모범 소수자의 불안과 정신 건강: 캐시 박 홍의『마이너 필링스』를 중심으로

Abstract

This study aims to explore how fixed racial identities affect the mental health of Asian immigrants through an analysis of Cathy Park Hong’s essay Minor Feelings: A Reckoning on Race and the Asian Condition. Hong shares her personal experiences with depression and psychological counseling as a protest against racialized stereotypes that cast Asian immigrants as ‘working machines’ or ‘emotionless robots.’ The paper traces patterns of racism and self-hatred among Asians, from the model minority myth to the commodification prevalent in contemporary society. Given that the model minority myth remains an inextricable existential condition in the lives of Asian American immigrants, this study builds upon existing model minority discourse while examining its specific impacts on Asian immigrants’ mental health. In addition, it reveals how Asian immigrants become socioeconomically exploited and mentally exhausted beneath the facade of American Dream optimism. The analysis will show how self-hatred among Asian immigrants transcends individual psychology to affect the entire immigrant community. In doing so, this paper reframes Asian immigrants’ mental health challenges not as personal failings but as products of structural inequality, emphasizing the need for community solidarity and discourse to address these issues.