1. In the fifth chapter of Robert Lee’s book, The Cold War Origins of the Model Minority Myth, he calls attention to the fact that the ideas of Asian Americans as “politically silent” and “ethnically assimilable” originated from the Cold War and grew in the post WWII era. Lee claims that the narrative of Americanization transformed the perspective of Asian Americans from the exotic to the acceptable. This transformation occurred through the idea that Americans’ anxiety towards communism, interracial marriages, and transgressive sexuality would be subdued. He further argued that ethnic assimilation and the model minority allowed Asian Americans to have a place in American society.
2. “The representation of Asian American as a racial minority whose apparently successful ethnic assimilation was a result of stoic patience, political obedience and self-improvement…” (145).
- The author incorporated this in order to demonstrate the idea of model minority and ethnic assimilation. Through their forbearance and “political obedience,” Asian Americans were able to be successfully assimilated into American culture. Furthermore, instead of Americans admiring Asian Americans for their “exoticness,” the three characteristic qualities that were attributed to Asian Americans caused them to be admired for their self-reliance and family cohesion. This transformed perspective of Asian Americans becomes important to the narrative of liberalism.
“Sayonara and Flower Drum Song follow in the Pocahontas tradition as narratives in which the woman of color becomes mother of nation through a process of ethnic assimilation; the history of race relations is effaced in favor of romance and individual transformation” (179).
- In both films, Oriental woman characters were assimilated through the domestication of their exotic sexuality. In the film Sayonara, the character Hana Ogi breaks from the exotic in order to have a family with Gruver. By giving up her prestige in her homeland in order to be with Gruver, it shows her assimilation into the American culture through interracial marriage. On the other hand, in the film Flower Drum Song, the character Mei Li transforms into an American through television. By being a consumer of television, Mei Li was able to absorb the practical values of the American cultural and plain language. Mei li was thus able to be assimilated into American culture and marriage. Ultimately, the the two films demonstrate that the domestication of exotic sexuality recreates the Oriental women as “naturalized women.” Since they are deemed as naturalized, they are accepted into American culture through ethnic assimilation.
3. There were two key concepts that were introduced in the chapter: ethnic assimilation and model minority. Ethnic assimilation is defined as when members of a minority ethnic group lose the characteristics that differentiate from the dominant cultural group. Lee states that the framework of ethnic assimilation was based on Robert Park’s theory of a four stage ethnic cycle. The four stages are: the initial contact between the “outsider” and host society, economic and political competition, economic and cultural accommodation of the ethnic minority group to the host society, and assimilation into the host society (158). This theory is applicable to all “newcomers” in the host society and it eventually lead to the ethnicity theory, which presented the promise of equality that could be reached through the combination of cultural assimilation, political accommodation, and individual effort. While ethnic assimilation was built on a theory, the model minority was built on the political silence of Asian Americans.
4. Lee’s fifth chapter of his book connects to the third chapter of Lisa Sun-Hee Park’s book, Assimilation. Park states that assimilation is the best theoretical framework to better understand the incorporation of different ethnic groups into the mainstream (15). This idea connects to Robert Park’s four stage ethnic cycle which shows the process of an “outsider” becoming a part of the mainstream. As shown in Lee’s chapter, ethnic assimilation had a major role in changing Americans’ perspective of Asian Americans from exotic to the acceptable.