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“You people are all successful,” a former white manager once said to me. “Getting promoted faster than white men and making more money than all of us. We don’t need to be focused on how we can help our Asian colleagues here. They have more than enough help.”
To this day, those comments my former manager made behind closed doors still haunt me. He was bold enough to say aloud what too many individuals silently agree with—comments embodying the very essence of the “model minority” myth.
It’s an incredibly dangerous and damaging stereotype that paints Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) as all being incredibly successful, high-achieving and hardworking. And that the AAPI community is more successful than any other group or community and free of any problems, obstacles or challenges.
As marketers, we have the power and a responsibility to ensure that we accurately and authentically represent the communities that we serve. Here are three things marketers need to know about the model minority myth and how it can show up both in our workplaces and our storytelling.
Start by understanding why it’s a myth
Let’s start by understanding that the model minority myth is in fact a myth. It’s a widely held false belief that anyone who identifies as AAPI doesn’t need any help or assistance and is incredibly high-achieving and wildly successful.
The model minority myth is a dangerous and harmful stereotype, which helps reinforce other false beliefs including:
- All AAPI individuals are/were straight-A students.
- All AAPI individuals are good at math and science.
- All AAPI individuals come from wealthy, two-parent, stable households.
It’s important to understand the AAPI community encompasses a diverse diaspora, including approximately 50 ethnic groups speaking over 100 languages—a group with ties to Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Filipino, Vietnamese, Korean, Hawaiian and other AAPI ancestries.
According to a New York Times study, despite having the highest median income of any community, the AAPI community also has the largest income gap. For example, in New York City, AAPI individuals experience the highest poverty rates versus any other immigrant group.
When we perpetuate the myth that AAPI individuals don’t need any support, we render the community invisible. It reframes their experience as someone who isn’t a person of color and dismisses the fact that they face racism.
Interrupt bias on your teams when it comes to the myth
Once we understand this myth, we can interrupt bias when we see it occur on our teams and in our workplaces. While the AAPI community represents 12% of the U.S. professional workforce, their careers stall.
AAPI leaders are virtually absent from the C-suite. Less than 1% of S&P 500 CEOs are of East Asian descent. AAPI colleagues are the least likely group to be promoted into management roles.
Allies have a big role to play in ensuring that AAPI colleagues are included in diversity, equity and inclusion plans, ensuring they are not excluded when it comes to topics of microaggressions and discrimination in the workplace.
The model minority myth can often pigeonhole AAPI colleagues into only technical roles. Allies can help advocate for AAPI colleagues to take on skill-stretching projects, where they can build their leadership skills and strategic capabilities. Allies can help ensure that they are not overlooked for promotion opportunities, along with fair and equal compensation.
Watch out for perpetuating the myth in storytelling
As marketers, we have a responsibility to not perpetuate the model minority myth in storytelling. AAPI actors have a difficult time finding complex, three-dimensional roles. They are often limited to stereotypical roles, where they portray the doctor, the quiet nerd, the martial arts expert, the engineer or the villain. They are tokenized and misrepresented.
A recent survey of the top 1,300 highest-grossing U.S. films over the last ten years reveals this: 44 of those movies had a lead character who identified as AAPI—and 14 of those went to a single person, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, who is of Samoan and African American descent.
Let’s watch out for how this myth shows up in our work as marketers. Don’t reduce AAPI individuals to a stereotype. Interrogate campaign briefs, casting choices, scripts, who is behind and in front of the camera and who is sitting around the table and working on key marketing initiatives.
If you don’t have ample representation and the voices of the AAPI community in your marketing ecosystem, you will be hard-pressed to accurately represent their experiences. Remember, you have the power to change how the AAPI community is represented in the marketplace and an incredible opportunity to dismantle the model minority myth.
This article is part of a special Voice series, AAPI Voices Shaping the Future of Representation. In this series, we will hear from AAPI industry leaders on the cultural nuances marketers should be informed on in addition to current challenges the AAPI community faces.
