(Imagine Otherwise) — Conversations about the Asian American experience often come back around to status. Tug on a thread discussing the model minority myth, discrimination, or family immigration histories; and you’ll find them tied to questions of where we stand in a given hierarchy, how we got there, and where we hope to go.
This is largely why I’ve spent most of the past decade studying social status and its role in Asian American families. As a psychologist, I’m most interested in how we think about status, and in turn, how status shapes our thoughts and behaviors. For example, my collaborators and I have examined how Asian Americans from different socioeconomic backgrounds vary in their parenting behaviors, their views on mental health, and even their endorsement of traditional “Asian” values. We’ve also shown how, as early as elementary school, Asian American kids incorporate race into their understanding of social status, and how biases toward high-status peers can shape their everyday social decisions.
Humans are social creatures, so it’s natural that we’d take our scripts for life from those we see as living well. And when it comes to scripts for social status—what it looks like, how to get it, and how to keep it—the Asian American editions are highlighted, dog-eared, and passed down across generations.
Read Dr. Chen’s full article here.