Asian American Empowerment - The Anti-Model Minority Myth

or Why E.R. Will Never Have an Asian Male Doctor

©2005 By Lu Xun
Special to ModelMinority.com
June 2005

Several years ago, I had a ritual where I would have lunch with several Asian American friends at a Chinese restaurant every Sunday afternoon. Although women were often a part of this lunch group, it was mostly young Asian American men. Unintentionally, it turned out that most of these Asian American men in my Sunday lunchtime ritual were either physicians or attending medical school.

These Asian American men that I was friends and acquainted with weren’t just run-of-the-mill doctors. They had, or were attending, some of the best medical schools in the world. Harvard, Johns Hopkins, UCSF, and other fine medical schools were represented during those Chinese restaurant get-togethers. These doctors or future doctors were often interns or residents of some of the best teaching hospitals in a major metropolitan area. Some of these Asian American male doctors are making valuable contributions to cutting edge medical procedures and technology. Others are top-notch surgeons dealing with the most complex cases. Others are providing a high quality of care to both emergency room (often abbreviated, e.r.) patients or in their own medical offices. I knew of at least one Asian American male doctor in my circle of friends/acquaintances that is providing medical care and other vital social services to orphans in a Third World country.

As an Asian American man, being surrounded by these incredibly accomplished medical professionals, I began to wonder whether there was anyone other than Asian American men who were becoming top-notch physicians. That’s a silly thought, I know.

But there is something even sillier than thinking that most of the best doctors in America are Asian American men. What is truly ridiculous is to think that there are no Asian American male doctors in a major teaching hospital in America or, even worse, that there are no Asian men who are physicians at all in America.

Who would be stupid enough to think that? Who would be nutty enough to think that they could attempt to portray the medical profession in America based on a notion as ludicrous as suggesting that there are no Asian American men who are doctors in America?

Hollywood.

There has never been a major Asian American male character that has been a doctor on the long running NBC medical drama E.R. This show supposedly takes place in a hospital that would be affiliated with a major medical school in a major city, Chicago. Yet, there are no Asian American men of any note that are doctors in this supposedly venerable series.

Grey’s Anatomy? House (M.D.)? No, they have neglected to have Asian men as doctors in those shows as well. But it’s E.R.’s – the longest running and most respected of the bunch – inability to admit to the fact there might be at least one Asian American man that would be a physician in such a hospital that is the most troubling and bizarre.

The Model Minority and the Anti-Model Minority Myth

There has been a lot of ink spilled over the whole issue of ‘the model minority myth.’ It’s a complicated issue, but, boiled down to its simplest form, it’s a set of stereotypes that says all Asian Americans are successful in some way and that we really don’t face the same sort of struggles that other minorities in American face. Put in that way, it’s completely ridiculous. Asian Americans are not a monolithic group just as African Americans, Latinos, or White Americans aren’t monolithic. Some Asian Americans are doing well (depending on how you define ‘well’) while others struggle … which is pretty much what you can say about any other group. As for struggles based on race, most Asian Americans have or will experience something racist or racially insensitive in their lives. Vincent Chin and the Chinese Exclusion Act might be extreme examples to some but it isn’t impossible to imagine that we may face similar dangers in the future as we have in the past and in the present.

What I want to focus on here, however, is what I call the ‘anti-model minority myth.’ In my opinion, the ‘anti-model minority myth’ – which gets a lot less attention – may be as dangerous or more dangerous than the model minority myth.

I would define the ‘anti-model minority myth’ as being the sort of evil twin or the flip side of the model minority myth. Rather than unreasonably being labeled as people that have little or no reason to complain about American society, the anti-model minority myth dictates that we Asian Americans aren’t really even a part of American society or, if we are a part of it, we are an ineffectual part of it and, thus, whatever contributions we make to it are de-valued and minimized.

For example, have you seen the latest G.E. commercials depicting the completion of the transcontinental railroad – an event that essentially heralded the unification of the continental United States? Did you see one Asian face in that commercial? No, of course not even though it’s a historical fact that Chinese Americans provided most of the labor (including losing their lives) to complete the project and that there were plenty of them around when the final spike was hammered in.

Why would they forget that there were Asian Americans who contributed to such a momentous event? Maybe they didn’t forget. Maybe it was deliberate or, if not deliberate, it was grossly negligent.

It’s plain and simple racism – no fancy thinking required here – to just wash us out of history. To suggest that Asian Americans weren’t there when they were there. It’s racist to suggest that we didn’t make a contribution when we made a lot of contributions. At least with the model minority myth, we exist and we are doing something; with the anti-model minority myth, we are, at best, a whisper. It’s as if we don’t exist. As if we didn’t do and aren’t doing anything.

By now some smart-aleck might respond to all of this by saying that, ‘Hey they have and have had Asians as doctors in E.R. and Grey’s Anatomy.’ That’s true, but they are Asian women not men. That’s where this gets tricky and interesting.

Asian women are from Venus, Asian men are from Mars (or why Long Duk Dong didn’t go to medical school)

This is where the anti-model minority myth intersects with our old bete noir, the Asian fetish. Asian women aren’t seen as being a threat to Whites (especially men). Hell, White men can’t get enough of them! So isn’t it wonderful to have a hot, sexy, erotic Asian woman be a really smart doctor who can meet your medical and other needs, thinks the White Hollywood producer and writer. Yes, they do have them having relationships with African Americans but this is probably because they either are feeling guilty about their Asian fetishist feelings or they’d like to fantasize about something like that when they’re jacking off.

Asian men? Well, they’re a threat. Economically and in other ways. Yes, there are plenty of them that go to medical schools, become doctors, and if someone went to a real hospital you will see quite a lot of them treating patients or performing surgeries. But why let such inconveniences like facts or the truth get in the way of White male fantasies. In fact, heaven-forbid, if Asian men were portrayed as sympathetic, caring professionals who could be both successful and admirable at the same time, women – Asian, White, African American, Latina etc. – may find them attractive. That wouldn’t be good for White male egos. But as soon as White Hollywood types need to have surgery or treatment for cancer they will be sure to go to one of those Asian male doctors.

The only way they can portray a ‘powerful’ or ‘successful’ Asian man is by portraying him as a Fu Manchu character – evil, deviant, clever, and out to destroy and take over the world – or as characters out of Michael Crichton’s Rising Sun (come to think of it Michael is producing E.R.). Rather than trying to balance out the decades of defamatory portrayals of Asian men with some positive and factually realistic portrayals of admirable and skilled Asian men, Hollywood is only comfortable with portraying us, at best, in benign minor roles, or, as usual, as some conniving squinty-eyed devil out to sabotage America, molest faire maidens (or, simultaneously, be asexual eunuchs), take ‘American’ jobs, and just mess things up for gringos.

So the Asian male character that had the most screen time over the years on E.R. is another old bete noir, Long Duk Dong (Gede Watanabe is his real name, but that’s not important)! And guess what Long Duk Dong is. He ain’t a doctor. He’s an orderly. Nothing wrong with that. He wears a pink smock. Nothing wrong with that either, I guess … until you realize that he is the only Asian man of note in a medical series placed in an environment that would – in real life – be filled to the gills with Asian men who are doctors.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that there aren’t Asian women who are doctors. I had lunch with several of them. The problem is that there is a reason why we only see women and not men. How does it make any sense to have Asian women as doctors without Asian men when in real life there would be plenty of both in a major teaching hospital?

I’m glad that Ming Na represented us on E.R. I don’t know too much about the British Asian (Indian descent) actress that is the token Asian on E.R. now, but I’m glad she’s there. I’m not a big fan of Sandra Oh on Grey’s Anatomy considering her weird statements bashing parts of the Asian American community and being a Whites-only Asian femme. I hope they will continue to have Asian women playing doctors on t.v.

All I want is for Hollywood to reflect reality and the reality is a lot closer to my Sunday afternoon lunch group than it is to what you see on E.R. Asian American men are doctors and you will find them in real Chicago hospitals. Asian American men built the railroads. Asian American men have and are doing things that contribute to American society.

As an Asian American, I’m tired of myths. Let’s have some truth and the truth is that there are too many Asian men who are doctors to be ignored by Hollywood unless they’re being deliberately deceitful. Stop the deceit. Stop the myths. Give us the truth!