Chapter 4: Leading From in Between: Asian American Student Leadership

“Don’t cause trouble.” “Go help with the dishes.” “It doesn’t matter whose mess it is, you clean up for your family.” “Don’t work too much, you need time for family.” “Why not 100%?” “Don’t speak up too much.” These are just some messages characteristic of our separate, yet parallel, upbringings that influence the ways we saw ourselves as leaders (or not) in a predominantly White, middle-class, cis-male society.

Asian Americans are often left out of the discourse on race in America—our oppression minimized by perceived economic prosperity, our cultural values of community and humility painted as the ideal follower, our positionality in between the Black-White racial binary. This tenuous position carries over into the conceptualization of Asian Americans as leaders.