Scholarly research shows that Asian American consumers accept the “model minority” advertising

Scholarly research shows that Asian American consumers accept the “model minority” advertising stereotype about themselves. In a study conducted last year, Yoo, the University of Texas researcher, showed panels of Asian Americans two sets of mock ads for mobile phones, the first featuring Caucasian models and the second with Asian models. Then, she repeated the experiment with ads for a “non-tech” product, cologne, alternating ads with Caucasian and Asian models.

Result: Asian American consumers were more favorably disposed toward the tech products when they were endorsed by the Asian models. They also liked the non-tech products more when they were endorsed by Caucasian models.

Yoo theorizes that this is a reflection of the “match up” theory: Asian American panelists have bought into the same cues and stereotypes as other Americans thanks to years of cultural exposure.

In other words, the White standard (White supremacy) reigns.

Here are links to the referenced TV commercials, which I remember watching. They made me cringe from embarrassment and self-consciousness, bordering to the point of cultural self-hate. Didn’t want to be labelled “Chinesey” or “Chink”, nor did I want to be associated with those ads. Life was different back in the early 70’s. I wanted to blend in with my peers, not be a standout.

Jello ad and Calgon water softener ad.

Did this kind of exposure help our people with media images? It led to stereotyping, (mis) labelling, and other forms of racist thinking which pervade four freaking decades later. Would it have been better if these images, and similar ones, had not aired at all during the 60’s and 70’s? Would it have been better if “my people”—I use “my” to include all East Asians because to Madison Avenue we still pretty much look and sound alike*—had remained invisible, relegated to the cook Hop Sing (Victor Sen Yung) on “Bonanza” or the mild-mannered, soft-spoken housekeeper Mrs. Livingston (Miyoshi Umeki) of “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father?” Exposure, even when bad, is a jumping off point. There is progress, slow as it is. What I want to see noware Asian Americans—including Southern and South East Asians—incorporated into the fabric of Amurikan life, as normal everyday people with jobs and love lifes. (In other words bring on the hot sex-ay straight and gay Asian dudes who aren’t asexual nerds/techies).

The Calgon ad is complex. It relies on the stereotype of a Chinese laundry, complete with wife in a chipao/cheongsam inspired dress, her hair pulled back into to side buns. And yet the Chinese-American couple do not speak with sing-song accents, which in itself is progressive. America wouldn’t have been ready to hear advice from anything but an “authentic” Amurikan accent back in 1972, when the ad first aired. Still I wish I’d had a dollar for every Calgon detergent question/joke/insult hurled at me. I’d have enough to run my own laundromat.

* The Calgon lady was played by Anne Miyamoto, a Japanese American.

(Source: asiansnotstudying)