Deconstructing the Model Minority at University of Michigan

This website tracks the history of the “model minority” concept and deconstructs it through research on people who allegedly fit and do not fit under the label. These explorations direct our attention to how this idea is still relevant to present-day Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities. In the pages that follow, we highlight the AAPI community in Michigan by first detailing the stereotypes related to the dated mid-1960s “model minority” label, then tracing the transformation of AAPI communities and individuals over time in relation to the stereotype.