ABSTRACT
In the fall of 2001, R. W., a young Chinese American, bludgeoned and strangled her mother. While her mother lay dead on the floor, she covered her and called the police, confessing her crime. The incident sent shockwaves through the Asian American community of which they were part. R. W.'s failure to stay at her first college program, an elite institution, may well have contributed to her several suicide attempts and eventually to the homicide. The white-created "successful model minority" stereotype made it difficult for non-Asians around her to see her illness and encouraged silence among the Asian Americans who knew her. Some analysts have argued that Asian Americans are "lucky" that they do not face the "invisibility" and negative imagery that African Americans experience. The concept of systemic racism thus encompasses a broad range of racialized realities in this society, the all-encompassing white racial frame, extensive discriminatory habits and exploitative actions, and numerous racist institutions.
