Model Minority Intelligence: From "Feebleminded Mongolians" to "Thinking Orientals"

The reading workshop will look at some of Jeannie Shinozuka's writing on “Model Minority Intelligence” circulated to participants beforehand. This will be an opportunity to engage with Shinozuka and her writing in-depth and think through how we would incorporate her ideas into our work. After the workshop, participants have the chance to continue conversations over dinner. If you are interested in taking part in the workshop, e-mail Anja-Maria Bassimir by Wednesday, June 25

Jeannie Shinozuka is Assistant Professor of Comparative Ethnic Studies and the Arnold and Atsuko Craft Professor at Washington State University. Her research interests center on Asian American studies and history, environmental history, and the history of medicine and science. After publishing her first book, Biotic Borders: Transpacific Plant and Insect Migration and the Rise of Anti-Asian Racism in America, 1890-1950 (University of Chicago Press, 2022), she is now working on two book projects. As a 2024-2025 Dibner History of Science and Technology Fellow at the Huntington Library, she has been researching Model Minority Intelligence: Scientific Racism, Education, and Citizenship, 1910-1965. Model Minority Intelligence is on the central role that Asian Americans have played in shaping affirmative action policies, standardized testing, and eugenic racism. Her third book project, Global Biotic Borders: Race and Asian Insect and Plant Migration in an International Context, is on recent Asian biological invasions in Australia, Europe, and Latin America, including the Asian longhorned tick (Haemaphysalis longicornis Neumann), the Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus), and Asian citrus psyllid (Diaphornina citri Kuwayama or ACP).