Asian Americans, the Model Minority Narrative, and Perspectives on School Integration

This qualitative case study examines a unique sample of 13 Asian American adult and youth activists and community leaders in New York City who support school integration efforts to increase enrollment of Black and Latinx students at selective schools. In contrast to Asian Americans who support a model minority narrative—one dimension of Asian American racialization—to justify Asian American over-representation in elite high schools, we find that study participants reject the model minority narrative. Their rejection revolves around three perspectives: (1) critiquing how the model minority narrative reinforces the existing racial hierarchy, (2) recognizing the anti-Blackness underpinning the model minority myth and calling for solidarity with other people of color, and (3) recognizing the need to address disparities facing marginalized Asian American students. We argue that these integration activists’ rejection of the model minority narrative gives them the critical perspective to subscribe to integration policy changes that may reduce Asian American enrollment in selective schools. Furthermore, participants’ critiques of the model minority narrative reveal how they make sense of the American racial hierarchy and the way Asian Americans are racialized within it.