ABSTRACT
By the mid-60s, the image of Asians in America had shifted dramatically. The yellow peril moniker had mysteriously vanished to be replaced by the advent of the “model minority” label. Suddenly Asian Americans, or more accurately Chinese and Japanese Americans, were perceived as having overcome past injustice to make it in America. For instance, according to a mid-sixties U.S. News and World Report article:
At a time when Americans are awash in worry over the plight of racial minorities—one such minority, the nation’s 300,000 Chinese Americans, is winning wealth and respect by dint of its own hard work. In any Chinatown from San Francisco to New York, you discover you discovers youngsters at grips with their studies. Crime and delinquency are found to be rather minor in scope. Still being taught in Chinatown is the old idea that people should depend on their own efforts—not a welfare check—in order to reach America’s “promised land”.
A January 9, 1966 New York Times Magazine article by William Peterson about Japanese Americans made similar comments:By any criterion of good citizenship that we choose, the Japanese Americans are better than any other group in our society, including native-born whites. They have established this remarkable record, moreover, by their own almost totally unaided effort. Every attempt to hamper their progress resulted only in enhancing their determination to succeed. Even in a country whose patron saint is the Horatio Alger hero, there is no parallel to this success story.
While this sort of hyperbole makes for a good story, there is more to it than meets the eye.