Tricia Leong ASA 2 A03 Week 2

Reading Shirley Hune's prologue to Fight the Tower, I was disappointed- but not surprised- to learn of the existence of what she calls the "bamboo ceiling." Growing up in an Asian household, I have been raised to believe that through hard work and perseverance, I can achieve anything. However, I have recently begun to realize that this is not the reality we live in. I was aware of the negative effects of the model minority stereotype, but I guess a part of me still held on to the hope that at a certain point in the socioeconomic ladder, we would get the opportunity to create our own identities and people would cease to see us through the lens of the stereotype. Fight the Tower, however, has shown me that the model minority never really goes away, no matter where you reside on the social hierarchy.

According to Hune, the bamboo ceiling prevents Asian Americans, especially women, from advancing past a certain level within the academy (Hune 2019). At this point, the effects of the model minority stereotype becoming especially apparent. Professors are deemed to lack certain qualities such as leadership, their research is discredited, and their reviews harmed by the internal prejudices of students. They are subjected to bias treatment intended to push them out of the academy, told they're simply not good enough. In this way, the idea of the model minority serves to be extremely contradictory- throughout our young lives, we are told that we're good enough, that we're smart and well above average academically. Then, at some point, suddenly we're not. We're told we lack certain necessary qualities, that others are simply "better." I initially thought that I had not yet experienced this conflict; however, after reading the prologue to Fight the Tower, I realized that I had.

Hune claims that when it comes to college admissions, "Some campuses have been alleged to apply specific criteria to Asian American students aimed at restricting their admission" (Hune 2019), such as requiring higher academic standards and downgrading them for stereotypical personal qualities. This became apparent to me during my college admission process, as was the case for many Asian students that year. Several of my Asian friends and I had Ivy-League caliber SAT/ACT scores and GPAs and many of us had an abundant amount of extracurriculars, AP credits, and community service hours. We were led to believe that we could aim high, told our entire lives that we were good enough to go to the best colleges in the nation. Then, suddenly we weren't. We sat and watched as our white peers got into top schools with average test scores and GPAs, while we received rejection upon rejection. This was my wake-up call, my first experience with a sort of bamboo ceiling. It was then I realized that, in a way, we had been played. The same stereotype that was used to praise us and make us believe we could achieve anything was then used to crush those beliefs in an attempt to keep us at the bottom of the hierarchy.

While some colleges are beginning to show improvement in their admission policies, the recent pandemic has resulted in the removal of the SAT/ACT requirement, along with that of GPA, from college applications. This brings forth yet another potential challenge for Asian American students, many of whom rely on high test scores to give them an advantage in the application process. Will we see the admission rates for Asian American students decrease in the next few years as a result? The answer to this question may ultimately bring the detrimental effects of the model minority stereotype to light.

References:

Marotta, P. (2018). Harvard University Commencement Exercises [Photograph]. Retrieved from https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/ education-postsecondary/news/2018/08/29/455316/gaps-debate-asian-americans-affirmative-action-harvard/

Shirley Hune. “Fight the Tower: Women of Color in Academia Manifesto ix Prologue: Taking Action: Asian American Faculty against Injustices in the Academy.” (2019, October 11).