Asian-Americans bristle at stereotypes as Andrew Yang says he ‘knows a lot of doctors’
- Some feel presidential candidate is reinforcing model-minority myth with remarks during third Democratic debate
- Yang, son of Taiwanese immigrants, has also made comments on campaign trail playing to stereotype of studious, maths-loving Asian-Americans
Jenn Fang was home on Thursday night, not really paying attention to the third Democratic debate, when she came across a video clip circulating on Twitter showing presidential candidate Andrew Yang casually declaring onstage, “I’m Asian, so I know a lot of doctors.”
For Yang, it was a lead-in to a broader response on health care. But for Fang, it was grating.
“I found this part galling because here he is sort of obtusely reinforcing the model-minority myth and model-minority stereotypes,” said Fang, who runs the blog Reappropriate, where she writes about Asian-American and feminist issues.
Yang, perhaps the highest-profile East Asian presidential candidate in history, regularly makes comments on the campaign trail that play to the stereotype of Asian-Americans as studious, maths-loving and hard-working.
To some, it is a refreshing dose of self-deprecating humour; to many others, such comments are cringeworthy or amplify a stereotype – of Asian-Americans as a “model minority” – they say is harmful.
Fang said white primary-care doctors, for example, outnumber Asian ones by nearly seven to one.