The Asian Erasure Trap, or How Being the “Model Minority” Makes Everyone Feel Safer

“Say something. Come on. Make it sound thoughtful, deep, but not too strong or too long.” This is the voice in my head every time I sit in a group discussion.

While others bounce ideas around like beach balls, messy, loud, full of laughter, I sit there, rehearsing my opening line like a diplomat, making it clear, brief, and decent.

“Good point,” someone says after my speech, eyes drifting past me to the girl next to me. No one interrupts. No one responds. My voice exists for two minutes or maybe less, then it vanishes. A second later, someone else picks up a different thread. The discussion moves on, as if I had never spoken at all.

It is something I have been trying to name since I moved here from New York. In St. Louis, I am noticed but not known. People nod, smile, wait for me to finish speaking, and move on. My words are not rejected, just unreturned.

Sometimes I question myself. St. Louis is a democratic city, just like New York. So why do I feel smaller here? I could not put my finger on why this city made me feel this way. (As I am writing these words, I still find myself asking: Is this OK? Or too much? Will it offend someone?) As I try to name these feelings, I worry about being “too disruptive.” But maybe that is part of the same dynamic, the instinct to question myself, to make sure I do not take up too much space. It is a quiet echo of the same polite erasure that I feel in discussions.

After talking with some Asian immigrants, I realized these worries are not just personal insecurities. They are shaped by the “model minority” narrative that tells us we should be quiet, diligent, and never a problem. If an individual Asian person does not fit the stereotype, it is seen as a personal failing, not a structural issue. This deepens the disconnect within our own communities, between who we are expected to be and who we really are.

The model minority concept was also designed as a contrast to other minority groups. It is used to suggest that if Asians can “succeed” quietly within the system, then other communities must be at fault for their struggles. It is a tool that divides and distracts, ignoring the deep histories of exclusion and discrimination that shape all of us.

The difference between New York and St. Louis became clearer for me. In New York, even when I felt out of place, the noise pulled me in. In St. Louis, I am politely acknowledged and then left behind. That polite silence is where the “model minority” myth thrives. It does not just teach Asian people to stay quiet; it convinces everyone else that we do not need a response at all. Because if we are seen as the “good student,” always calm and diligent, then no one must take responsibility for what is missing. It is easier for everyone else to treat our silence as consent; we do not have deeper needs or truths to share.

In New York, the city does not need to prove it is progressive. Everyone already knows. That confidence makes it loud, messy, and engaged.

In St. Louis, as a blue city in a red state, there is a kind of eagerness to prove it is different, to be the “good student” of the region. But in trying so hard to prove itself, the gestures of inclusion become distorted: polite, careful, but never fully engaged.

I have come to realize that St. Louis and I are not so different. We are both trying to be the “good student”: cautious, eager to be recognized, careful not to step out of line. Here, people speak carefully to me, as if afraid to break something fragile. And I, in turn, measure every word before I speak, as if afraid to break the room.

That is the quiet power of the model minority myth. It does not live only in me, or only in them, but in the space between us. Their politeness and my restraint echo each other, making silence look like harmony, nods like acceptance, caution like progress. But real progress is not born in politeness. It comes from risk, from friction, from the conversations that stumble and bruise.

In class, I began to introduce the Chinese New Year.

The professor cut me off: “Let us call it Lunar New Year, for all Asians.”

In China, we simply call it the Chinese Spring Festival, because that is where the holiday began for us. Naming it otherwise may sound broader, more inclusive, but for me, it also blurs the roots that give it meaning.

Yet the air shifted. Some smiled with relief, others looked away. In that moment, I realized what the “model minority” concept protects is not me, but the comfort of those around me. Politeness asks us to trade particularity for harmony, difference for calm.

But harmony built on erasure is only another form of silence. And silence, however well-intentioned, is never the same as understanding.