Before I begin this, I am going to ask for your forgiveness. This article contains stereotypes and at times blatant racism, but to be honest, that’s the whole point. Our society is filled with cultural stereotypes, and a lot of us are complacent about them. One stereotype that has affected me in particular are these scholarly expectations for Asians. Apparently, all Asians are smart, and because of that, a lot of us have to live up to expectations linked to our ethnicity.
I’m going to start by saying, there are a lot of different kinds of Asians. For some reason, when people say Asian, the first ethnicity people think of is Chinese. Asia is massive, with many different countries speaking many different languages and looking very different. My family is from India, and we get categorized with other Asians, but look nothing like the image most Americans think of when they think of Asians.
From the beginning of my academic journey, people expected me to be smarter just because I was Asian. I remember people joking around, telling me that I was a “Bad Asian” because I don’t like math, or pushing myself to take more science classes because Asians are usually good at them. As a kid I went to Kumon, a place that tutors in Math and Reading, and I was often sitting in a waiting room full of only Asians. My friend made a good point today when she pointed out that if an Asian got a low score on the ACT or SAT, the expectation is that they would take it again. For the record, by a “low score” on the ACT, I mean a 30. It may be just because we have these expectations, we feel the need to meet them, and therefore support the expectations.
Just because I can speak from experience, I am going to focus on Indian intellectual stereotypes. Us Indians often call ourselves “brown” usually as a joke, but we have “brown expectations.” These expectations include exceeding in school (especially math), not dating until your parents think you’re at an acceptable age (somewhere around 30), going to a prestigious college and becoming a doctor or engineer. A lot of these apply to other Asians, but I can say from personal experience that they apply to us “brown kids.” Now, I'll admit, I make the mistake of buying into these stereotypes as much as any other "brown kid" in America. For example, as of now, I aspire to be a doctor. Plus, pushing ourselves harder to succeed in school is more of a good thing than it is a bad thing.
The problem arises when these expectations are linked to a certain ethnicity. I know plenty of people from plenty of cultural backgrounds who work as hard as or harder than Asians I know. I know people who are smarter, and I know people who meet these expectations better than I can. In the end, saying that an Asian student is usually smarter is similar to encouraging the "dumb blonde" stereotype.
