Story by ANDRE MONTOYA

After she had earned an internship opportunity, Serena Aeschilman, a computer science student at the University of Utah, recalled feeling happy. However, she also recalled being told, “‘you only got that because they’re looking for diversity.’”

Because she is a female Asian American student in the field of engineering, Aeschilman wasn’t sure which type of discrimination she was facing from such a comment. However, she did know the legitimacy of her success was being called into question.

Two intertwined factors have challenged the validity of the successes of Asian Americans, a long-standing set of policies known as affirmative action and a stereotype that has persisted for years known as the model minority myth. Now, past and present U students reflect on the link between the two and their personal experiences.

Affirmative action is being challenged in the Supreme Court by Students for Fair Admissions, who allege that Harvard and other Ivy League universities discriminated against them based on their race. Some of the students in this group are Asian American.

“Personally, I support affirmative action and I hope that universities will still be able to use that as a criterion,” said Darin Mano, former adjunct professor of architecture and a U alumnus, in a Zoom interview with Voices of Utah. “It’s not a criterion of ‘are students capable of succeeding at that school,’ it’s ‘how can we create the best educational experience?’”

According to the U’s Office of Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action, and Title IX, the university does enforce affirmative action but states there are no quotas and says, “These decisions should never be based on someone’s status based on gender or race and all candidates must meet the minimum qualifications for the position.”

Enrollment rates for first-time Asian American freshmen, undergraduate students, and graduate students all hovered at around 6% for Fall 2020, according to the U’s Office of Budget and Institutional Analysis.

In Fall 2019 at the U, Asian students had the highest graduation rate when compared to other racial demographics, with over 80% of Asian students graduating, according to a diversity report from College Factual.

Though the U does not have a large Asian student body, it is a place of achievement for them.

Mano, who now represents District 5 on the Salt Lake City City Council, remembered that the lack of diversity on campus was difficult at times.

“Oftentimes I felt like I was the only minority in most of my classes at the University of Utah,” Mano said when reflecting on his time at the U. “So, I really cherish the experience of being at a place where they were able to select what the makeup of the student body was going to be so they could ensure there were diverse voices.”

Opponents of affirmative action ask that when it comes to the educational experience, how can it be known whether a student of color who was picked was the most qualified of the pool of potential students? They also ask, how can it be an achievement for students of color if they begin from a perceived disadvantaged position?

“How many qualified POC (people of color) have been denied opportunities in the past simply because of their race and ethnicity, and how many less-than-qualified white people have been given those same opportunities because of historical precedent?” U student Sunwhee Park said in an email. “I encourage people to think about how the status quo became the status quo, and remind themselves that things aren’t correct just because they’ve always been that way.”

Park, a member of the Associated Students of the University of Utah (ASUU), views affirmative action as a way of demonstrating that people of color can be just as successful when given the same opportunities as white Americans and in the larger picture, create a future where such policies are no longer needed.

But with Asian American students doing well at the University of Utah and supposedly being too successful to be accepted into Harvard, what is holding them back?

Sociologist William Peterson coined the term “model minority” in a January 1966 article for New York Times magazine. The article, “Success Story, Japanese-American Style,” was meant as praise for the Japanese Americans who had spent two decades post-World War II positioning themselves as powerful and successful.

The model minority moniker has typically been applied to East Asian Americans to characterize them as exemplary when it comes to achieving the American Dream regarding the areas of education, employment, and wealth.   

At first glance, one might assume that the model minority myth is a compliment since it praises the accomplishments of Asian Americans and places them as admired and successful members of American society. But its detractors say it’s more akin to a double-edged sword.

“It’s incredibly patronizing and downright fake,” Park said. “The concept doesn’t change how Asians are viewed as perpetual foreigners and still aren’t accepted into many parts of the American cultural and historical narratives.”

The model minority myth uplifts Asian Americans to the level of what white Americans have deemed successful. It’s only a compliment because it separates Asians from other races and accepts them into white spaces, Park said.

As the social and cultural fallout of the coronavirus pandemic in America has shown, Asian Americans are accepted, but only to a certain extent.

Aeschilman, the computer science student, reflected on the amount of anger she felt when confronted with the rise of anti-Asian racism. With the support she felt from the Asian American Student Association chapter at the U, she decided to take her feelings and put them toward something constructive.

Even though she had helped organize a rally in support of Asian Americans, Aeschilman wanted to do more. In January 2022, she wrote a letter to the Utah Daily Chronicle summarizing her feelings, simply titled, “I Am So Angry.”

“I felt like I wasn’t heard when it came to how I felt, or the experiences I’ve had,” Aeschilman said when explaining why she decided to write her letter.

In the letter, she described her experiences facing microaggressions, and how the model minority myth ultimately drowns out the voices of Asian Americans when they speak out against them. But she implores others to reflect on their privileges and support the efforts of the less privileged.

“What I say doesn’t necessarily reflect the experiences of every Asian American here [at the U],” Aeschilman said, “but I feel like everyone should be heard.”

Filed under: Asian American, Education, Law and Justice, Mental Health, Politics |