Model Minority Masochism

Book excerpt: There are few grand narratives that loom over Asian Americans more than the "model minority." While many Asian Americanist scholars and activists are quick to disprove the model minority as "myth," author Takeo Rivera instead rethinks the model minority as cultural politics. Rather thandisproving the model minority, Rivera instead argues that Asian Americans have formulated their racial and gendered subjectivities in relation to the model minority relation that Rivera terms "model minority masochism." With specific attention to hegemonic masculine Asian American culturalproduction, Rivera details two complementary forms of contemporary racial masochism: a self-subjugating masochism which embraces the model minority, and its opposite, a self-flagellating masochism that punishes oneself for having been associated with the model minority at all.