The term 'model minority' refers to a numerical minority in America that, in comparison with other groups in the numerical minority, seems to do better. When people use the term, they take economic characteristics, like average incomes, average wealth, and unemployment, and paint a picture of a group that can serve as a model for other, supposedly less successful groups. For example, some call both Asian Americans and Jewish Americans model minorities because of certain "successes" that are usually attributable to culture, group characteristics, or, in extreme cases, biological factors. Central to the idea of the model minority is a characterization of white society as the norm. People who are not (Christian and) white can either do worse than white people, approach white success, or exceed white success in the model minority paradigm.
On face value, the model minority stereotype seems beneficial at best and innocuous at worst. What is so problematic about saying that a group's culture makes them stand out among minorities? When asked if they thought that "model minority" was an apt term to describe the real phenomenon of Jewish over-representation in various fields, all of my interviewees identified conceptual weaknesses within the idea and spoke out against its inherent logic of comparison. At the same time, both Ellen and Gabe, when pushed to explain over-representation, fell back on theories of cultural factors, such as a Jewish focus on study, for explanation.
When asked about the model minority stereotype, Lara immediately thought of colorism, which is discrimination on the basis of skin color tied to racial groups. Lara identified how calling Jews a model minority was a way of defining their proximity to whiteness. She said that she had heard the phrase used in academia and in the news, particularly with respect to Asian Americans and Jewish Americans, but felt that it was used as an unfair comparison used to maintain the status quo of white supremacy by blaming marginalized groups for their own oppression.
If Jewish people are model minorities, it's only because that phrase was coined to put down other groups of people and not actually give them the support and— and reparations or recognition or help that they need as a— as a community that's been, you know, destroyed over and over again.
― Lara, (1:33:31)
Key to her understanding was the explicit and implicit narrative she heard in the usage of "model minority." She said that she often heard phrases like "why can't you [Black Americans] be more like them [Jewish and Asian Americans]?" Ultimately, when it came to questions of scarce resources (such as spots in Ivy League student bodies), Lara argued that quotas that restrict attendance from marginalized groups were harmful, but quotas that ensure white people do not take up the spots needed for marginalized students were acceptable. Most interestingly, she said that she did not consider herself to be a minority because of her privilege. Here, she employed a working definition of minority to mean "marginalized group." Despite the historic and current discrimination against Jewish people, she viewed her own privilege as a white and financially stable as overriding.
In order to explain Jewish over-representation in certain fields, Lara relied on knowledge she had gained about Jewish professions in Europe from a history class. Much like David Hollinger, she relied on the characteristics of Jews in the Diaspora to explain success rather than culture, such the tendency (often enforced by law) of Jews to work in trades and with money rather than tending land for food.1 One could call this the "right place, right time" phenomenon.
Gabe similarly criticized the model minority concept as an attempt to "categorize and separate" Jews from other marginalized groups. He drew a distinction between the degree and kind of discrimination experienced by American Jews and Black Americans. He also said that Jewish people have had a longer time to overcome obstacles caused by white supremacy — thousands of years compared with one hundred and fifty for Black Americans.
However, at the same time, Gabe fell back on cultural explanations for disparate success. While he was careful to say that other groups did not lack cultural qualities like perseverance, he did point to Jewish resiliency as a reason for our success. While he claimed Jewish cultural qualities helped Jews overcome adversity, a lack of those cultural qualities was not to blame for disparities and discrimination suffered by other marginalized groups. Gabe's ideas about Jewish resiliency are tightly tied up in his ethnic narrative of the Jewish people. Gabe also found cultural factors useful while explaining Asian American over-representation, focusing on "Eastern culture" and its supposed emphasis on communitarianism rather than individualism. Here, he used essentialized culture concepts that Chih-Chieh Chou tells us is simply another manifestation of race.2 However, he again took care to say that lacking proper cultural qualities is not why other groups are unable to, in his words, bypass impediments like structural discrimination.
This transcript has been redacted.
― Gabe, (1:59:50)
Gabe expressed anxiety about the questions at hand, aware that he did not have perfect answers to my questions about possible explanations for over-representation and certain types of success. He oscillated between contrasting ideas, building what I call a "thick" conception of discrimination and success. No one reason caused disparate outcomes; instead, a combination of many things, both societal and individual, led to relative over-representation and under-representation.
Ellen was the only one of my participants to say explicitly that she had not heard of the model minority stereotype before our interview. However, once she understood it, she disagreed with the idea that someone's Judaism had a bearing on their success since "Judaism is a religion." However, she also said later that in Jewish culture, there was a focus on education that might cause disparities. She also attributed this emphasis to Asian cultures when asked about Asian American over-representation. Like Gabe, she used ideas of cultural difference to help explain over-representation, accepting, to some extent, the model minority stereotype. However, she was unsure of her answers and focused on other possible explanations, such as socio-economic class and related advantages, that might absolve her of relying on culture. In other words, culture difference was an explanation of last resort, one that she was suggesting rather than claiming to be true.
[Q: Do you think that Jewish over-representation and Asian American over-representation might be caused by the same thing?]
(long pause) I think, in the Asian culture, from what I know about it, there's a big push on education. And I think in the Jewish culture there's a big push on education. And on family. So I think that those could possibly be— could lead to— to some of that. But, you know, other than that, I mean, what— I don't— I can't imagine what other reason there would be, you know?
― Ellen, (1:44:29)
The questions that I asked my participants were perhaps not fair, since I asked them explicitly to tell me why they thought certain hard-to-explain facts were true while at the same time implicitly requiring them to avoid the easiest explanations because they were racist. This implicit requirement, which stems from a desire to be anti-racist and to perform anti-racism, is not a bad thing. It is good that my participants paused, contradicted themselves, and offered suggestions rather than truths: none are sociologists, and none claimed to know enough to explain these phenomena. In fact, many of them indicated that they were not sure and did not know enough to answer well.
All of this is to say that their answers should not be seen as despicable or as proof that they are racist, regardless of the problems in some of what they said. Instead, their answers can help us understand how they rationalize these problems in the absence of empirical, academic knowledge. Their hesitation and uncomfortability suggests that they were unsatisfied with the answers they suggested; their willingness to attempt to answer suggests they are willing to learn, understand, and conceptualize the type of anti-racism we need going forward.