“Yale is a really special place to me,” OiYan Poon, PhD, reflected before her talk. “One of my dear late mentors, Don Nakanishi, was part of the first racially integrated classes here at Yale in the 60s. And [some of] his experiences were not that wonderful, but he had, throughout his life a very deep love for Yale. He was also a co-founder of Mecha [Yale’s oldest student organization], and he's also known as a father of Asian American Studies. And so, we still see the legacies of his work here at Yale.”
On May 13, 2025, the educator, scholar, and author discussed her book, Asian American is Not a Color, in which a mother seeks to answer her daughter’s questions about race. It is informed by extensive research and interviews with Asian Americans with contrasting viewpoints, and provides a heartfelt and optimistic vision for the future.
Poon began by observing, “Often times [there is] a question about, where and how do Asian Americans enter these conversations around equality and representation? But we have been part of these conversations for many, many decades, if not centuries.”
“It's important to remember that understanding your identity is about making sense of what it means to you in relationship to others in this world,” she said. “Our identities serve as foundations and platforms from which we can choose to reinforce the status quo of injustice and inequality and just accept how unfair the systems are and fight for just us. Or we can choose freedom and liberation to transform and expand systems to work better for everyone.”
Poon is a consultant on higher education to the office of Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, an adjunct associate professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and co-director of the College Admissions Futures Co-Lab. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, New York Times, NPR, and Washington Post.