At every campaign rally, Andrew Yang will always say the same thing: the opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian man who likes math. In his red MATH (Make America Think Harder) hat, Yang will crack jokes about his Asian American identity, his appreciation of tests, and his unemotional face. For me, the desire to hide or make light of our Asian American heritage is a familiar act and speaks to the need to make others feel comfortable with our otherness in America. Yet Yang’s desire to be a comfortable, widely-appealing candidate has led him to adhere strongly to stereotypes that continue to hinder Asian American progress.
Just like Yang, I have always grappled with fitting my Chinese heritage in with my American upbringing. As a child, I never learned Mandarin and never celebrated any traditional Chinese holidays. Yet I was always aware of the ways my family didn’t quite fit in, like the duck we ate instead of turkey on Thanksgiving, the summer trips to China to see relatives, and the regular stops at Chinese restaurants and grocery stores. Like many Chinese immigrants, my parents would always tell me of the difficulties of adjusting to America: the language barrier, the meagerness of the savings they arrived with, and the cultural differences of a new country. As second-generation university students, they emphasized the importance of seeking higher education, a luxury that their grandparents could not afford. Although they bought into the American ideal of hard work and self-reliance, they were always wary of the insidious Sinophobic stereotypes that surrounded them. Wary of the perception of fitting into the overbearing Chinese parent mold and conscious of the stereotype of the antisocial, studious Chinese son, my parents always emphasized the importance of rejecting stereotypes.
The model-minority myth my parents contended with is a relatively new one. After the passage of the Immigration and Nationalities Act to reverse decades of racist policies, Asian immigration has sharply grown throughout the last half of the 20th century. Fighting against centuries of scientific racism and Social Darwinism, American perception of the Asian Americans in this new wave changed. Because immigration policies usually benefited the well-educated and/or the wealthy, Asian immigrants tended to fare well. This seeming success was presented, devoid of context, as proof that other minorities suffered from self-victimization. A common refrain is that the Asian community proves that other minorities are just complaining instead of working hard. And this stereotype was successful; it permeated so much throughout the American consciousness that many Asian Americans ended up internalizing it. As a result, there is quite a lot of racism within the Asian American community. However, the model minority myth, while seemingly complimentary to the belief in the uniqueness of our success, is not only a prop for the discrimination of other minorities, but also hides the continued repression of Asian Americans.
That’s why it’s so frustrating to see Andrew Yang continue to play into Asian American stereotypes. When Yang makes his campaign slogan MATH and jokes on the debate stage about how he knows so many doctors, he plays into stereotypes that contribute to the high levels of stress and suicides in Asian American students, stigmatizes Asian Americans as unsociable nerds, and ignores the different experiences that many Asian Americans from Asian countries like Indonesia or Vietnam face. When Yang defended Shane Gillis’s use of racial slurs and complained about the sensitivity of modern culture, he provided cover for racism under the guise of pushing boundaries. And when he parrots white supremacist talking points about declining birth rates, he allows the far-right to launder their racist ideology through a minority.
What makes Yang’s poor representation of the Asian American community worse than it might otherwise be is his relative isolation in the political sphere. American politics has been devoid of Asian American representation for a long time, as a consequence of an often-internalized belief in the language of bootstrapping and personal responsibility. Yang, while not the first Asian American politician, has been one of the most prominent by a significant margin. In a crowded 2020 field, he carved out a niche in the internet as a “meme candidate,” earning himself sixth place in the polls among more recognizable Democratic politicians. This status as a fairly popular candidate makes how he treats Asian American issues all the more important. It is a shame to see him squander such a powerful platform.
Even Yang’s policies seem to fit the model minority myth Yang seems so comfortable accepting; it is fitting that a candidate who has spent much of his career pandering to the model-minority myth that caricatures Asian-Americans as hardworking and individualistic would ascribe to libertarian policies like universal basic income (UBI). Yang’s solution to automation, giving every American $1000 a month while dismantling existing welfare programs, is an adaptation of a policy of Milton Friedman’s and an ode to the importance of personal responsibility. What better way to solve systemic issues, Yang argues, than to replace government services with a provision of $1000 a month so that people can solve their own problems? This appeal to the individual defies the systemic nature of the problems, both economic and social, facing Americans today. Cash income is not a suitable substitute for the vital social safety nets that help those desperately in need. And the proposed monthly income cannot be leveraged equally, across all geographical regions and across all socioeconomic conditions. After all, UBI is inherently regressive; while the rich will simply be able to invest the money, the working class will be forced to spend ever increasing amounts on rent and groceries, all with diminishing support from social programs. The individual nature of UBI, Yang’s central policy, lends credence to the stereotype of Asian Americans as receiving success in America through some greater appreciation of education or hard work.
Andrew Yang and I share a common sense of struggle when it comes to our Asian heritage. As the son of Taiwanese immigrants, he too has had difficulties in grappling with his identity in an America that simultaneously celebrates and demeans his heritage. Growing up facing racial epithets or stereotypes often makes it feel like it is your responsibility to justify or repress your heritage. Even as others are praising your hard work or diligence, it is hard to shake the sense that your identity itself is an affront to the peace of a monolithic culture. It is the dichotomy between praise and prejudice that I often struggle with the most: the seeming praise for our character that masks the perception of Asian Americans as effective, but subservient machines. I wish I could be happy that Andrew Yang is becoming popular, and I wish that his celebration of his Asian heritage was rooted in a desire to challenge racial stereotypes. But as I continue to see jokes about math or doctors, and policies that ignore the systemic nature of racism and economic alienation, Yang continues to disappoint me. Unfortunately, Andrew Yang embodies the myth of the Asian American model minority.
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