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One of my main characters' family is Asian (specifically Korean-American). The oldest sister, Chelsea, is a child prodigy. When her toxic and shitty parents found out, they exploited the hell out of it, bragging about her, making sure she got into the best possible college. She was their golden child.

They never let her have a real childhood. She was never able to play, or make friends with kids her age, and left for the University of Pennsylvania at 13-14, and is absolutely miserable there.

I know Asians being depicted as smarter than everyone is a harmful stereotype, so what could I do to have it be less possibly offensive?

ProseFerret
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3 Answers3

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As an Asian (southeast Asian + East Asian), I have seen many Asians depicted as smarter than other people, because of the impression that we can all do math. And it's always math that we are good at, presented in fiction and media. So I have a few answers for this one:

  1. Have another Asian that isn't as smart as Chelsea, or make her the complete opposite. This character could be a foil to her or whatever that could fit the story.

  2. Have another smart character like Chelsea, but who isn't Asian.

  3. Have her not be good at math.

The point of those first two is to neutralize the stereotype. Asians with racist stereotypes have that as their only personality trait. You have Chelsea miserable from being forced to do everything perfectly as a child prodigy, and you must try to develop it from her, so that it's not her only trait. Flesh them out; give them a character arc.

You could flesh out the parents too.

I of course can't represent Asians as a whole or give a one clear answer for your problem. As my experience as an Asian person might be different than other Asians. So another thing I would suggest is to gain other Asian writers' opinions and answers. And do more research on Asian stereotypes and representation.

Laurel
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Crimsoir
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Lean in:

Rather than shying away from the stereotype, lean in and make a point of recognizing it and discussing it. In some ways, this is breaking the third wall, but it can be something Chelsea or her sister are picked on about, or feels self-conscious of.

Perhaps Chelsea deliberately behaves contrary to her stereotype to make a point of it being false. Perhaps she dislikes her Asian heritage because she blames it for how her parents treated her. 13-14 is a little young to be portraying promiscuity, but some other kind of abusive behavior (it's college, so weed or booze would be available) would emphasize this. She might discuss having surgery when she's older to get double eyelids to look less Korean, or seeks makeup and hair color to blend in with Westerners.

Ultimately, this will make her feel more ashamed of her identity, but she's doing it to get away from a stereotype. What's a bigger stereotype than a foreigner acting shamed or ashamed of their native culture?

DWKraus
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I'd say, just don't worry about it. Not for one character.

If you wrote a book with 20 Asians and 20 black people and every Asian is a math whiz and every black person is a violent criminal, I'd say that is indulging in stereotypes. (And as always, there could be cases where it makes perfect sense. Like if the setting of the story is a school in Korea for math prodigies, then the fact that all the children in the school are Korean math prodigies wouldn't be particularly remarkable. Etc.)

But if you have one character who fits a stereotype, so what? I find it tedious when someone goes out of their way to make a character not match a stereotype. Like when the auto mechanic is a woman and it's obvious that the reason why the author made the auto mechanic a woman was because he wanted to break the stereotype that most auto mechanics are men, etc, it's just trite. I get it: you can write a story where we'd expect a 90 year old black woman but instead you made the character a 19 year old Swedish man. That doesn't challenge the reader's stereotypes. The reader knows you're deliberately reversing the stereotype, so all it does is confirm them.

Jay
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