After her 1993 debut, CBS reporter Connie Chung became a household name. Many young Asian Americans do not recognize her name, let alone want to pursue journalism. The Model Minority Myth will continue to kill our creativity if we don’t work to reshape our community’s narratives.
The way we, as members of the Filipino diaspora, engage with our Filipino Christmas traditions is key to understanding our history of surviving colonial and imperial oppression as well as the current structural issues we continue to face. These customs can act as vehicles for meaningful conversations and tools for our cultural autonomy and self-determination.
Sandy Liang is a Chinese American clothing designer who has risen in popularity in the last couple years. Her pieces are largely inspired by her upbringing in an AAPI immigrant household in New York, and have led the resurgence of femininity and nostalgia in fashion. As she is one of the few famous AAPI designers in the industry right now, Sandy Liang and her brand demonstrates the complex issues of diversity, inclusion, respectability politics, and tokenization.
Recently, Asian American teens shared their bad experiences with all-Asian friend groups on TikTok, and how toxic and enabling they could be/ how they weaponized their shared culture. I discuss these experiences as well as my own personal ones.
Perfection is a natural ideal people strive for. It can be in their physical appearance, their education or even their whole personality, but no matter what, the goal of perfection is prominent in the creation of the model minority myth. No mistakes can be made in any situation…