What does the term Model Minority refer to According to Chan, how Essay

What does the term Model Minority refer to According to Chan, how accurate is this perspective Explain their argument. Who is excluded from this perspective Is it harmful - Essay Example The publicity that has been given to the Asian minorities and brought forth the term â€Å"model minority† is due to factors like low crime rates among young people in these communities and their higher socio economic status as compared to other minorities. Media publicity that propagated this view described how Asian Americans had been able to achieve a higher social class and standing through cultural mechanisms like hard work, their frugal lifestyles, their sacrifices for children and their family ties (Pyong 2006:80). The criticism levelled against the model minority program contends that the publicity hype does not take into account all the relevant factors. For instance, the claims about Asian Americans achieving a higher economic status than white Americans in some cases, does not take into account the fact that in most Asian American families, more than one person in the family was earning and contributing, which helped to account for the higher family income. (Chan 168). Furthermore, while it was true that Asian Americans such as Chinese and Japanese had significantly higher levels of schools than non-Hispanic whites, their median incomes in the long run were no higher because the returns that should have come to them due to their higher levels of schooling were lower than the whites. According to the Human capital theory, the skills and knowledge gained by a worker through education and experience comprises human capital, hence the greater the capital, the greater should be the wages. Where Asian Americans are concerned however, this does not appear to hold good, since they receive lower wages in general despite higher education. The model minority thesis has also been criticized on the grounds that it does not take into consideration the fact that most Asian Americans live in cities where wages in general are higher, as are also expenses. Comparing