Week 3 - Katrina Asuncion A01

Katrina Asuncion
Section A01
Week 3

In Asian Americans and Affirmative Action: From Yellow Peril to Model Minority and Back Again, Nancy Chung Allred explores the implications of affirmative action and the model minority myth for Asian Americans. I think that much of Allred's argument relates to the concept of racial triangulation. Racial triangulation is a race theory that suggests that Asian Americans fall in the middle of the American dichotomy that places white people at the top, and black people at the bottom. Racial triangulation also indicates that white people and black people are "insiders" in American society, whereas Asian Americans are perpetual "foreigners" or "outsiders." Allred elucidates historical injustices against Asian Americans by white people, but also explores the ways that Asian Americans have demonstrated anti-blackness, aligning with the concept of racial triangulation. Allred also reveals the detriments of the model minority myth and its ability to balkanize people of color. While dismantling the concept of the model minority, Allred also criticizes the use of Asian Americans as mascots against affirmative action.

In my own experience as an Filipinx-Japanese American student that applied to the UC system as a Biological Sciences major, many of my peers felt that the concept of affirmative action harmed their chances of getting into UC schools, although affirmative action is no longer in place. Many of the Asian American students I knew believed that the academic achievements on their applications did not stand out as much due to the high number of Asian American students pursuing Biological Sciences, which in turn disadvantaged Asian Americans students and perhaps benefited other applicants of color instead. Although at times the system seems "unfair," in my own case, I understood that I had more access to resources and more advantages compared to other students, and I didn't feel that I needed a form of equity like affirmative action.

Ultimately, I agree with Allred's stance on the model minority myth and affirmative action. Although the term "model minority" appears to benefit Asian Americans by placing them at the top of the hierarchy of minorities, it instead creates distinct divisions between racial groups and also invalidates the struggles that Asian Americans face as well. By suggesting that affirmative actions detriments the higher education of Asian Americans, Asian Americans are equated to white people and are believed to hold a form of white privilege. Asian Americans will never possess white privilege, and should instead support the idea of equity for other minorities, rather than pit themselves against them.

Question: Do you agree with the concept of racial triangulation? 

Citation

1. Chung Allred, N. (2007). Asian Americans and Affirmative Action: From Yellow Peril to Model Minority and Back Again. Asian American Law Journal, 14(3). Available at

http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/aalj/vol14/iss

2. Racial Triangulation [Graph]. 2013. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265737680_The_Marginalized_Model_Minority_An_Empirical_Examination_of_the_Racial_Triangulation_of_Asian_Americans