RT Article
T1 From the Yellow Peril to the Model Minority and Back Again: Unraveling the Orientalist Representations of Asian Americans in the Age of Covid-19
JF Journal of pastoral theology
VO 31
IS 2/3
SP 175
OP 192
A1 Cho, Eunil David
LA English
PB Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
YR 2021
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1783528834
AB Anti-Asian xenophobia and discriminatory acts against Asian Americans have increased significantly as the COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly spread across the US. But connections between diseases, racism, and xenophobia are not new in the history of Asian America. While from the 1890s to the 1950s, Asian Americans were primarily stigmatized with the label ‘Yellow Peril,’ from the 1960s to the present, they have been simplistically cast as the ‘model minority.’ However, with the outbreak of COVID-19, misinformation about the virus also spread, and the public perception of Asian Americans has shifted once again from their being the ‘model minority’ to being the ‘Yellow Peril.’ By looking at intellectual and cultural history, I argue that ‘Yellow Peril’ and ‘model minority’ are Orientalist representations of Asian Americans that have been used as hegemonic devices. Orientalism as a relationship of unequal power has structured the obstacles that Asian Americans have struggled against as they try to find a sense of belonging in the US.
K1 Yellow Peril
K1 model minority
K1 Anti-Asian racism
K1 Edward Said
K1 Covid-19
DO 10.1080/10649867.2021.1929711