Asian American Privilege : Where is it?

Asians Have Privilege. To some individuals , they can feel a gross distaste develop in their minds when they hear this statement. To others , they may agree with this statement and tell us that “We are part of the oppression that white supremacy is a part of.” But seriously , where did this statement of “Asians having privilege” come from anyways?

The primary reason why Asian Americans are accused of having privilege is because of the burden of the model minority stereotype. It’s true that Asians, or at least east Asians who make up the “model-minority” do well in society , in terms of financials. But that does not account for less well to do Asians that make up apart of the Asian demographic. The model minority stereotype is really founded on unstable foundations.

Debunking the Model Minority Myth

1. The model minority myth ignores the variability of Asian American groups and their significantly varied levels of success. While many South and East Asian American groups such as Asian Indians and Japanese have been successful in receiving high school, bachelors, and advanced degrees, most Southeast Asian Americans including Hmong, Cambodians, and Laotians never finished high school-at times, rates comparable if not lower than other racial minority groups (U.S. Census Bureau, 2004).

2. The model minority myth neglects history and the role of selective immigration of Asian Americans. The 1965 Immigration Act significantly changed the demography of Asian Americans in the U.S. today. In particular, the Act allowed a greater number of educationally and economically successful Asian American professionals who could “contribute” to the American society (Takaki, 1993). That meant that less educated immigrants , such as refugees were less common. Like many other Americans, academic success of Asian American students was correlated with income and educational levels of their parents.

3. The model minority myth fails to capture the more complex representation of Asian Americans in the education system. The myth suggests that Asian American students are over represented in the U.S. higher education. In actuality, the National Commission on Asian American and Pacific Islander Research in Education (2008) found that the increasing presence of Asian Americans in higher education parallels similar increases of other racial minority groups. Further, Asian American student populations concentrate in a small percentage of institutions, giving a false impression of high enrollment in higher education overall. In fact, Asian American students were more likely to be enrolled in community colleges than in either public or private four-year colleges.

The reason why the model minority stereotype exists is because the government has only allowed immigration from those that were educated , and economically successful in Asia. These immigrants brought with them their values of education which were passed to their children ; the children who make up the stereotype that has failed them. The immigration of these already economically successful immigrants are mostly East Asian. Although east Asians are most visible within the “Asian” group , the model minority stereotype that has resulted has not benefited Southeast Asian Americans at all. This stereotype marginalizes Asian Americans who do not live up to the stereotype.

Privilege

Ever since the topic came up on Bill O’Reilly, the notion of “Asian privilege” has been appearing online. First of all, what is “privilege”?

Privilege is an INSTITUTIONAL advantage that a group enjoys in different domains of society, e.g., economic, social, political, etc. It is not universal, and some groups have more relative privilege than others in certain arenas, even if they face oppression in others.

The term “white privilege” refers to the “godmode” that white male heterosexuals play the game on in the West. In all spheres, they enjoy incredible systematic advantages over every other minority group/women. Makes sense, because society was built to cater to them.

Privilege? Where?

“Asian privilege” is a paradoxical term in itself , because we enjoy ZERO INSTITUTIONAL advantages anywhere. We are relatively more privileged than other minority groups legally (not as privileged as whites, because as Wen Ho Lee and WW2 showed, we can still be incarcerated and shipped off to concentration camps with zero due process). However, socially and politically, we are far more oppressed than any other group , especially Asian males. We also are oppressed economically thru the bamboo ceiling and unequal pay.

Some people try to use our representation in college and our economic success as signs that we’re privileged, but that’s bogus because we enjoy zero institutional advantages. Asian Americans just work hard in a rigged system and scrape by with leftovers despite our disadvantages. That’s not privilege, that’s just Herculean overcoming of societal barriers. But as you can see , “privilege” is not a blanket term. Most minorities, women, any group that isn’t heterosexual white males are not going to enjoy systematically afforded racial benefits in every public domain in Western society.

What is the opposite of privilege? Oppression — systematic DISADVANTAGES or mistreatment that we receive by virtue of belonging to a certain group. The sheer idea that Asians possess any sort of racial privilege in this country is bonkers. We have a long history of being racially oppressed by White supremacy, just like every other POC, though the forms of our oppression are very unique and specific and is specifically explained in other parts. So where does this belief about “Asian privilege” come from? It’s mainly because the feminist buzzword, “intersectionality”. What’s intersectionality?

This feminist sociological theory was first named by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, though the concept can be traced back to the 19th century. The theory suggests that — and seeks to examine how — various biological, social and cultural categories such as gender, race, class, ability, sexual orientation, religion, caste, species and other axes of identity interact on multiple and often simultaneous levels, contributing to systematic injustice and social inequality.

It is a logical fallacy when people conflate racial privilege with class privilege. Class privilege derives from socioeconomic class, with higher SES(Socioeconomically status) affording greater and greater systematic benefits (e.g., safer neighborhoods, leisure time to pursue hobbies, greater educational opportunities, network effects, etc.). All groups have differing levels of intra-class privilege: blacks from Beverly Hills are better off than blacks in the ghetto, Spanish American immigrants are better off than border crossing mestizos, the white liberal elite are chomping on Cuban cigars while their trailer park brethren are toiling away as a minimum wage fry cook, while east asians live in middle-class suburban neighborhoods , but their counterparts , the southeast Asians live in the ghetto. As you can see , class privilege does not intersect with racial privilege. Class privilege and race are not inclusive. They are exclusive.

Although Asian Americans, as a whole , are doing well on average in terms of socioeconomic class (highest household median income, highest level of educational attainment). To Uncle Chans/Aunty Tan and misguided individuals in the Asian American community , and outside , they conflate this socioeconomically privilege with racial privilege, which is patently false and untrue. The misunderstanding has two root causes:

1) Asian Americans see themselves as a diaspora, so oppression affecting one subgroup in our political ethnic identity is not seen as affecting everyone.

• Because many of our parents have strong nationalistic identities, most Asians grow up thinking of themselves as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Filipino, etc., instead of just Asian Americans. When they hear or read about racism towards one particular subgroup, they are unable to empathize because their identities are not tied up in a Pan-Asian community.
• To the white supremacy , it does not matter if you think of yourself as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Filipino becausesomehow we are all just Chinese ; Asians are all one single group. The racial oppression directed towards us affects us a group. Asians must all together think as one group. We must have a Pan-Asian identity to ward against external threats.
• Knowing the history and context of all anti-Asian persecution in this country is of paramount importance in understanding our modern day status today, because anything affecting one of our Asian brothers or sisters affects all of us thanks to the cross-race effect.

2) They think class privilege somehow “cancels out” racial oppression.

• This screams of Oppression Olympics. All groups, unless you’re a white heterosexual male (in which case, congrats, you won the mega millions, particularly if you also enjoy class privilege), are afforded privilege in some areas and oppressed in others. There is no universal matrix for privilege and oppression where it is possible to rank the order of groups on a meter that measures oppression. Is it possible to assign weighted averages to suffering? How do you measure a quanta of human suffering?

It is not possible to compare the problems of one group to another because oppression is not concrete. It does not start from point A and end at point B. Oppression is everywhere; It is sometimes worse in some areas , and sometimes better in some areas. You cannot measure something that is different in every possible area. But you also cannot argue which one of us has it worse overall. One example that we can compare to ourselves to are African Americans. African Americans are famously used as the poster child of overall oppression, but even they are fragmented by class. To try and minimize our oppression by using the model minority narrative to paint all of us as enjoying class privilege does not take into account that Asian Americans are not one group. Not all of us came here on special visas or work in high paying STEM jobs. Some of us are refuges that made it here.

The bottom line is this: class privilege and racial oppression operate independently. They are not on the same axis. There is no such as “Asian privilege”. If one is to argue that there is some objective spectrum of human experience that allows us to classify “better” and “worse”, then one must be also prepared to subject your pet causes to the same scrutiny.

Those with less education are more prone than those with more education to say that being an Asian American is an advantage.