Higher Ed needs to stop embracing the Model Minority Myth
Today I read Purdue trustee asks tough question about diversity enrollment
She noted enrollment of Hispanics and Asian Americans is up, although Asian Americans are not considered underrepresented minority students.
The more I learn about Asian American issues and read CRT, the more I question this concept of Asian students not being underrepresented minorities.
Yes, students of Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Indian descent are high-achieving (statistically) and well-represented in higher ed, but "Asian American" does not mean a monolithic group. There are many Asian Americans families that live in poverty, such as families of Hmong, Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian descent.These students are underrepresented, yet higher education enrollment management divisions ignore them because society has grouped all Asian Americans within the same group.
As Robert S. Chang said in Asian American Legal Scholarship: Critical Race Theory, Post-Structuralism, and Narrative Spaces, embracing the model minority myth "renders the oppression of Asian Americans invisible" (p.1261).
It's unfair for higher education to embrace the "Model Minority" myth and assume there is no need to invest time in recruiting these students as underrepresented students.
Chang, E. (1993). Toward and Asian American legal scholarship: Critical race theory, post-structuralism, and the narrative space. Californian Law Review. Retrieved from http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1740&context=californialawreview