Posted 3:15 p.m. Friday, Feb. 18, 2022
A look at history, population growth, and a critical examination of the model minority myth
By UWL professors Gita V. Pai and Gerald S. Iguchi
An East Coast university professor’s recent comment that “the U.S. is better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration,” compels us to discuss the history of Asian Americans, along with the nation’s growing Asian population, the notion that Asians are a model minority, and hatred directed at Asian Americans. We are UW-La Crosse professors who teach the history of Asia and its communities abroad. We also trace our heritage to Asia.
Immigration to Wisconsin
Very little Asian immigration to Wisconsin occurred in the nineteenth century. Early twentieth century laws generally kept many Chinese, East Indians, Japanese, and Filipinos from entering the country. During World War II, however, Japanese Americans of Hawaii’s renowned 100th Battalion trained at Wisconsin’s Camp McCoy before fighting in Europe.
Although the 1965 Immigration Act loosened previous restrictions, it was not until the 1970s and 80s that the number of Asians increased in the Coulee region when Hmong refugees — U.S. allies in the fight against communism in Southeast Asia — immigrated to Wisconsin from Laos via Thailand. 36% of Asians in Wisconsin are of Hmong ancestry, making the state the third largest home for the Hmong in the U.S.
A rapidly growing population
Today, a record 22 million people identify as Asian in the U.S., accounting for nearly 7% of the nation’s population. Chinese Americans are the largest Asian origin group (24%), followed by Indian Americans (21%), Filipino Americans (19%), and then people with roots in Vietnam, Korea, and Japan. 2.7 million Asian Americans live in the Midwest, of which about 168,000 are in Wisconsin, roughly 3% of the state’s total population.
Asian Americans are the fastest-growing racial or ethnic group in the U.S. In response to this reality, Wisconsin legislators introduced Assembly Bill AB 381 last fall, calling for the history of Hmong Americans and APIDA (Asian, Pacific Islander, and Desi—or South Asian—American) to be added to the Wisconsin K-12 public school curriculum.
The myth of the model minority
Due to factors including alleged Japanese American acceptance of their illegal internment during the Second World War and their determination to prove their Americanness in that context, Asian Americans have often been deemed a model minority.
However, Asian Americans and their experiences differ broadly. For example, some families have been U.S. citizens for multiple generations, while others, whether naturalized citizens or not, are recent immigrants from abroad. Furthermore, economic success is not universal among Asian Americans; while some are doing quite well in such terms, for others, this is not necessarily the case.
Hate against the community
Acceptance implied by the status of “model” has always been conditional. In Wisconsin in August 2012, a gunman attacked a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, fatally shooting six and wounding others because of an erroneous association between turbans worn by Sikh men and Islamic extremism. Likewise, the business location of a Pakistani immigrant to La Crosse was vandalized by graffiti that managed to be particularly offensive to various groups in early February 2019.
Because of associations between COVID-19 and the People’s Republic of China, xenophobia, bigotry, and even violence directed towards Asian Americans has risen nationwide during the pandemic, reminding informed observers of how general American fear of an imaginary “peril” represented by people of Asian heritage lurks beneath the surfaces of our everyday lives.