Educators, Your Asian Students Could Use Your Support

When Michelle Go and Christina Yuna Lee were murdered in New York City earlier this year, followed by targeted attacks on Asian women, I was still a student at Columbia Journalism School. Living in Manhattan, I became fearful. In class, I expressed my anxiety around taking the subways in broad daylight. My professor, a white man, casually responded, “Don’t jump to think that they are hate crimes. It could’ve happened to any woman of any race.” I wondered: Why did he feel so comfortable sharing his opinion with me? It was careless — an opinion that erased and invalidated my experience as an Asian woman and a student on campus. It was painful, too, but his words pushed me to ask a much bigger question: Why, more than a month after the murders that shook our community, hadn’t the university sent out a message of solidarity? I remember walking onto campus the day after Christina Yuna Lee was murdered. I had imagined that, at some point during the day, a message would arrive in my inbox, something from the school acknowledging that this was an extremely difficult time for the Asian community. I imagined, at some point during the week, a professor would speak out and offer their support. Hate crimes against Asian people in New York City had risen by 361% in a year. More than 10,900 incidents were reported between March 2020 and December 2021. An email, at the very least, felt appropriate. The institutional silence had uprooted the more fundamental concerns of Asian students — several of whom had been feeling that this was the last straw. During the following month of confusion, I became curious why the university had chosen silence — and if the silence was intentional. While I wasn’t able to get answers from the school, I came across many other Asian students who shared my feelings of unsafety. Some of them had started organizing for change. Alan Zhao and Gahye Koo, co-presidents of Asian Students Association at Columbia Business School, told me that they had to advocate for their visibility as members of a marginalized community on campus. “I don’t see myself on any of the materials the school puts out when they talk about diversity,” Zhao said. On February 22, the association held a town hall, a safe space where Asian students could express their grievances. In an anonymous feedback box, students wrote things like: Why does no one care about the Asian community until someone cries for help? Where is the AAPI support? Representation matters — need to see more East Asians in administration — specifically in Office of Career Services and DEI efforts. There’s almost no Asian featured in Columbia Business School media materials… If you go to their Instagram account now and scroll through, there’s not a single Asian person represented for the past three years… Only weeks after students like Zhao and Koo put the pressure on through their activism efforts did the university issue a statement against anti-Asian sentiments. The statement was sent to the student body via email and published online on March 21, after another attack of an Asian person in the New York City area, around five weeks after Christina Yuna Lee’s murder on February 13. Their delayed response was not acknowledged in the statement. What happened at Columbia is an example of a much wider problem on national college campuses. The belief that Asian students don’t need the same support as other marginalized groups is a byproduct of racism. We are often pegged as the “model minority,” a term that refers to a minority group that is perceived as especially successful. The myth indicates that, regardless of what happens to us, we ultimately thrive anyway. It gives permission to the systemic abuse and neglect of our people: If we are fine no matter what, why should we be offered resources and support? Followed by this myth, Asian people can easily be thought of as a second-class minority, because better-known data does not seem to suggest that we suffer. While Asian people make up about 7% of the U.S. population, we are, as students, overrepresented in places like business schools. That doesn’t erase the fact that the Asian population is the most socioeconomically divided, comprising the very bottom of poverty group in the U.S. Nor does it erase the fact that one out of four Asian people in America has experienced a hate incident — a number that, as of last year, appears to be rising. Leaders and educators on college campuses, when they see us as a marginalized group that needs to be heard and supported, can have a positive impact that reaches far beyond our experiences at school. They can help dismantle the “bamboo ceiling,” improve our mental health and well-beings, and contribute to the healing of our community at large. Based on conversations with business school students, experts, and other business leaders in my community, here are some ways educators can support Asian students. 1) Acknowledge us. Many of the Asian students who I spoke to at NYU, Fordham, Columbia, and Harvard are struggling with our erasure, which has emerged, in part, from a general lack of education around the history of our community. As Zhao told me, “Why is it that we don’t see ourselves in diversity materials that were designed to welcome minorities?” This problem doesn’t stop after graduation. How we are perceived and treated in academic environments spills over into how we are viewed in the workplace. In 2014, for instance, The New York Times editorial board published an opinion piece discussing the employment statistics in Silicon Valley, stating “most of their employees are white and Asian men,” as if Asian people don’t actively contribute to the overall DEI efforts. It’s disheartening to see that four years later, in 2018, little progress was made: A diversity and inclusion report released by a large Silicon Valley company again grouped Asian men with white men as a “non-underrepresented” category and Asian women into women of all races. Inclusion, for marginalized groups, is often the bare minimum, despite how much we fight for it. Despite our overrepresentation in many high-skilled industries, higher-ed institutions, and workplaces, people of Asian descent remain the least likely to be promoted to management and executive roles. Acknowledging our struggles does not take away from other racially marginalized groups. We are all impacted by racism differently, and understanding that can shed light on an overarching structure of white supremacy. What you can do better: As an educator or leader in academia, you can help to change the system by educating yourself on anti-Asian racism, which is based on the erasure of our race, the denial of our suffering, and the model minority myth. The problem doesn’t start on college campuses, but through your support, it can — at the very least — be disrupted. Colleges, and more specifically business schools, who acknowledge that the “bamboo ceiling” exists can sharpen their curriculum by educating young Asian American leaders on the unique challenges they may face on their journey to success, as well as the skills they’ll need to fight an uphill battle. 2) Help debunk the model minority myth. Many Asian students are taught to put our heads down and prove detractors wrong with our hard work. We are the minority for whom success is assumed, and we are silently resilient. This legacy can lead to (and has led to) the abandonment of our own mental health. The leading cause of death among Asian American young adults 15 to 24 years old is suicide. Th model minority myth contributes to this. It makes us out to be mystical creatures that can endure anything — when in reality, we are just people who need the same support as other marginalized communities targeted by systemic racism. “Not acknowledging the discrimination against Asians is perpetuating the model minority myth and anti-Asian racism,” NYU researcher Sahnah Lim told me. “At the university level, they should feel the responsibility for not just their academic wellness but student well-being, and that should be done equally across racial ethnic groups.” Currently, Lim is struggling to get funding approved for her study looking into Asian women’s mental health in higher education. She told me during an interview that data desegregation has made it extremely challenging for the federal government to allocate the appropriate amount of funding for necessary research into these important issues. The funding feedback loop is stuck in a cycle of “we don’t have proof of Asian female students struggling,” making it difficult for academics to delve further into the experiences of this demographic. As a consequence, the model minority myth continues, as does the cycle of oppression, lack of visibility, and silently struggling. What you can do better: Look inward and examine assumptions you may be making about your Asian students. How have your own views been influenced by the model minority myth? Ask yourself: How does my institution treat this group in comparison to other racially marginalized groups? How do our polices compare in their treatment and implicit assumptions of Asian people? Ask yourself: Do I have Asian mentors and Asian role models in my network? It’s important that you do, to eliminate the long-held bias that we are not leaders worthy of emulations, only followers with intelligence and hard work ethics. Ask yourself: Did I know that May is AAPI month? If so, how did I contribute to it? What are some active efforts I show to validate, see, and include Asian students in my classroom? 3) Remember that belonging is as important as inclusion. The activism demonstrated by students like Koo and Zhao underlines our common cry for belonging: If we are truly valued as equal members of an institution, that institution should care about our well-being and do more to support us through challenging times. Inclusion is for the institution; belonging is for the marginalized. While data that demonstrates inclusion is important to test the DEI efforts being made by schools, how marginalized groups feel within those schools speaks to the authenticity (and even success) of those efforts. When you validate Asian students, you help set a standard for what allyship looks like. From our earliest days in the United States, Asian Americans have been under pressure to set aside our cultural heritage and assimilate. This dates back to the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), which banned Chinese laborers from immigrating to the U.S. for a period of 10 years. The act relied on a claim that Chinese people resisted assimilation into American society. In response, the first Asian journalist in America, Wong Chin Foo, encouraged Chinese people to do away with Chinatown, arguing that their survival depended on their ability to wholeheartedly blend in for the “peace and progress” of America and themselves. This is why visibility is so important to us. We have learned that inclusion earned through assimilation gives us a ceiling. The most important parts of us suffer when we don’t fight for inclusion and belonging at the same time. What you can do better: If you are in a position of power in academia, approach Asian students with an aim to make them feel supported, seen, and welcome. Just like students from other marginalized groups, we need mentorship and allies to feel like we belong. The Asian community has a long history of silent resilience. Just because your students aren’t vocal about their struggles, it doesn’t mean they’re not feeling them. Don’t allow them to tackle these feelings alone. When in doubt, err on the side of reaching out. If something triggering happens in the news, or if you notice that a student may be grieving, say something. Create a space safe enough for your students to give language to their emotions. When you validate Asian students, you help set a standard for what allyship looks like. Asian students need more administrators, professors, and academic leaders to demonstrate this kind of leadership. We want to speak out; we want to lead; we just have been effectively discouraged throughout history, and still now.

Educators, Your Asian Students Could Use Your Support

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