Facing Down Stereotyping

Amy Wang

​About the author and the Alliance of Chinese Americans San Diego (ACA) Scholarship: Ms. Amy Wang is a recipient of the ACA Scholarship. She is currently a junior at Westview High School (San Diego, CA). This article is a part of her work within the ACA Scholarship programs. The views and opinions expressed belong solely to the author, and do not represent those of ACA and its members. ACA Scholarships are established to encourage API youth’s involvement and awareness in community events.

As many of us may have seen on the evening news, SDUHSD superintendent Dr. Cheryl James-Ward has been placed on administrative leave due to the community outrage to her comments about Asian students. During an April 11 school board meeting that focused on “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” training, Dr. James-Ward remarked on the success of Asian American students within the district. In part, she attributed the success of Asian Americans to wealth and family support, commenting that “we had a large influx of Chinese families moving in, sight unseen, into our homes, into our community” while contrasting these family situations with those of Latinx Americans, who “don’t have that type of money” and whose “parents are working two jobs” “from sunup to sundown.”
It is reasonable to expect Dr. James-Ward, as the superintendent, to have general knowledge about the people living in the district in order to serve them adequately. Not only was her diction questionable—her usage of “us” versus “them” pit two historically underrepresented communities against one another—the ideas she was espousing were also patently untrue, given the diversity of background of the district’s Asian American students.  Her lack of understanding of the Asian community, especially the Chinese families she mentioned in her remarks, is disappointing, to say the least.  As a matter of fact, most of the Chinese families living in the district are not wealthy. Both parents in a household need to work at full-time jobs to make their ends meet. Despite their busy schedule, many parents are deeply invested and involved in their children’s education, as doing so is an intrinsic part of their family life and ingrained in Chinese culture.
Clearly, Superintendent Dr. James-Ward’s words do not reflect the lived experience of so many members of our community. Besides a minority of Asian Americans who, like other families from other racial backgrounds, moved to America with wealth, the majority of the Asian American community in San Diego lacks the astronomical privileges she attributed to them. That she was so comfortable perpetuating existing stereotypes is incredibly disappointing—the presence of such rhetoric, in a district-level setting speaks to a widely-seeded negative perception of Asian Americans. 
As we’ve seen in the past, xenophobic rhetoric is especially dangerous when compounded with historical prejudice and outright violence, and that’s what makes this incident all the more frustrating for many Asian American members of our community. After all, while it’s common knowledge that prejudice exists in the current day, it’s always disappointing to see just how close to home we may find it.
Although Dr. James-Ward has since apologized, the problem with these comments extends far beyond the words of one person. At its core, this kind of thinking is the backbone of a racist ideology that turns individuals against one another based on skin color and cultural background. Outrage against the success of Asian Americans, specifically in the form of the Western construction of the “yellow peril” has a long history in the United States, and projects Western fears onto Asians by framing East Asians as wealthy, accomplishment-driven hordes, stealing the rightful places of non-Asians, even as we are praised for our contributions to the US. In one instance, during WWII when it became politically convenient for an American-Chinese allyship against Japan, Congress replaced the Chinese Exclusion Act with a quota system that allowed 105 Chinese immigrants into the U.S. per year. Chinese people who were already educated and highly trained were let into the U.S. and lauded as the epitome of the American Dream, model citizens who were used as statistical evidence against the struggles of other minorities. Asians became a tool of white ideology against other people of color and subsequently grew closer to disappearing into whiteness, even as we remain permanently estranged from true acceptance. 
While the superintendent may not have meant any maliciousness with her comments, her comments echo a growing wave of discrimination against AAPI, most specifically East-Asian Americans who are perceived as “white-adjacent” due to socio-economic status and the model minority myth. At a broader level, the repetition of dehumanizing language regarding Chinese people normalizes racist ideologies and the “othering” of East Asian Americans, slowly ingraining racist perceptions into a more public consciousness. Thus, even beyond this singular incident, which has ignited debate within the local community over the cultural elements that feed into Asian American success, it’s important to resist the normalization of the model minority myth, or any kind of stereotyping of Asian Americans as “other”. Asian American success is just as valid, despite what popular perception may be. 

About the author and the Alliance of Chinese Americans San Diego (ACA) Scholarship: Ms. Amy Wang is a recipient of the ACA Scholarship. She is currently a junior at Westview High School (San Diego, CA). This article is a part of her work within the ACA Scholarship programs. The views and opinions expressed belong solely to the author, and do not represent those of ACA and its members. ACA Scholarships are established to encourage API youth’s involvement and awareness in community events.