Research concerned with race in higher education often utilizes terms like Asian American, AAPI, API, APA, and APIDA interchangeably, with a limited grounding in theories of racial formation and panethnicity. Without adequate conceptual grounding, haphazard uses of such terms can lead to imprecise scholarship; and worse, perpetuate a form of…

Despite the representation and significance of Asian American students to enrollment and graduation goals of U.S. colleges and universities, Asian Americans are fundamentally invisible in critical leadership roles that make decisions and drive policy at these institutions. Scholarship points to racism and white supremacy in U.S. higher education…

This qualitative, narrative study explored how race and gender influence the leadership experiences of female Asian American senior administrators in higher education. The low representation of Asian American women in senior administrative roles has persisted despite their substantial gains in college enrollment and advanced degree attainment.…

This paper documents the involvement of students who advocated for what eventually became the federal designation for Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs). Through interviews with 12 student activists, we document students' motivations for mobilizing, as well as the challenges they encountered.…

Using an autoethnographic approach, this article draws on my personal experience as an Asian Pacific American (APA) political theorist who has navigated between different institutional spaces to reflect on a phenomenon that I call "elastic racialization" of APAs in higher education and its implications on our pedagogic agenda and…

The underrepresentation and underperformance of men of color relative to women of color within institutions of higher education have been extensively studied the past 20 years. The purpose of this study is to understand trends in how this research has been conducted rather than understand "best practices" to support this student…

ASAM 230--Civic Engagement Through Asian American & Pacific Islander (AAPI) Studies is a critical service learning course that effects social change by fostering students' leadership, activism, and professional aspirations. Our team (a professor and six alumni, some of whom became community partners) conducted a longitudinal, autoethnographic…

In 1776, Adam Smith wrote, "the expense of the institutions for education… is… beneficial to the whole society, and may, therefore, without injustice, be defrayed by the general contribution of the whole society," in the "Wealth of Nations." Since then, economists and policymakers have argued that the social returns to higher…

Asian American students are frequently stereotyped to be hardworking and academically talented. To what extent are teacher appraisals of Asian students influenced by such racial stereotypes? This article investigates this question through a quantitative analysis of high school students from the Educational Longitudinal Study. I find that even when…

This edited volume explores and deconstructs the possibilities of higher education beyond its initial purpose. The book contextualizes and argues for a more robust interrogation of persistent patterns of campus inequality driven by rapid demographic change, reduced public spending in higher education, and an increasingly polarized political…

This article uses philosophical analysis to clarify the arguments and claims about racial discrimination brought forward in the recent legal challenges to affirmative action in higher education admissions. Affirmative action opponents have argued that elite institutions of higher education are using negative action against Asian American…

Through the case-study experiences of 24 White and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) working-class students from three very different universities, we aim to illuminate the often hidden struggle for recognition and respect for classed, 'raced' and gendered ways of being in the university. We discuss how the students perceive their identities…

This article presents a critical review of 112 works of research on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) in higher education. It focuses on ways previous scholarship framed AAPIs in higher education, and specifically on how those works engaged in a sustained project of countering the model minority myth (MMM). Many publications on AAPIs…

We use the Critical Race Theory frameworks of interest convergence and divergence to critique the anti-affirmative action movement's co-option of Asian Americans. Past discussions of affirmative action and Asian Americans mainly concentrate on how Asian Americans are affected by affirmative action, whether positively or negatively. We demonstrate…

Since their settlement in the United States, Hmong American women have established themselves in professional organizations across various disciplines as lawyers, teachers, university professors, medical doctors, and political leaders. However, the data on the education achievement of Hmong American women reveal that Hmong American women have one…