The privilege of assimilation is that you are left alone. But assimilation must not be mistaken for power, because once you have acquired power, you are exposed, and your model minority qualifications that helped you in the past can be used against you, since you are no longer invisible. Sharma writes that her father, who always “aspired to be rewarded for his good work by white people,” is called “a greedy brown man,” an “Indian who was a con,” and a “snake-oil man.”
