"Casualties" of the Model Minority Myth: The Role

of Racial Ideology in Asian American Female

Suicidality

Eliza Noh, Ph.D.California State University, Fullerton

Connecticut General AssemblyAsian Pacific American Affairs Commission

April 12, 2013

Suicide Rates, 1981-2010

• From 1981-2010, API females had the highest rates of suicide across race from ages 5-9 and 70+ and the second highest rates from 20-69.

• From 2000-10, API males had the second highest rates of suicide from ages 65-69 and 80+.

• From 2000-10, API suicides increased with age: peaks in 85+ age group at 9.83 (females) and 26.78 (males), with smaller peaks in 20s age group at 3.96 (females) and 10.99 (males).

• From 2000-10, the mean suicide rate for API women ages 20-24 was 3.73 and 3.93 for white women, but API women had a higher median average (3.88) compared to white females (3.81) due to differential fluctuation: 1.85-5.2 (3.35 spread) for API women and 3.28-4.96 (1.68 spread) for white women (CDC, 2012).

• Asian American adolescent girls (G5-12) have the highest rate of depression across race and gender (Schoen et al., 1997).

Suicide as Leading Cause of Death, 2000-10

• Suicide was the 8th leading cause of death among Asian Americans overall (compared to 10th among whites).

• Suicide was the second leading cause of death among Asian American women, ages 15-24, and among Asian American men, ages 15-34.

• Among the 5-9 yrs. age group for all races and genders, suicide was the highest ranking cause of death for API females: 12th vs. 14th (Black males) vs. 15th (white males) vs. 17th (NA males).

• Suicide was a higher ranking cause of death for API females of all ages compared to white females: 12th vs. 17th.

• Suicide was one of the top 20 leading causes of death over a longer lifespan for API females compared to other females: 5-84 yrs. vs. 10-74 yrs. (white) vs. 10-64 yrs. (NA) vs. 10-64 yrs. (Black) (CDC, 2012).

Proportion of Deaths, 2000-10

• Suicide accounted for a higher proportion of deaths among Asian Americans (1.8%) than among whites (1.4%).

• Suicide accounted for a higher proportion of deaths for API women compared to white women: 1.2% vs. 0.6%.

• Suicide accounted for the highest proportion of deaths for API women 25-34 yrs. compared to other women: 13.8% vs. 9.7% (white) vs. 7.8% (NA).

• Suicide accounted for the highest proportion of deaths for API women 65-84 yrs. compared to other women: 65-74 yrs. 0.5% vs. 0.3% (white) (not a leading cause for NA); 75-84 yrs. 0.3% (not a leading cause for other women).

• Suicide accounted for a higher proportion of deaths for API men compared to white men: 2.5% vs. 2.3% (CDC, 2012).

Years of Potential Life Lost, 1999-2010

• API women had the highest percentage of years of potential life lost under age 85 due to suicide (2.8%), compared to white women (2.6%), NA women (2.5%) and Black women (0.6%).

Methods of Suicide, 2000-10

• API leading method was suffocation. White female leading method was poisoning. White male leading method was firearm.

• API female top methods were suffocation (48.2%), poisoning (21%), and firearm (10.4%).

• API male top methods were suffocation (44%), firearm (29.4%), and poisoning (9.4%).

• White female top methods were poisoning (40.3%), firearm (33.7%), and suffocation (17.1%).

• White male top methods were firearm (59.6%), suffocation (20.8%), and poisoning (12.9%).

• Of the top 3 methods, API females seemed to prefer less violent methods (10.4% firearm) while white males preferred firearms (59.6%) (CDC, 2012).

My Study

• Interviewed 43 Asian American women in four major geographical areas of the US where Asian Americans are concentrated—San Francisco/Bay Area, Houston, New York, and LA/OC.

• Objective: To examine how race and gender influence suicidality among Asian American women.

• Thesis: Race and gender, specifically racism and sexism, operate as key social processes that influence Asian American women’s suicidality.

Study Findings• Most of the women that I interviewed explicitly cited

pressures associated with the model minority myth as being influential in their suicidality.

• The model minority stereotype is dangerous for Asian American mental health in at least three ways:

• First, the pressure of living up to the image can lead to depression and suicide.

• Second, the model minority stereotype makes Asian Americans vulnerable to everyday racism and sexism, negatively impacting mental health—e.g., “racial bullying.”

• Third, the image of model success can mean Asian Americans become overlooked in the distribution of needed resources.

What does the model minority myth argue?

• Asian Americans do well educationally and economically and have few mental health problems and low crime rates.

• Asian Americans are faring well due to Confucian values of hard work, respect for authority, family cohesion, sacrifice, and emphasis on scholarship.

• Asian Americans have succeeded purely by merit, without public or social assistance.

What is the origin of the model minority myth?

• Coined by sociologist William Petersen in "Success Story: Japanese American Style" published in the New York Times Magazine in January 1966.

• Petersen concluded that Japanese family values and strong work ethic enabled Japanese Americans to overcome prejudice and avoid becoming a "problem minority.“

• A second article similarly describing Chinese Americans appeared in U.S. News and World Report on December 26, 1966.

• During the 1980’s, news media applied the term to describe high academic achievement among other Asian Americans, including Southeast Asians.

Time Magazine Cover,Aug. 31, 1987

What is the ideological role of the myth?

• The model minority thesis was deployed as an argument against social reform and to discredit the civil rights movement.

• “Divide-and-conquer” tool: to sow dissension among ethnic groups in US.

• Social backlash: Asians and Asian Americans were resented for their educational and economic successes.

What does the myth hide?

• Ethnic differences• Generational and migration

differences• Role of 1965 Immigration Act• Role of model minority “halo effect”• Role of self-selection• Role of self-investment• Burden of education• Hidden racial quotas• Glass ceiling

The Model Minority Myth and the “Tiger Mother”

Controversy• Amy Chua, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother; “Why

Chinese Mothers Are Superior,” Wall Street Journal, Jan. 8, 2011.

• Conflation of social ideology and culture

• Problem of Orientalism and stereotyping: “…I know some mothers of Chinese heritage, almost always born in the West, who are not Chinese mothers, by choice or otherwise. I'm also using the term ‘Western parents’ loosely. Western parents come in all varieties.”

Model Minority Pressures

“I attempted suicide when I was a senior in high school. I knew I was applying to college and other stuff, but still at this time finances were really tough. I engaged in a lot of extracurricular activities when I was in high school; plus I played in a basketball club team, so we were constantly traveling all over the place…. In terms of the suicide attempt, there was an incredible amount of pressure on my mom in order to be like this figure of having to support so many things…. So there was always this constantly in my head, ‘Lydia, like do you really need this? If you didn’t do it, we’d have so much more money.’ It just seemed, like systematically it seemed very logical and practical that if I wasn’t there, our family would be able to sustain ourself.” — “Lydia” (adult teens, Korean American)

The Model Minority Myth and “Insidious Trauma”

• The model minority myth supports the stereotype of Asian Americans as being successful but passive social outcasts (“nerds”), rendering them vulnerable to social backlash and everyday racism and sexism.

• Root (1992) demonstrates that the destructive effects of racism, as well as heterosexism and classism, can be experienced by women as a form of “insidious trauma” that builds over time.

• Racial bullying as “institutionalized violence” (E.g., Danny Chen and Harry Lew hazing-suicide cases)

• Suicide as a result of racist bullying is a form of “insidious violence.”

Asian Americans and Bullying

• Asian American students experience cyber-bullying once or twice a month at higher rates (62%), compared to Whites (18.1%) and African Americans (19.1%).

• Asian American students experience the most bullying in the classroom (54%) and on school grounds (40.8%), compared to Whites (31.3%, 20.3%), African Americans (38.4%, 26.9%), and Latinos (34.3%, 29.7%).

• White students are more likely to be bullied in school hallways or stairwells (50.5%), cafeterias (7.4%), and school buses (8%), compared to other groups (US DOE, 2011).

The “Insidious Violence” of Suicidality

“And events leading up to…is mostly alcohol and pills or smoking pot or using different kinds of drugs just to end any kind of pain, and the reason why is … growing up there, there was a Ku Klux Klan, there’s a high rate of racism, so every day I would get it. And from since childhood, when I first started to go to school I would get it, but especially in high school was hard….when I would walk home from school every day these guys would try and run me over and throw bottles at my head. So for me what led up to everything is that I just wanted to be white. I did not want to be Asian, I did not want to stand out, and I did not want to have to deal with all the racism anymore.” — “Marsha” (30-something, Chinese-Japanese American)

“The Healthy Model Minority”

“[My therapist] saw my distrust of people as pathological….I think a lot of how they saw pathology in me had to do with the whole model minority syndrome. The fact that I veered from what they felt was a norm, I think, really made it easy for them to see pathology in me. I think certainly the psychiatrist I was with was more than willing to see pathology. He gave me all the drugs for manic depressive illness.” — “P.W.” (50-something, Chinese American)

Conclusion• The Asian American model minority image is a

social stereotype and a myth.

• The model minority myth negatively impacts Asian American mental health by creating unrealistic pressures to achieve, rendering Asian Americans vulnerable to everyday racism and sexism, and supporting the belief that Asian Americans do not need help.

• As a social construction, the model minority myth can be changed.

Prevention & Intervention Strategies

• Non-judgmental dialogues about suicide• Free or affordable mental health care• Culturally and linguistically competent

services• Alternatives to Western models of

healing and conventional therapies• Suicide research focusing on Asian

Americans• Critique of model minority ideology

References• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and

Control. (2012). Injury Prevention & Control: Data & Statistics (WISQARSTM) Fatal Injury Data, Fatal Injury Reports. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/fatal_injury_reports.html

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. (2012). Injury Prevention & Control: Data & Statistics (WISQARSTM) Fatal Injury Data, Leading Causes of Death. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/leading_causes_death.html

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. (2012). Injury Prevention & Control: Data & Statistics (WISQARSTM) Fatal Injury Data, Years of Potential Life Lost (YPLL). Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/years_potential.html

• Root, M. P. P. (1992). The impact of trauma on personality: The second reconstruction. In L. S. Brown & M. Ballou (Eds.), Personality and psychopathology: Feminist reappraisals (pp. 229-265). New York: Guildford Press.

• Schoen, C., Davis, K., Scott Collins, K. et al. (1997). The commonwealth fund survey of the health of adolescent girls. Retrieved April 25, 2004, from http://www.cmwf.org/programs/women/adoleshl.asp

• US Department of Education. (2011). Student Reports of Bullying and Cyber-Bullying: Results From the 2009 School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey. National Center for Education Statistics, 2011-336.