How the ‘model minority’ myth impacts mental health and wellbeing in the AAPI community
I played piano as a kid. I remember the incessant exclamations of “of course you do!” and assumptions that my mom must be a tiger mom because what would she be if she wasn’t?
But all of that pressure and all of that internalized perfectionism, didn’t come from my parents— it came from myself. My relationship with identity has always been complicated as a biracial individual. Judgement tended to be passed down upon discovery of my ethnic makeup and cultural practices rather than strictly appearance.
I remember a counselor once made a passing comment against checking off Asian on my college application form as if I was different and I had a choice.
We are taught not to celebrate Asian success. Because I am Asian, society tells me that my achievements are insignificant and I am a shoe-in for wealth and comfort. This kind of thinking is dangerous.
The model minority myth paints the AAPI community as “perfect immigrants” — as individuals who never waver from the guidelines white supremacy places down, who are socio-economically and academically successful and who are docile, not criminal.
It’s a tool used to cover and ignore the consistent objectification of Asian women, the wide pay gap between Asian American ethnicities, blatant hate speech experienced daily by members of the community, countless elders who have been murdered and historical suffering inflicted on Asian Americans.
It’s also a tool used to reinforce and justify oppression of other people of color.
This myth has widespread repercussions on the mental health and wellbeing of the collective Asian American community. For so long, we have been taught to hide and minimize our experiences.
This Asian Pacific American Heritage month, we’re highlighting the experiences of four Asian American women, reminding us that we deserve to celebrate Asian success and should collectively work to dismantle the model minority myth.
Morgan Lyew
I attended a K-12 school that was predominately white and lived in an essentially all-white neighborhood. Outside of my family, I did not have any AAPI friends until my second or third year of college. The first 18 years of my life was spent trying to assimilate with or impress my white peers and white teachers.
Though I loved performing arts, visual arts and writing, I cast those things aside as hobbies because I felt pressure to pursue a career in business or STEM in order to be successful.
My parents were never pushy about my academic trajectory. They told me I could study whatever I wanted and that they would help me pay for school no matter what major I picked.
It was in the classroom, where my peers would make comments about me excelling at math because I was Asian or being school smart because I was Asian, that somehow molded my young mind to obsess about succeeding academically.
It was in pop culture and in the mainstream media that Asians in America grew up to be businesspeople or doctors or they would disappoint their parents or not fulfill “their” American dream.
The high school version of myself was quiet and compliant. I was a bystander at best and sometimes even a bully in an effort to fit in. I didn’t speak my mind or try to shine bright because to stand out meant to accentuate my otherness.
I have had conversations with people about immigration and the treatment of immigrants in which I was told to look at my own parents who worked hard and followed the right legal processes to gain citizenship.
I have been cut in line by many people who assumed I would not speak up. I have had people assume my parents’ professions. I have had tons of people from the time I was a little kid until now associate my academic and professional successes to my race.
When writing these responses, it’s hard to differentiate between what can be attributed to the model minority myth, to generational trauma, to decades of societal pressures or to the stigmas around mental illness regardless of racial and ethnic identity.
I started showing depressive symptoms at 15 years old. I had my blood tested for mono, vitamin deficiencies, thyroid problems, anemia, you name it. I refused to even consider the possibility of depression. I told myself that previous generations worked hard so that I could have everything I wanted. My grandparents didn’t have time to think about how they felt. How could I, who is benefitting from generations of hard work, have anything to be upset about?
My parents really knew nothing about mental illness. They hoped that I was just going through some hormonal teenage phase and that I would grow out of it. My dad literally went to our neighborhood church every morning and prayed for me.
I didn’t seriously start taking care of my mental health until I was in graduate school. I told myself for almost a decade that I could just get over it if I was strong. I now see a therapist regularly and keep tabs on my mental health. I am open with my close friends and family about my journey, and I am stronger than ever. I really encourage everyone to try therapy, especially in such taxing times as these.
I think the more we recognize and praise our own and each other’s individuality, the more we will overcome the impacts. The AAPI community encompasses such a diverse group of people.
We have all ended up in America in such different ways, whether our families have been here for decades, we’re first generation with immigrant parents or we’ve been adopted. We have many shared experiences which can strengthen our communities, but it’s also important that we highlight our individuality.
We need to have conversations with our families and friends about deconstructing the model minority myth. We need to encourage each other to stray from that mold. We need to validate each other’s accomplishments and passions and feelings.
Alyssa Tandoc
During my younger years in kindergarten and middle school, I did feel a lot of pressure due to the model minority myth, not only from others such as students, but even my own family.
A lot of the time students would ask me for my help during projects or homework. They’d ask to see my answers or sometimes even grab my papers without asking or without permission because they knew that I actually tried or did my best to get answers right. It made me feel used and unappreciated. Oftentimes, they wouldn’t say thank you but expected me to allow them to copy. I never or rarely asked them for help and usually they wouldn’t give it anyway.
I know people would pick the AAPI students specifically to be in their groups because “we’d do all the work” and they felt like they would have to do minimal tasks. I think that also contributed to why we only wanted to work with each other opposed to other students.
When people want to consider the AAPI community as privileged as white people in schools especially, they fail to realize that we aren’t handed our opportunities— a lot of us work hard to get to where we are, my parents included. To hear that people want to group us together with white people strictly due to economic standing erases the realization of our struggles and makes people forget that we are still people of color who suffer from minority standards and racism.
Microaggressions like, “oh you’re good at math and school just because you’re asian” or “of course you’re good at school, you’re Asian” are apart of everyday life for the AAPI community. I think the misconception that being Asian results in intelligence diminishes the fact that we study hard and often work harder than most people.
It isn’t something that’s just implanted in us when we’re born. We also learn like regular students and struggle with certain subjects. The difference is perhaps that we’re more proactive in trying to understand concepts or more open to learning than most.
Mental health in the AAPI community is extremely taboo, even now. People think that the reason for mental health issues is because you aren’t strong enough.It’s easier to contribute these issues to laziness than to face the real issues of emotional trauma and other repercussions.
There’s a tendency to act like everything is fine on the outside even when you’re struggling. It’s always “don’t cry” or “stop crying” rather than “let it all out”. Since no one is open to talking about their issues, it definitely makes it harder to find the right resources to go to.
Seeking therapy is seen as a privilege and something only white or rich people do, when in reality, opening up about your mental health is for everyone. There’s also a lot of intersectionality with it, especially across AAPI men. You’re seen as weak or lesser than if you have real feelings or say that you’re struggling but that’s certainly not the case.
In school, we already lack representation. Even in our history books, we’re looked at as an enemy rather than kin. Diving deeper into why this myth exists at an early age would be helpful in understanding the model minority myth further, and so would efforts to reinforce the idea that the AAPI community rightfully earns their successes.
I wish that when I was younger, someone would have told me when to not let anyone discredit my hard work, or even to not share it and be a little selfish with my answers. I worked hard to be here and others should recognize that.
Photo of Laura Wang
Laura Wang
There is an experience I had in high school that I think of often. I was taking an AP psychology class and we had a lecture about prejudice and stereotypes. One of the slides had us do an in-class discussion exercise: “What are some stereotypes of Asian people?”
This was a class of thirty people. I was the only non-white, Asian American student (including my teacher). I sat in silence for five minutes, while my entire class listed all of the asian-american stereotypes that they had ever heard of. Smart, good at math, really small, bad drivers, etc. Finally the class came to a conclusion: most stereotypes of Asians are good.
This experience left me feeling confused for a long time. Four years later, after being able to process my own feelings about my identity and learning more about the model minority myth, I’ve realized why I was left feeling so frustrated after this class.
First was the fact that it was “okay” for the exercise to use Asian Americans as an example. Likely, the creator of the exercise felt that since Asian Americans had “mostly good” stereotypes attached to us as a group, it would be socially acceptable to use us as an example — no one would feel compelled to say anything “racist” like they might have if the example had used a different minority group.
But this is one of the underlying issues inherent to the model minority myth — we are used as an example of success and “good,” but it doesn’t mean it isn’t still problematic. By labeling Asian Americans as all things “good,” one effectively ignores a lot of the racism and hardship that we still face as a group.
Assuming that all stereotypes of Asians are good can quickly lead to assuming that Asians do not face racism, that Asians do not experience racial violence, and that we experience the same privileges as whites, which are all not true.
We also might seem, on average, successful, but averages mask a lot of the heterogeneity that exists in Asian Americans as a group. There is so much diversity in Asians, and the differences between different Asian cultures and practices should be recognized and appreciated. To talk about all Asians as a homogenous group is misleading and can cause many to feel left out of the story.
Secondly, I felt frustrated, and angry with myself since I had sat silently and allowed a group of thirty white people to talk about me the way that they did; that the only person in the space that knew what being an Asian American was like did not speak up.
I replay this experience in my head all the time and imagine myself instead raising my hand, expressing my discomfort with the activity and pointing out the inherent power differentials that existed in the space. But I didn’t.
It felt like a self-fulfilling prophecy — Asians are characterized as passive, quiet and submissive. And I had fulfilled that stereotype in that moment.
Since this day, I’ve grown confidence in myself and my identity as an Asian American. I found solidarity and community in others that look like me and have had experiences like me. I promised to never let another experience like this happen again, and to speak up for myself and my community.
I’m always working on myself, educating myself and learning more about being an ally to others, and it always means a lot when others do the same.
Photo of Aarna Dixit
Aarna Dixit
I have definitely felt feelings of inadequacy or pressure. For a long time in high school, my motto was 'If I'm not the best, I'm not enough'. This is what the Indian and AAPI culture has ingrained in me.
I remember freshman year when a white friend of mine said 'Hey, can I see your homework? You're from India right? You probably have all the right answers.' But it wasn't only the stereotypes from white people that pressured me. Everywhere I looked, other AAPI students were competitive overachievers trying to be the best. And I threw myself into that competitive pool of AAPI individuals struggling with the model minority myth.
I remember freshman year, when all the Asian kids were fighting each other for board positions in school clubs. You could just see how we were being pressured by the idea of the model minority myth, especially its pervasiveness when it comes to 'college readiness'.
One instance that comes to mind was when I took ACT test prep at a center led by Asian American faculty. Most of the students there were AAPI. I remember the tutor, an Asian woman, talking to my parents about how I needed to get into Harvard or an Ivy League, and how I should take subject tests to do so. I remember feeling really frustrated because I didn't want to go to Harvard and I didn't want to take a subject test on a topic I didn't care about just to get into a school.
Thankfully, I haven't really experienced feelings of erasure, but I have felt like I'm not good enough, and if I'm not good enough, I'm not worth recognizing, so that's something. Most of the microaggressions I've experienced have been along the lines of people assuming I'm the smartest in the class because of my ethnicity and then asking me for homework. Or, they assume I'm into STEM subjects because of my ethnicity.
The model minority myth and the idea of perfection it perpetuates has affected my mental health in so many ways. Particularly, it has made me hesitant to seek out mental health help so that I can maintain the image that I'm perfect and always achieving things.
I think it's important to reinforce the idea that Asian people are not a monolith. We’re all interested in different things, have different talents and different life goals. It's wrong to group us all together as an academically overachieving community. It's important we give AAPI individuals the space to explore themselves at their own pace.
Header photo: Zen Chung / Pexels
Written by Autumn Sevy
