Thesis on "Japan and Japanese-Americans During the 1980s"

>Additionally, when analyzing Japan, it may be fair to make some generalizations about the culture, such as a greater emphasis on the collective good vs. The individual's autonomy. This does not mean that one culture is better or worse than the other, but simply an acknowledgement that there may be different values in other lands (Japanese culture, 2004.The Japan FAQ)

However, these generalized differences have often been used pejoratively against Japanese-Americans. Most famously, Japanese-Americans were interned during World War II. Their patriotism was viewed as suspect by the American government and all Japanese people were portrayed as a faceless mass in wartime propaganda. Significantly, Japanese people were called 'Japs' by the media of the day, versus the German forces, who were called 'Nazis' which did not verbally implicate German-Americans or question German-American patriotism (Murphy, citing Dower, pp.81-82). This transference of the stereotyping of the nation to Japanese-Americans, simply because of their origin, continued long after the internment. When 'Japan' is covered in the modern media even today, for some individuals it can still be difficult for some people to separate possessing a Japanese heritage vs. The policies of the Japanese government -- and also because stereotypes are often used in business literature in dealing with Japan, this can seem to excuse negative and positive stereotypes against individual Japanese people and Japanese-Americans.

Japanese-Americans have also often in recent years been the subject of another kind of stereotype, in contrast to the World War II 'yellow horde' attribution, particularly after the nation's great success economically in the 1980s. The adaptation of many Japanese business practices by American companies wishing to be competitive, and the highly-publicized (although somewhat misrepresented) rigor of the Japanese school system lead to the 'model minority' myth circulated in the United States. "High- and low-achieving Asian-identified students experienced anxiety to uphold the expectations of the model minority stereotypes. The students who were unable to perform… READ MORE