Stereotypes of East Asians in the United States are ethnic stereotypes found in American society about first-generation immigrants and their American-born descendants and citizenry with East Asian ancestry or whose family members who recently emigrated to the United States from East Asia, as well as members of the Chinese diaspora whose family members emigrated from Southeast Asian countries. Stereotypes of East Asians, analogous to other ethnic and racial stereotypes, are often erroneously misunderstood and negatively portrayed in American mainstream media, cinema, music, television, literature, video games, internet, as well as in other forms of creative expression in American culture and society. Many of these commonly generalized stereotypes are largely correlative to those that are also found in other Anglosphere countries, such as in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, as entertainment and mass media are often closely interlinked between them.
Largely and collectively, these stereotypes have been internalized by society and in daily interactions, current events, and government legislation, their repercussions for Americans or immigrants of East Asian ancestry are mainly negative. Media portrayals of East Asians often reflect an Americentric perception rather than authentic depictions of East Asian cultures, customs, traditions, and behaviors. East Asian Americans have experienced discrimination and have been victims of bullying and hate crimes related to their ethnic stereotypes, as it has been used to reinforce xenophobic sentiments. Notable fictional stereotypes include Fu Manchu and Charlie Chan, which respectively represents a threatening, mysterious East Asian character as well as an apologetic, submissive, "good" East Asian character.
East Asian American men are often stereotyped as physically unattractive and lacking social skills. This contrasts with the common view of East Asian women being perceived as highly desirable relative to their white female counterparts, which has been influenced by their portrayals as hyper-feminine "Lotus Blossom Babies", "China dolls", "Geisha girls", and war brides. East Asian women are perceived as "strong," which may be associated with the Dragon Lady stereotype, while East Asian mothers may also be stereotyped as tiger moms, whose parental sacrifices in inculcating the importance of high academic achievement in their progeny often to the detriment of their children's self-esteem and emotional well-being that invariably reinforces an artificially standardized model minority, a phrase often stereotypically associated with high academic achievement and above-average socioeconomic success in American society.
Exclusion or hostility
Yellow Peril
The term "Yellow Peril" refers to white apprehension in the core Anglosphere countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States, first peaking in the late 19th-century. Such perilism stems from a claim that whites would be "displaced" by a "massive influx of East Asians"; who would fill the nation with a "foreign culture" and "speech incomprehensible" to those already there and "steal jobs away from the European inhabitants" and that they would eventually "take over and destroy their civilization, ways of life, culture and values."
The term has also referred to the belief and fear that East Asian societies would "invade and attack" Western societies, "wage war with them" and lead to their "eventual destruction, demise and eradication." During this time, numerous anti-Asian sentiments were expressed by politicians and writers, especially on the West Coast, with headlines like "The 'Yellow Peril'" (Los Angeles Times, 1886) and "Conference Endorses Chinese Exclusion" (The New York Times, 1905) and the later Japanese Exclusion Act. The American Immigration Act of 1924 limited the number of Asians because they were considered an "undesirable" race.
Laws in other Anglosphere countries
Australia had similar fears and introduced a White Australia policy, restricting immigration between 1901 and 1973, with some elements of the policies persisting up until the 1980s. On February 12, 2002, Helen Clark, then prime minister of New Zealand apologized "to those Chinese people who had paid the poll tax and suffered other discrimination, and to their descendants". She also stated that Cabinet had authorized her and the Minister for Ethnic Affairs to pursue with representatives of the families of the early settlers a form of reconciliation which would be appropriate to and of benefit to the Chinese community.