Racial Stereotypes and Asian American Paradox

Background and Purpose: Asian Americans face two contradictory racial stereotypes, i.e., 1) model minority stereotype (MMS)—hard-working and 2) perpetual foreigner stereotype (PFS)—not being accepted as “true Americans” regardless of nativity. Racial triangulation theory posits that these opposing stereotypes together have created a unique racial position for Asian Americans. However, we know little about how MMS and PFS together explains Asian American youth development, especially “Asian American paradox,” a pattern of having good grades and fewer externalizing problems coexisting with mental health problems. This study examines whether and how the conflicting racial stereotypes predict both internalizing (e.g., depressive symptoms), externalizing problems (e.g., antisocial behaviors), and academic performance (GPA) as outcomes. In addition, we examine the interaction effect between MMS and PFS. Lastly, we further examine whether these associations vary by ethnicity (i.e., Filipino vs. Korean) and nativity (i.e., U.S.-born vs. foreign-born).

Methods: Data are from the Midwest Longitudinal Study of Asian American Families (ML-SAAF) project that survey-interviewed 378 Filipino American (FA) youth and 408 Korean American (KA) youth (N=786) at Wave 1 in 2014. This study used Wave 3 data (308 FA and 340 KA youth, N = 648, in 2018). At wave 3, the average age was 18.22 (SD=1.84) for FA and 17.91 (SD=1.89) for KA youth. Stepwise regression models first examined (1) the impacts of two types of MMS (i.e., MMS-Achievement—Asian Americans as achievement oriented and MMS-Mobility—Asian Americans not having socio-economic barriers) and PFS, (2) two-way interaction effects between two types of MMS and PFS, and (3) three-way interaction effects (i.e., two types of MMS x PFS x ethnicity or nativity).

Results: As expected, PFS was an extensively predictive of more internalizing problems, after accounting for two types of MMS and demographic characteristics. Conversely, MMS-Achievement predicted significantly higher GPA and, although marginally significant, lower internalizing problems. The two-way interaction models demonstrated that the positive association between PFS and internalizing problems were strengthened by MMS-Achievement (i.e., distress-exacerbating effect), but weakened by MMS-Mobility (distress-alleviating effect). Three-way interaction models further indicate that the distress-exacerbating effect of MMS-Achievement was only significant among Korean American and male youth. On the other hand, the distress-alleviating effect of MMS-Mobility was only significant among male youth.

Conclusions and Implications: The study findings provide several important sets of empirical evidence that can meaningfully inform social work practice. First, the results show that MMS and PFS together may account for a significant portion of the Asian American paradox. The study also demonstrates how two types of MMS may play differential roles in moderating the relationship between PFS and youth mental health outcomes and how these relationships further vary by ethnicity and gender. More importantly, findings from this study will better inform front-line social workers as well as school staff—who have been identified as one of the sources of stereotyping Asian American students (Rosenbloom & Way, 2004)—about the negative consequences of this practice and thus help them better serve this population.