Op-Ed: I’m an Asian American Harvard grad. Affirmative action helped me build a thriving career at the highest levels of my calling. I’m outraged. I’m not going to wait for someone to explain to me that affirmative action is good for society and the American Dream.
I’m an Asian American Harvard grad. Affirmative action helped me build a thriving career at the highest levels of my calling.
I’m outraged. I’m not going to wait for someone to explain to me that affirmative action is good for society and the American Dream.
Affirmative action is racist. And it has to end.
When you tell someone, your kid, that they didn’t get in because of their race, you’re telling them you don’t see them as a human being.
The fact that I’m Asian and Asian Americans is what makes my story so compelling. When I first came up on campus, I was told I couldn’t do anything because of my race. I had never seen a black person before. In fact, I didn’t see any black people. This was in the pre-Civil Rights era. When I came onto campus, I didn’t know any African Americans then, either.
When I told my professor about my lack of knowledge, he simply said I would have to live with it. And that I had to work harder if I wanted to learn about black culture.
It’s hard to imagine now, but it was the ‘50s. My college dorm was filled with the black and white students from all over the world. You can’t imagine how exciting it was for me to share a dorm with an African American, then as now, that my professor didn’t even know about.
I came from a family of 12 children, my mom, dad and my three sisters. And I was the last-born. This was in a small town in Michigan. In my middle school, black kids were often seen as the problem and the “other�