In 1998, Affirmative Action was overturned in California and rates of minority enrollment declined. On Tuesday, February 11th at Foothill College, Dr. OiYan Poon discussed this history among many other things that she explored while researching for her book.
Dr. Poon’s book talk covered a series of topics based on interviews she had with advocate organizations trying to push for affirmative action and other organizations trying to get it repealed. As a researcher, Dr. Poon was already doing ed policy research, which led her to become policy advisor to Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker, she described herself as dismissing the views of the anti-affirmative action Asian American protesters, until a colleague asked “Have you ever talked to these people with these views?…Maybe you’ll learn something.” She describes this as being a formative experience in creating the book.
At the beginning of the talk, Dr. Poon starts with a presentation describing all the data she found interesting, such as how many anti-affirmative action supporters came from H1B or middle-class immigrant backgrounds, as opposed to living in ethnic enclaves. She describes how she interviewed people across a diverse array of Asian Americans and each was ethnically diverse. She described having a constructive conversation with an advocate against Affirmative action and asked what their ideal system would be, but in her words ended up describing Affirmative Action. She explains how they just had a fundamental misunderstanding and that 33/36 people she interviewed on either side had given her misinformation. Towards the end of the talk she opens up the floor to questions and one of the things she remarked was that she “doesn’t think that information is the right solution, because this right here is an intergenerational divide”. Trying to emphasize the need to connect to people on a human level as opposed to speaking only facts to them.
At the end of her talk, she narrates an excerpt from her book, describing an incident where she accidentally compared her daughter’s friend to her in terms of how much food was on their plates. She describes this as a mistake, because she saw it as an allegory to the model minority, by pitting two people of different Asian diasporas together. She saw herself as making her friend a model. After talking to her daughter, remarking that’s not fair, she remarks you’re right next time I will do better. By doing this Poon ties the talk with the aspects that anyone can learn through understanding.
