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A mother and race scholar seeks to answer her daughter’s many questions about race and racism with an earnest exploration into race relations and affirmative action from the perspectives of Asian Americans
Before being struck down by the US Supreme Court in June 2023, affirmative action remained one of the few remaining policy tools to address racial inequalities, revealing the peculiar contours of racism and anti-racist strategies in America. Through personal reflective essays for and about her daughter, OiYan Poon looks at how the debate over affirmative action reveals the divergent ways Asian Americans conceive of their identity. With moving sincerity and insightful study, Poon combines extensive research with personal narratives from both herself and a diverse swath of individuals across the Asian American community to reflect on and respond to her daughter’s central question: What does it mean to be Asian American?
Poon conducts interviews with Asian Americans throughout the US who have been actively engaged in policy debates over race-conscious admissions or affirmative action. Through these exchanges, she finds that Asian American identity remains deeply unsettled in a contest between those invested in reaching the top of the racial hierarchy alongside whiteness and those working toward a vision of justice and humanity co-constructed through cross-racial solidarity.
Poon uses these contrasting viewpoints to guide her conversations with her daughter, providing a heartfelt and optimistic look at how understanding the diversity and nuances of the Asian American experience can help us envision a more equitable future.
Dr. OiYan Poon is a Co-Director of the College Admissions Futures Co-Laborative. Her research focuses on the racial politics of Asian Americans, education access, affirmative action, and admissions systems and practices. In Rethinking College Admissions: Research-Based Practice and Policy (Harvard Education Press, 2022), she and her co-editor, Dr. Mike Bastedo, and colleagues examine and offer new ideas to transform the unequal structures and systemic norms of college-going in the U.S. In April 2024, Beacon Books published her book, Asian American is Not a Color: Conversations about Race, Affirmative Action, and Family. In it, she explores how Asian Americans are shaping the future of race relations through debates over education policies like affirmative action, using personal narrative and interviews of Asian Americans across the country. An award-winning scholar, Dr. Poon’s commentary and research have been featured in media outlets such as the New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and NPR including on Code Switch, All Things Considered, Marketplace, and Weekend Edition.
Kimmy Yam is an award-winning Asian American journalist. She’s best known for her work, covering policy and legislation, as well as her deeply reported features on complex issues impacting the Asian American community. In 2016, she helped launch HuffPost’s Asian Voices section, one of two mainstream media verticals dedicated to the Asian American and Pacific Islander community. Today she is a reporter for NBC’s Asian America section, where she has worked on a range of stories from a profile on baseball icon Ichiro Suzuki to investigations on law enforcement conduct to features on education.