Pushing Politics Through Scholar-Activism

Higher education researcher and activist Oiyan Poon has been studying race-conscious admissions policies and their impact on Asian American communities for over 20 years—well before it became a hot topic in the news. From working in student affairs and academia to grassroots organizing, Poon has approached the topic of race and education from many different angles.

Early politicization

Poon’s politicization started when her parents would play the news in her childhood home in Massachusetts, which exposed her to current events at an early age. She laughed as she recalled registering to vote as a Republican at the age of 18 to be a “contrarian.” Poon faced a lot of racial hostilities growing up, and she connected these beliefs to internalized racism, classism, and patriarchy in her life. It was not until taking an Asian American Studies class in college that her politics shifted; she realized her experiences were not just individualized, but rather rooted in systemic issues. After over 20 years of being socialized to think she could “grit [her] way out of problems,” Poon found solace in learning that the injustices in the world could be changed.

Poon’s racial consciousness developed slightly later than her political consciousness. She recalls feeling “racially illiterate” as a child seeing race checkboxes for the first time on a standardized test in the 6th grade, not knowing what they meant. Fast forward to graduate school, where Poon read about the “color line” in W.E.B. Du Bois’ book, The Souls of Black Folk. It was then when Poon realized she wanted to learn about not just white and Black people, but also how Asian Americans fit into the conversation as racialized peoples.

Poon’s place-based politics

Between graduate schools and multiple different jobs, Poon has spent time in nearly ten different cities. Living in so many places drove her to think about politics and positionality through a variety of geographic lenses, and each time she moved somewhere new, she considered what it meant to be a Chinese American woman within the context and history of the place she occupied. Before spending time in California, she said she thought of the state as “the Asian mecca” and center of Asian American educational history and contemporary politics; but when she arrived in Northern California as a young professional, she was shocked at the anti-Black racism she saw from the Asian American community. She found that anti-Black racism was just as intense in New York and Boston, and her observations fell in line with Wong and Ramakrishnan’s analysis of Asian Americans “[enjoying] the boon of being not Black in an anti-Black society” (Wong et al., 308).

Out of all the places she’s lived in, she says Chicago feels the most like home. In “Asian American Studies in the Midwest,” Lee advocates for moving away from California and coastal-centered paradigms (Lee, 252). Similar to Lee, Poon feels like the Midwest community is one she is “willing to invest the most in.” The critical mass of civically engaged Asian Americans invested in cross racial politics and solidarity “feel like [her] people.” After spending time in states across the United States, why might Poon identify the Midwest, and Chicago specifically, as her political home? Illinois has the 6th largest Asian American population in the U.S., with robust and thriving Asian American communities throughout the state. Even so, Asian Americans still remain underrepresented compared to states on the coasts, and as someone who grew up as one of few Asian Americans in her hometown, being in a political space where Asian Americans are still very much a minority might feel most comfortable to Poon.

Poon’s work and a brief history of affirmative action

As a scholar who studies Asian Americans and education, it makes sense that Poon would focus her research on an issue that has come to embody the intersection of the two: race-conscious admissions, or more colloquially known as affirmative action.

Affirmative action is a policy that emerged in the post-Civil War era as the country tried to figure out how to make up for the persistent inequalities Black people faced as a result of enslavement. Originally focused on leveling the playing field in education, affirmative action served as a form of legal reparations for Black Americans. As time passed, the inclusion of Asian Americans in the issue shaped affirmative action in higher education into what it is today—considering race as a factor in admissions that can only be used for the sole purpose of creating diverse learning environments. Poon’s fascination with the topic relates to her graduate school interest in how Asian Americans fit within the broader racial framework. As affirmative action has shifted from making up for the discrimination of Black Americans to its existence being accused of discriminating against Asian Americans, debates on the issue have caused racial divides and jeopardized cross-racial solidarity.

Affirmative action has always impacted Asian American communities, but they became central to media discourse once the anti-affirmative action group Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) filed a lawsuit against Harvard College in 2014. SFFA—founded by two white Americans who have been attempting to use the legal system to strike down affirmative action for years—argued that Harvard’s personal rating, which scores applicants on a scale from 1-6, discriminated against Asian Americans, who had lower average ratings than other racial groups. In June 2023, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of SFFA, overturning universities’ ability to consider race as a factor in their admissions processes.

Poon’s pro-affirmative action stance is backed by decades of research and data analysis, and through all of her work, she has found no evidence of anti-Asian discrimination in affirmative action practices. Similar to Wong and Nguyen’s opinion in the Los Angeles Times, she believes that bias exists for Asian Americans as well as other marginalized groups in the journey to college, and race-conscious policies are necessary to account for the unique challenges faced by each individual (Wong et al).

Much of Poon’s research focuses on how Asian Americans contribute to affirmative action discourse. In “Asian Americans, Affirmative Action, and the Political Economy of Racism: A Multidimensional Model of Raceclass Frames,” Poon interviewed 36 Asian Americans representing pro and anti-affirmative action groups. She found that the affirmative action opponents—who were all Chinese American—wrongly equated the practice of race-consciousness with racial preference (208). Their misunderstanding of the issue is particularly consequential in the spread of misinformation, as Chinese Americans are the leading voice on affirmative action opposition in the Asian American community and have access to social media outlets like WeChat to widely disseminate information. In an analysis of amicus briefs submitted by Asian Americans in Fisher v. The University of Texas, Poon concludes that the documents confirm that Asian Americans can exercise agency in ways that dismantle or maintain U.S. systems of oppression (Poon, 262). In both these pieces, Poon frames Asian Americans as critical agents in shaping perspectives on affirmative action in the community and discourses beyond.

Descriptive politics and Chinese American conservatism

Poon has found that among Asian ethnic groups, Chinese Americans are the most ardent opponents of affirmative action. Her findings are in line with survey data that shows that Chinese adults who are familiar with affirmative action are the least supportive of the policy and Chinese immigrants in particular are more likely than other Asian immigrant groups to say affirmative action is a bad thing (Ruiz et al.). In “Asian Americans and Race-Conscious Admissions: Understanding the Conservative Opposition’s Strategy of Misinformation, Intimidation & Racial Division,” Poon suggests that Chinese American opposition can be explained by a culture of exam-focused education (21). The centering of a single test to determine college outcomes in China has created a culture of associating testing with merit that Chinese immigrants carry with them to the U.S. In “United by Fear: The Rise of Trumpism Among First Generation Chinese Christian Immigrants,” Bai describes a similar phenomenon with Chinese immigrants who face the challenge of recontextualizing their faith and politics in the United States, causing them to become Trump supporters (Bai, 59). In both of these cases, Chinese immigrant populations adopt political perspectives as a result of a lack of reorientation to a U.S. context.

As a second-generation Chinese American and East Asian-presenting woman, Poon does not necessarily seem like the typical pro-affirmative action advocate. Poon’s outspokenness on a topic that many who look like her disagree with may create tension in the way her work is received by different audiences. Poon emphasizes her ethnicity in her advocacy, which may reflect an effort to show the Chinese community what research-backed support of the policy looks like as a fellow Chinese American. Poon’s strategy reveals her belief in descriptive representation—the idea that a group chooses an individual with similar characteristics to represent them—as a method of mobilizing the Chinese American community to consider pro-affirmative action beliefs.

Advocacy beyond scholarship

Poon’s involvement in affirmative action advocacy transcends scholarship. Poon doesn’t just study amicus briefs, she also authors them—in 2022, Poon co-wrote a rigorous and data-rich amicus brief with over 1,200 other social science researchers in support of Harvard’s case at the Supreme Court level. She has taught over a decade of classes of students as a professor and travels across the country to speak on diversity, college admissions, and education access. Poon is currently the Program Officer at the Spencer Foundation investing in education research and Co-Director at the College Admissions Co-Laborative where she is the principal investigator on projects looking at test-optional admissions and equity in Illinois higher education post-SFFA.

Poon’s engagement with affirmative action in and outside of the university speaks to the many ways she is involved academically, politically, civically, legally, and personally with a single issue. With the overturning of affirmative action and no way to ensure schools can maintain diverse learning environments, the 2023 Supreme Court ruling could significantly change the demographic of schools in the coming years. But even with no legal support, Poon will continue fighting for diversity as she has before in countless previous capacities.

The next generation: “Asian American” as a solidarity politic

Poon sees schools as a place of potential for political education, addressing injustice, and pushing people to think beyond themselves. Through her roles as a mother, scholar, and activist, Poon demonstrates that political engagement can happen at all different levels and fields. Becoming a mom eight years ago has changed the way Poon thinks about her identity, and besides taking Asian mom jokes more seriously, she has started to see education differently now that her daughter is a student at Chicago Public Schools. She attends her local school council meetings cognizant of her identity and the way school leaders view her as one of the only Asian American families there. Representing Asian Americans not only in the education space but also in her daughter’s school has pushed Poon to think ethically about the power she holds.

When Poon’s daughter was three years old, she asked her, “Mom, are we black or white?” Poon replied that they were neither—they were Asian American. Her daughter, looking puzzled, responded, “Hmm…Asian American is not a color.”

After studying race and racism for decades, Poon was amazed that she could not explain the meaning of her daughter’s observation in greater depth. Her daughter’s words inspired the title for her upcoming novel, which argues that Asian American is not a color—it’s a solidarity politic. The book looks at the history of Asian American Studies as rooted in ethnic and cross-racial solidarity, and Poon voices her concern about what it means to be Asian American in the world today, especially after the elimination of affirmative action. She writes that after we study and understand our history, we have a choice to make; do we invest in current movements and claim solidarity, or not? The book is addressed to her daughter, telling her and the next generation of Asian Americans that what the Asian American experience looks like in the future is up to them.

“We each have a decision to make,” she said. “So make your choice, little one.”

 

Play the audio below from my interview with Dr. Poon to hear her discuss the thought process behind her upcoming book!

 

Works cited

Bai, Yucheng. “United by Fear: The Rise of Trumpism Among First Generation Chinese Christian Immigrants.” Amerasia Journal 48.1 (2022): 58-73.

Garces, Liliana M., and OiYan Poon. “Asian Americans and Race-Conscious Admissions: Understanding the Conservative Opposition’s Strategy of Misinformation, Intimidation & Racial Division.” (2018).

Lee, Erika. “Asian American studies in the Midwest: New questions, approaches, and communities.” Journal of Asian American Studies 12.3 (2009): 247-273.

Poon, OiYan. Personal interview. 17 October 2023.

Poon, Oiyan A., et al. “Asian Americans, affirmative action, and the political economy of racism: A multidimensional model of raceclass frames.” Harvard Educational Review 89.2 (2019): 201-226.

Poon, OiYan A., and Megan S. Segoshi. “The racial mascot speaks: A critical race discourse analysis of Asian Americans and Fisher vs. University of Texas.” The Review of Higher Education 42.1 (2018): 235-267.

Ruiz, Neil G., et al. “Asian Americans Hold Mixed Views Around Affirmative Action.” Pew Research Center, 8 June 2023, www.pewresearch.org/race-ethnicity/2023/06/08/asian-americans-hold-mixed-views-around-affirmative-action/. 

Wong, Janelle, et al. “Opinion: Affirmative Action isn’t hurting Asian Americans. Here’s why that myth survives.” Los Angeles Times, 14 June 2023, https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-06-14/affirmative-action-supreme-court-harvard-case-asian-americans.

Wong, Janelle S., and Karthick Ramakrishnan. “Asian Americans and the Politics of the Twenty-First Century.” Annual Review of Political Science 26 (2023).

“Chicago Professor among Pro-Affirmative Action Demonstrators at Supreme Court.” ABC7 Chicago, 31 Oct. 2022, abc7chicago.com/supreme-court-justices-oral-arguments-today-affirmative-action-unc/12402805/.