Positive stereotypes can make people feel like failures if they don’t fulfill them.
During my senior year of high school, I started dreading calculus. Every time my teacher slapped our tests face-down on our desks, I would peel up the corner of the page just enough to see the score, circled in red. The numbers were dropping quickly: 79, 64, 56.
My classmates and I were not coy about our grades. After class, we would hover outside the door and compare them. But when my friends asked me what I got on tests, I said, childishly, “I’m not telling.”
The other kids in the class would roll their eyes and mutter comments about how I “probably aced it.” Maybe they were remembering me showing off in algebra, or when I helped them through their trig homework. Or maybe doing well on tests was just what fit me.
Because I’m Asian.
And math is easy for Asians … right?
We’ve all heard a so-called “positive” stereotype: black people are good at basketball; Italians are great cooks; women are natural nurturers. They make me angry, and I always scramble to come up with counterexamples: Latinos with two left feet or Minnesotans who aren’t nice. To read more from KUMARI DEVARAJAN, click here.