Passing for Perfect

In her engaging study, Passing for Perfect,erin Khu Ninh considers the factors that drove college imposters such as Azia Kimwho pretended to be a Stanford freshmanand Jennifer Panwho hired a hitman to kill her parents before they found out she had never received her high school diplomato extreme lengths to appear successful. Why would someone make such an illogical choice? And how do they stage these lies so convincingly, and for so long? These outlier examples prompt Ninh to address the larger issue of the pressures and difficulties of striving to be model minority, where failure is too ruinous to admit. Passing for Perfect insists that being a model minority is not a myth, but coded into ones programming as an identitya set of convictions and aspirations, regardless of present socioeconomic status or future attainabilityand that the true cost of turning children into high-achieving professionals may be higher than anyone can bear. Ninhs book codifies for readers the difference between imposters who are con artists or shysters and those who dont know how to stop passing for perfect.