We need more role models like Constance Wu
“You can’t be what you can’t see.”
As a mixed Asian-American woman, I’ve grown to despise this phrase. Growing up, I cannot remember learning of or looking up to any public figure who looked like me. Throughout my childhood, my family advised me to narrow my career options to those that were seen as financially stable and productive for an Asian-American woman, and I found it difficult to find role models or mentors that offered any alternatives. As I grew older, I thought things like running for public office or being in the spotlight were not made for me.
I believe the reason such a narrow path was presented to me is ultimately simple: In the Asian American community, stability is preferred over risk, comfort over inconvenience, and acquiescence instead of protest. These ideas are known as the “model minority myth,” and have influenced how society in turn stereotypes Asian-Americans.
There’s plenty of evidence that reveals how the model minority myth has become a self-fulfilling prophecy for the dismal proportion of Asian-American leadership in public life today. Among the top films in 2015, 73.7 percent of speaking or named characters were white, 12.2 percent were black, 5.3 percent were Latino, and 3.9 percent were Asian. These rates are similar to those in 2007. Among today’s Congress, there are only 10 representatives and 1 incumbent senator who identify as Asian American, making up only 2% of our elected officials. Silicon Valley has claimed that Asians have hit yet another “glass ceiling” in executive leadership positions in 2016, and only 8 CEOs who identify as Asian-American are represented on the annual Fortune 500 list.
These statistics, as well as their lack of improvement over the past few years, are unacceptable — especially considering that the rate of growth of Asian American populations is on the rise as are health disparities in many Asian-American ethnic communities. Census data has recently shown that Asians are the fastest growing racial group in America. Chinese, South Koreans, and Indians are now among the fastest growing segments of undocumented citizens. In addition, some of the highest rates of poverty and high school dropout rates among racial groups in the United States are among Asian-American communities such as Hmong-Americans and Vietnamese-Americans.
The solution to the invisibility of Asian-Americans in public life is twofold. First, institutions such as Hollywood, government, and businesses need to provide pathways of leadership, opportunity, and mentorship for Asian-American individuals in careers that are prone to the spotlight. When we are not given adequate representation, others produce images and portrayals that harm and exploit our communities. For example, the entertainment industry has recently produced a number of culturally insensitive segments targeting Asian-Americans — from Chris Rock’s mocking joke at the Oscars of three Asian children who emerged onstage as PWC accountants, invoking an exhausted stereotype about Asians being good at math, to the recent possibility of an NBC comedy-sitcom entitled “Mail Order Family” based on a widowed father ordering a mail-order bride from the Philippines in order to help him raise his two daughters.
It is critical for these institutions and industries to acknowledge the lack of Asian-American representation in leadership as a problem and take tangible steps to addressing them. Moreover, in creating these solutions, Asian-Americans must take part in the development of these programs to lower cultural barriers and feelings of isolation that exist in industries where there is little representation. If Asian-Americans are not at the table, we will be (and have been) “on the menu.”
Second, Asian-American youth need to be what we can’t see. We cannot rely on or give into the “model minority myth” simply because we have not seen images that look like us in textbooks, movies, or public debates. We must take it up as our own responsibility and mission to fill a void that has not been addressed. The need for vocal leaders who have critical perspectives of Asian-American culture is very urgent — not only for our own sanity (no, we do not want another white guy starring in a movie about the Great Wall as much as we love Matt Damon) but for the fair visibility, justice, and well-being of the people we represent. We can be what we can’t see. The livelihood of our communities depend on it.
It’s Time to SPEAK is a blog collaborative between MTV Founders and members of Women SPEAK, a national girls’ empowerment initiative based in Los Angeles cultivating campus dialog and mentoring relationships on gender, identity, and social justice.