South Asian American Discourses: Engaging the Yellow Peril-Model Minority Dialectic

Abstract

South Asians, despite their positioning as a “model minority,” have not been immune from the consequences of the heightened racist and nationalist rhetoric witnessed lately in the United States. However, such sentiments about the South Asian immigrant community are not new, as they are reflective of a “yellow peril” discourse. This study analyzes South Asian Americans’ responses to a TIME Magazine column complaining about their influx into Edison, New Jersey. It first explores the racial formation that the model minority myth, in dialectical relationship with the yellow peril discourse, has produced among South Asians. Through this analysis, this study critically analyzes how South Asian Americans’ discourses both reinforce and challenge their racialized status positions and identities as the model minority.

KEYTERMS:

• discourse
• hybridization
• model minority
• South Asian
• yellow peril