To Be Political or Apolitical: Experiences of Asian Girls in College Student Organizations

• In Event: Asian Girls at the Center: Identity, Politics, and Critical Consciousness

Abstract

OBJECTIVES. Our paper aims to explore the experiences of college-aged Asian girls in U.S. universities, focusing on political and apolitical student organizations. We examine how Asian girls create student-led counter-spaces to explore their racial identities in predominantly white institutions. In attending to both political student organizations engaging in anti-racist activism and apolitical student organizations such as greek life and depoliticized cultural organizations, we illuminate how Asian girls navigate higher educational institutions’ normalization of white supremacy in complex ways. Shedding light on student activists in political organizations and Asian Baby Girls (ABGs) in apolitical organizations, we explore how Asian girls’ identity construction in these counter-spaces extends beyond the model minority to include different subversive practices against whiteness.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. In predominantly-white institutions, how do Asian girls create spaces in order to make sense of their identities?
2. What are the experiences of Asian girls in political vs. apolitical Asian student organizations?

FRAMEWORK. We draw from the concept of “counter-spaces” to discuss Asian girls’ involvement in pan-ethnic Asian student organizations as a form of resistance against predominantly white campus culture (Yosso, Smith, Ceja & Solórzano, 2009). In counter-spaces where students of color build communities for survival and resistance (Yosso & Lopez, 2010), Asian girls center and explore their identities amid a college environment where their experiences are often silenced and marginalized. We take a Critical Race Theory approach in examining how Asian girls defy “model minority” and subvert whiteness.

METHODS. Our paper utilizes auto-ethnographic inquiry centering on the two authors’ experiences with college student organizations. Through auto-ethnography, we analyze personal experiences to shed light on sociocultural norms and practices that mediate counter-spaces in political student organizations (Ellis, Adams & Bochner, 2011). We also used interviews to highlight the lived experiences of Asian Baby Girls (ABGs) in apolitical college student organizations.

DATA SOURCES. We draw from autoethnographic data from the two authors and semi-structured interviews with Asian women and non-binary folks (N=10) who attended colleges in California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS. We first discuss our journeys into “political” student activism as Asian girls on a predominantly-white campus in upstate New York. We foreground the difficulty of understanding our positionalities as Asian women and leading a new pan-ethnic campus organization for Asian women due to our lack of Ethnic Studies curriculum. We also shed light on Asian Baby Girl (ABG) subculture by foregrounding the apolitical organizations that ABGs participate in, namely Asian Greek Life and cultural organizations. Despite being “apolitical,” we shed light on their importance as counter-spaces where Asian women form their racial identities within predominantly-white institutions and allow for Asian female visibility beyond the model minority.

SIGNIFICANCE. While existing literature discusses ethnic-specific student groups, our work explores pan-ethnic and female-identifying Asian student organizations as counter-spaces where Asian girls construct their identities and subversive practices. Through our explorations of both political and apolitical student organizations, we hope to add complexity to the various ways in which Asian girls create grassroots learning, resistance, and survival in college.

Authors

• Woohee Kim, Harvard University
  Presenting Author

• Angel Trazo, University of California - Davis
  Presenting Author