Why Media Won’t Highlight Asian American Issues

On March 9 of last year, there was an 800 percent increase in the use of the term “China Virus” and similar rhetoric in conservative media. This strategy — scapegoating China for America’s handling of the pandemic — has led to an increase in attacks against Asian Americans. So, why does there seem to be a lack of media coverage for these attacks? The obvious answer seems to be that the media is reluctant because they’re the cause. But, I suspect there’s more to it than that.

In 1882, following the California Gold Rush, the U.S. passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, banning all labor immigration from China. And by 1924, immigration from almost every Asian country was banned too. Asian Americans were portrayed as threats and faced constant violence. But things changed for Asian Americans at the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War.

The Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed in 1943. U.S. policymakers believed doing so would strengthen relations with China — both countries were fighting against Japan — and strengthen the U.S’s moral credibility in the fight against communism. During this time, Asian Americans went from being seen as a threat to being regarded as peaceful, hard-working citizens. And in 1965, the National Immigration Act was passed, allowing the U.S. to accept immigrants based on how they might potentially benefit the country. As the Civil Rights Movement continued, Asian Americans were used as proof that "hard work" led to success: an excuse for officials to ignore Black people’s demands for equality.

Even today, Asian Americans are still used as a wedge to deflect from calls for racial equity. In 2014, on his Fox News show, “The O’Reilly Factor,” Bill O’Reilly argued that white privilege did not exist. He pointed to Asian Americans’ high employment rates, median household income, and high school graduation rates to prove that Asian Americans were well-off and thus white privilege could not exist.

But this is precisely the purpose of the model minority myth. Framing Asian Americans as a minority group that achieved success through hard work and educational investments undermines calls for racial equality.

The model minority myth ignores the vast diversity in the Asian American experience. For example, while it might be true that educational attainment and household income for Asian Americans as a collective is high compared to other groups, this ignores that Asian Americans also have the highest level of intraracial income inequality as well. The model minority myth makes it impossible to know this because we are led to believe that all Asian Americans are successful. For Asian students struggling academically and poor Asian immigrants with limited resources, struggles often go unnoticed.

So of course, the media has no interest in reporting on the trend of hate crimes against Asian Americans because doing so would present a moral conundrum: it is in part the cause of the very issue, so why ultimately undermine their ability to scapegoat China and Asian Americans?

Even in the future, when Covid-19 is presumably not as pressing, reporting on anti-Asian violence will undermine the model minority myth. Still, the media, as the proliferator of the model minority myth, would be best served allowing Asian discrimination to remain in obscurity.

Though it is true that Asian Americans may sometimes benefit from the model minority myth’s proximity to white supremacy, it is essential that we do not fall into the trap of comparing one group’s oppression to another. We cannot compare the media response to the Black Lives Matter protests from last summer to the lack of a media response to the increase of attacks on Asian Americans today. As activist Janaya Khan states, “the experience of the model minority is invisibilized” and “the Black experience is hypervisible.” By competing, we would be playing right into the hands of those not interested in seeing racial equality become a reality.

We all have a role we can play in the fight for racial justice. The Crimson could always be more vocal. Our news reporting consists of issues that implicate Harvard, but with the platform we have, we cannot be restricted to Cambridge this way when the stakes are so high.

And Harvard’s role in this is always the same. When it comes to race issues, Harvard needs to make an honest attempt to do more. Today, the first tangible step Harvard could take is listening to student voices concerning Harvard Law School Professor J. Mark Ramseyer’s paper on Japanese comfort women. I’ve come to realize that asking Harvard to make substantial changes to how it handles issues of race is often fruitless. But, particularly in light of Asian people’s issues frequently being ignored, Harvard should change that by taking this small first step.

Joshua M. Conde '22, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a Government concentrator in Currier House.

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