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Model Minority: Normative Exception and/or Example?

Model Minority: Normative Exception and/or Example?

Karen Sy de Jesus
Copyright: © 2015 |Pages: 32
ISBN13: 9781466674677|ISBN10: 1466674679|EISBN13: 9781466674684
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-7467-7.ch010
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MLA

Sy de Jesus, Karen. "Model Minority: Normative Exception and/or Example?." Modern Societal Impacts of the Model Minority Stereotype, edited by Nicholas Daniel Hartlep, IGI Global, 2015, pp. 259-290. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-7467-7.ch010

APA

Sy de Jesus, K. (2015). Model Minority: Normative Exception and/or Example?. In N. Hartlep (Ed.), Modern Societal Impacts of the Model Minority Stereotype (pp. 259-290). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-7467-7.ch010

Chicago

Sy de Jesus, Karen. "Model Minority: Normative Exception and/or Example?." In Modern Societal Impacts of the Model Minority Stereotype, edited by Nicholas Daniel Hartlep, 259-290. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2015. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-7467-7.ch010

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Abstract

Since the 1960s, Asian Americans have been hailed as the model minority of American society. Seen as the exceptional group of immigrants and the example of successful assimilation, they are presumed to have achieved the American Dream and to be free from racialization. This chapter disrupts the idealization of the myth by analyzing the ways it contributes to maintaining social injustice. Grounded in Michel Foucault's (1977) notion of the norm, this analysis demonstrates how an affirmative stereotype that reflects exceptionality and exemplariness fosters and reproduces relations of discrimination and alienation. Butler's (2004) work on vulnerability is used to illuminate how this paradoxical effect of the norm takes place through the structuring of relations between Asian Americans and White mainstream Americans, between Asian Americans and other minorities, as well as among Asian Americans. This chapter challenges the reader to re-examine the myth and to explore ways to transform societal relations.

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