A study has found that Asian Americans are perceived as more “American” if they are gay
Pacific Standard reports that Asian Americans are considered more American if they are gay.
A research team at the University of Washington held four studies in which 345 adults were randomly given a description of “John” who identified as “an Asian-American man” or “a gay Asian-American man.”
Participants were asked nine questions about John’s English and his integration into American culture.
The study concluded that the gay version of John “was perceived as significantly more American” than the standard Asian-American John.
A further 991 university students were asked to read a description of a man or a woman that was either white or Asian-American and gay or unspecified. Participants were again asked to rate the subjects’ ‘Americanness’.
In this second study, Asian Americans were again seen as more American if they identified as gay.
“American culture is perceived as more accepting of gay people compared to Asian cultures,” writes a University of Washington research team led by Sapna Cheryan and Mika Semrow. “As a result, gay Asian Americans are perceived as more likely to be American than their straight counterparts.”
The research team added that follow-up studies also provided evidence that “American culture is relatively more accepting of gay people than Asian cultures.”
“Gay Asian Americans may be less likely to have their American identities questioned than straight Asian Americans,” Cheryan said in announcing the findings. “At the same time, being gay puts people more at risk for other forms of prejudice based on sexual orientation.”
The study was published in the journal Social Psychology and Personality Science.
In other news, Taiwan recently became the first in Asia to legalise same-sex marriage.
