The true reasons why the United States stopped being racist toward Asian Americans

Asian Americans overtook African Americans in family income between 1940 and 1970, narrowing the pay gap with whites in the process. They also underwent a significant change in their public perception at the same period. Asian Americans were praised in the media as hardworking, law-abiding individuals who kept their heads down [1, 2].
Asian Americans may have been the originators of the model minority story, but white politicians who wanted to gain friends during the Cold War appropriated it. In order to transfer the responsibility for black poverty, liberal and conservative politicians alike inflated the image of Asian Americans [3, 4].
A substantial influx of Asian Americans first appeared during the California Gold Rush and the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad. Asian Americans had undergone this pretty striking racial makeover by the middle of the 1960s. Politicians, journalists, and social scientists appeared to all of a sudden start promoting Asian Americans as supposedly role models for other minorities [5, 6].
In the United States, what is happening right now has a very lengthy history. The Chinese, Japanese, South Asians, Koreans, and Filipinos were the main populations to arrive before World War II. Although there were certain parallels and variances in how the organizations were perceived, they were all generally considered to be dangerous. Because of the robust vice economies in American China towns, Asians came to be seen as the typical patrons of prostitution, gambling, and drug use. Several of the same white Americans who criticized Asians engaged in similar actions as well [7, 8].
A major unintended consequence of early Asian Americans’ aspirations to be welcomed and recognized as human beings was the model minority myth. Asians were subject to a system of exclusion that resembled Jim Crow in many ways. They desired to be recognized as proud citizens deserving of respect and dignity [9, 10].
Following World War II, American decision-makers paid more attention to how they presented themselves to the world and had a keen interest in winning over Asians. Japan is a fantastic illustration of how Japanese exclusion laws may be overcome after the United States assumed control of rebuilding Japan in its own image[10, 11].
In the 1950s, keeping the correct sort of home life was a widespread concern. Because these tales were set in China towns, Americans could assert that their country still held certain traditional Chinese values. These stories are anti-Communist on another level because they are advancing a different ideological cause, so to speak [12, 13].
They wished to change the topic of debate from “Communists are infiltrating our nation” to “Hey, look at these spotless, oppressed youngsters.” How much of this was actual racism and how much was just racial propaganda? Asian Americans were perceived by many Americans in the 1950s and 1960s as the antithesis of what “blackness” stood for at the time. African American liberation movements’ efforts had both white liberals and white conservatives feeling extremely uneasy. Asian Americans did participate in politics, although occasionally their efforts went unnoticed or unappreciated. These preconceived notions about Asian Americans being patriotic, having a harmonious family, and being free from crime and delinquency contributed to the good perception of Asian Americans [14, 15].
Asian Americans are barely mentioned in the Moynihan Report, which blamed African Americans’ woes on “ghetto culture.” After 1965, America opened its doors to a significant influx of immigrants from the Caribbean, Latin America, and Asia. Asian Americans did not experience anti-black racism to the same extent or extent that African Americans did [16, 17].
Generally, Asian Americans overtook African Americans in terms of family income between 1940 and 1970, narrowing the pay gap with whites. Asian Americans were praised in the media as hardworking, law-abiding individuals who kept their heads down. Early Asian Americans’ quest to fit in led to a significant unintended effect known as the model minority myth. Asian Americans had to deal with an exclusionary system that resembled Jim Crow in many ways. Politicians in the United States wanted to change the conversation from “Communists are infiltrating our country” to “Look at these innocent, neglected youngsters.”
References
[1]        R. B. Hill, The strengths of Black families. University Press of America, 2003.
[2]        N. Hilger, “Upward mobility and discrimination: The case of Asian Americans,” National Bureau of Economic Research, 2016.
[3]        J. Kim, “An” Orphan” with Two Mothers: Transnational and Transracial Adoption, the Cold War, and Contemporary Asian American Cultural Politics,” American Quarterly, vol. 61, no. 4, pp. 855-880, 2009.
[4]        G. Omatsu, “The’Four Prisons’ and,” Asian American politics: Law, participation, and policy, vol. 3, p. 135, 2003.
[5]        L. L. S. Yun, Afro Asia: revolutionary political and cultural connections between African Americans and Asian Americans. Duke University Press, 2008.
[6]        M. S. Johnson, The second gold rush: Oakland and the East Bay in World War II. Univ of California Press, 1994.
[7]        A. B. Atkinson, T. Piketty, and E. Saez, “Top incomes in the long run of history,” Journal of economic literature, vol. 49, no. 1, pp. 3-71, 2011.
[8]        M. Cox, “Whatever happened to American decline? International relations and the new United States hegemony,” New Political Economy, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 311-340, 2001.
[9]        F. H. Wu, “Neither black nor white: Asian Americans and affirmative action,” BC Third World LJ, vol. 15, p. 225, 1995.
[10]      C. Brooks, Alien neighbors, foreign friends: Asian Americans, housing, and the transformation of urban California. University of Chicago Press, 2009.
[11]      C. Hemmer and P. J. Katzenstein, “Why is there no NATO in Asia? Collective identity, regionalism, and the origins of multilateralism,” International organization, vol. 56, no. 3, pp. 575-607, 2002.
[12]      S.-l. C. Wong, “Autobiography as guided Chinatown tour,” Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior: A Casebook, pp. 29-53, 1999.
[13]      K. J. Anderson, “The idea of Chinatown: The power of place and institutional practice in the making of a racial category,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, vol. 77, no. 4, pp. 580-598, 1987.
[14]      E. Guerrero, Framing blackness: The African American image in film. Temple University Press, 1993.
[15]      H. Gray, Watching race: Television and the struggle for” blackness”. U of Minnesota Press, 1995.
[16]      S. D. Greenbaum, Blaming the poor: The long shadow of the Moynihan Report on cruel images about poverty. Rutgers University Press, 2015.
[17]      W. J. Wilson, “The Moynihan Report and research on the black community,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 621, no. 1, pp. 34-46, 2009.
 

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