- The Oxford Handbook of American Immigration and Ethnicity
- Contributors
- Introduction: The Making of America
- The Impact of Immigration Legislation: 1875 to the Present
- European Migrations
- Asian Immigration
- Latino Immigration
- African American Migration from the Colonial Era to the Present
- Emancipation and Exploitation in Immigrant Women’s Lives
- Protecting America’s Borders and the Undocumented Immigrant Dilemma
- Inclusion, Exclusion, and the Making of American Nationality
- Race and Citizenship
- Assimilation in the Past and Present
- Whiteness and Race
- Race and U.S. Panethnic Formation
- Intermarriage and the Creation of a New American
- Immigration, Medical Regulation, and Eugenics
- The World of the Immigrant Worker
- Neighborhoods, Immigrants, and Ethnic Americans
- Machine Bosses, Reformers, and the Politics of Ethnic and Minority Incorporation
- Immigration, Ethnicity, Race, and Organized Crime
- The Myth of Ethnic Success: Old Wine in New Bottles
- Immigration and Ethnic Diversity in the South, 1980–2010
- Allegiance, Dual Citizenship, and the Ethnic Influence on U.S. Foreign Policy
- Historians and Sociologists Debate Transnationalism
- Written Forms of Communication from Immigrant Letters to Instant Messaging
- Ethnicity, Race, and Religion beyond Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish Whites
- Immigration, Race, and Ethnicity in American Film
- Language Retention/Language Shift, “English Only,” and Multilingualism in the United States
- Melting Pots, Salad Bowls, Ethnic Museums, and American Identity
- New Approaches in Teaching Immigration and Ethnic History
- Index
Abstract and Keywords
Since its inception, social science has spawned a succession of theories that purport to explain differential rates of ethnic mobility as a byproduct of the cultural values of the groups themselves. The fatal flaw of these theories is that they reify culture by failing to examine its anchorage in history and social structure, eliding the very factors that produce and reproduce these value systems. This chapter critiques two theoretical propositions that currently pervade both popular and scholarly discourses: the projection of Asian Americans as “a model minority” and the supposition that black underachievement is the result of “acting white.” It is argued that these theories provide epistemic justification for the cleavages of race and class that continue to rend American society.
Keywords: Model minority myth, acting white, Asian Americans, African Americans, success myths, structural racism
Stephen Steinberg, Urban Studies Department, Queens College, CUNY
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- The Oxford Handbook of American Immigration and Ethnicity
- Contributors
- Introduction: The Making of America
- The Impact of Immigration Legislation: 1875 to the Present
- European Migrations
- Asian Immigration
- Latino Immigration
- African American Migration from the Colonial Era to the Present
- Emancipation and Exploitation in Immigrant Women’s Lives
- Protecting America’s Borders and the Undocumented Immigrant Dilemma
- Inclusion, Exclusion, and the Making of American Nationality
- Race and Citizenship
- Assimilation in the Past and Present
- Whiteness and Race
- Race and U.S. Panethnic Formation
- Intermarriage and the Creation of a New American
- Immigration, Medical Regulation, and Eugenics
- The World of the Immigrant Worker
- Neighborhoods, Immigrants, and Ethnic Americans
- Machine Bosses, Reformers, and the Politics of Ethnic and Minority Incorporation
- Immigration, Ethnicity, Race, and Organized Crime
- The Myth of Ethnic Success: Old Wine in New Bottles
- Immigration and Ethnic Diversity in the South, 1980–2010
- Allegiance, Dual Citizenship, and the Ethnic Influence on U.S. Foreign Policy
- Historians and Sociologists Debate Transnationalism
- Written Forms of Communication from Immigrant Letters to Instant Messaging
- Ethnicity, Race, and Religion beyond Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish Whites
- Immigration, Race, and Ethnicity in American Film
- Language Retention/Language Shift, “English Only,” and Multilingualism in the United States
- Melting Pots, Salad Bowls, Ethnic Museums, and American Identity
- New Approaches in Teaching Immigration and Ethnic History
- Index
