TWO ASIAN STEREOTYPES are alive and still in the minds of many non-Asians. They popped up again this week in the hubbub surrounding Donald Trump's racist remarks when referring to immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and Africa.
In defense of Trump, a conservative commentator on CNN referred to the model minority trope when she said Trump “would welcome immigrants from Asia so he is open to accepting people from other countries.” said Carrie heffield said, referencing information from a White House official.
In defense of Trump, a conservative commentator on CNN referred to the model minority trope when she said Trump “would welcome immigrants from Asia so he is open to accepting people from other countries.” said Carrie heffield said, referencing information from a White House official.
Liberal commentator Keith Boykin, who was on the same panel, called her on her use of the model minority image, “This is not good because it’s playing into the stereotype of the model minority,”
The comparisons of recent immigrants from South Asia, China and Korea working in tech and as engineers is not a fair comparison to immigrants who came as refugees or working in lower-paying jobs.
The model minority stereotype also hurts Asian/Americans because it ignores the wide diversity within that community, some who sruggle academically or live in extreme poverty.
The other instance of the Asian woman came about when NbC began researching other instances of racism in the White House. NBC investigators found out that when Trump was being briefed by a former senior analyst, who is Korean/American, about the situation on Pakistan, he interrupted the intelligence briefing by asking where she was from.
That's right that stupid question Asians and Asian/Americans have heard in our lives. This is how NBC reported the incident:
A career intelligence analyst who is an expert in hostage policy stood before President Donald Trump in the Oval Office last fall to brief him on the impending release of a family long held in Pakistan under uncertain circumstances.Was he even listening to the critical information in the briefing? Trump apparently had fallen under the spell of "yellow fever," a fetish for Asian women, something that is shared by alt-right men, according to a New York Times article.
It was her first time meeting the president, and when she was done briefing, he had a question for her.
”Where are you from?” the president asked, according to two officials with direct knowledge of the exchange.
New York, she replied.
Trump was unsatisfied and asked again, the officials said. Referring to the president’s hometown, she offered that she, too, was from Manhattan. But that’s not what the president was after.
He wanted to know where “your people” are from, according to the officials, who spoke off the record due to the nature of the internal discussions.
After the analyst revealed that her parents are Korean, Trump turned to an adviser in the room and seemed to suggest her ethnicity should determine her career path, asking why the “pretty Korean lady” isn’t negotiating with North Korea on his administration’s behalf, the officials said.
"As a commenter wrote on an alt-right forum, 'exclusively' dating Asian women is practically a 'white-nationalist rite of passage,' reads the article.
Damn those stereotypes! They refuse to die!
(CORRECTED on Jan. 13, 8:30 a.m. PST, to correct subject of intelligence briefing.)
(CORRECTED on Jan. 13, 8:30 a.m. PST, to correct subject of intelligence briefing.)
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