William Petersen (demographer)


William Petersen is an American sociologist and demographer.

Life

Petersen gained a PhD from Columbia University in 1954. He taught in the Sociology Department at the University of California at Berkeley from 1953 to 1956 and 1959 to 1966. During his time here, he became influential in the perpetuation of the model minority myth, typecasting East Asian Americans as "successful." He attributed this "success" to Japanese Americans' obedience and their ability to overcome the "self-defeating apathy or self-hatred" that other racial minorities, specifically Black Americans, that cause them to "react negatively" to new opportunities and equal opportunities. This myth was used as a tactic to justify anti-Black oppression. From 1966 to 1967, Petersen was professor of sociology at Boston College, and from 1967 to 1978 he was the Robert Lazarus Professor of Social Demography at Ohio State University.

Works