Group Post D

Le was describing that Asian American were not the model minority image; in fact, he states that model minority image is a myth. He provides us with a piece of statistic that seems to show that the Asian American were very well-off in achieving the American Dream compared to other races. For example, they have the highest median family income, highest percentage of races attaining college degree and high skill occupations. Though they seemed to be very successful through these statistics, Le analyzes that this was not the case. Because most of the Asian Americans were living in big metropolitan cities, they had to spend more of their income. Moreover, because there was inequality between the White and Asian American, the white people were treated better by getting paid higher than the Asian American. Thus, Asian Americans pursued the higher education levels just to be treated and earn their salaries equally with the white people. This shows that although the statistic that Le offered was not wrong we should not solely see the numbers but bring the social and political life of Asian American into context.

Personally, Le’s analysis was very interesting because I took statistics class and always had to interpret data. One thing that I want to add in Le’s analysis is that there was a lurking variable that showed why Asian Americans had high number of marriage and presence of spouses compared to other races. To some races, marriage means affordability to live. However, the lurking variable in here is a culture. Because Asians Americans mostly think that formation of family is a necessary aspect of a society, they would tend to get married in the early ages of 20s; it was part of their culture in these times. This shows that why Asians Americans were mostly married or had spouses: not because they could afford to live and take care of children, but because they thought family was essential to settle in a New place and hope that the next generation will achieve the American Dream.

While Le heavily interprets on why there was no actual minority model image, Lisa Lowe deals with how gender and immigration helped to form a new race and a work force: Immigrated Asian American women. One notable thing in her argument is that she uses primary sources. That is she uses first-person accounts of immigrated Asian American women to state her point that “these forms—life stories, oral histories, histories of community, and literature—are crucial media that connects subjects to social relations (33). She maintains that immigrated Asian women are new rising political subjects. She says "the intersection of processes of immigration, racialization, labor exploitation, and patriarchal gender relations" is the location of Asian immigrated women's work (34).

Her analysis of Asian women's work was very insightful because critics normally did not exclude only women to argue that it is a new type of political subject. In addition, her usage of accounts of mistreated migrant workers presents pathos to the readers, urging them to read and know the importance and the influence of the new "race".