NTU Sociology Distinguished Public Lecture, co-organized with the Chinese Heritage Centre
Title: Immigration and Changes in Asian America
Speaker: Min Zhou, Distinguished Professor, University of California, Los Angeles
Date: Friday 17 January 2025
Time: 15:00 – 16:30
Location: SHHK Building, Seminar Room 6 (HSS-01-04), 48 Nanyang Ave. NTU (in-person only)
Abstract:
Asia Americans are the fastest growing ethnic group in the U.S. mainly due to international migration. They now comprise about seven percent of the US population, yet, their levels of education, household income, and occupational attainment are higher than those of the general US population, as well as those of non-Hispanic whites. As a racial minority group, they are celebrated as a “model minority.” Is the model minority a fact or a myth? What accounts for the extraordinary socioeconomic outcomes of Asian Americans? How does the model minority affect members of the group so stereotyped? Professor Min Zhou engages with these questions to offer an analysis of the Asian American socioeconomic achievement in debunking the model minority myth. Her analysis suggests that immigrant selectivity has transformed contemporary Asian America and that, behind the extraordinary achievement, long-standing racial stereotyping, including the seemingly positive “model minority” stereotype, negatively impacts Asian American life.
About the Speaker:
Dr. Min Zhou, an elected member of the US National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, is currently Distinguished Professor of Sociology & Asian American Studies and Director of the Asia Pacific Center at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her main research areas are in migration & development, race and ethnicity, Chinese diaspora, and the sociology of Asia and Asian America. She is the author of the award-winning book The Asian American Achievement Paradox (with Lee, 2015), Contemporary Chinese Diasporas (ed., 2017), and Beyond Economic Migration: Historical, Social, and Political Factors in US Immigration (with Mahmud, 2023). She was the recipient of the 2017 Distinguished Career Award of the American Sociological Association (ASA) Section on International Migration and the 2020 Contribution to the Field Award of the ASA Section on Asia and Asian America.