The article’s discussion of the “model minority” stereotype is also a clumsy attempt at racialization. The article points to low-income Asian groups like Burmese. But those groups aren’t poor because they’re Asian, they’re poor because they’re economic immigrants and often refugees. Burmese, in particular, are the most recent major Asian immigrant group. 85% of Burmese Americans are first-generation immigrants, while 80% of Japanese Americans are native born. Less than half of Burmese Americans speak English fluently.
But Japanese Americans were also predominantly economic migrants at one point. The important question the article overlooks is income mobility. Asian kids raised in the bottom quantile of income have by far the highest income mobility of any group. 27% will end up in the top quantile by adult hood—almost double the rate for white kids. There is no reason to believe that the Burmese will be any different than say the Vietnamese. Large scale Vietnamese refugee immigration mainly occurred from 1975-2000. As a result, most Vietnamese Americans have been here 20+ years. In that time, Vietnamese Americans have achieved economic parity with whites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U.... So have Laotians and Cambodians, who immigrated, mostly as refugees, around that same time period.
I can’t help but feel like articles like this are an attempt to racialize Asians and make them identify as a marginalized minority group, instead of as individuals who are in the process of achieving upward mobility. Calling the long-standing economic trends a “myth” is borderline deceptive and risky. Clearly something is working. But if you make people think that it isn’t working, you might inadvertently break it.