans usually have higher values because in 18 years as a police officer I have only arrested one Asian-American and that was for DUI. It is true that many Asian-Americans are in the technical fields, but hardly any are in top management jobs and many more occupy service jobs (Williams, 2015). This model minority image of Asian-Americans has caused some problems with other minorities, but the problem is that experimental research has been done to look at the ramifications (Chao et al, 2013). This belief in a model minority will most likely continue for a few years but the new generation is much more vocal and will not put up with any