Alan Chong, Associate Photographer
Yale University students and New Haven residents came together Saturday to discuss author Oiyan Poon’s latest book, “Asian American Is Not a Color.”
About 30 members of the New Haven community gathered at Possible Futures, a reading room and bookstore in the city’s Edgewood neighborhood, where Poon spoke for two hours about affirmative action and Asian American identity for a book talk co-hosted by the Asian American Cultural Center.
“College admissions doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game, and as Dr. Poon says, bad actors will try to manipulate emotions to pit, in this case, Asian Americans against other racial minorities,” Peter Tran ’25 told the News. “The message of swimming against the current together will go further to right a historical wrong and improve educational outcomes.”
Poon is a scholar of race and education, co-director of the Collaborative Lab on the Future of College Admissions (which aims to “identify ways to design educational institutions and college admissions systems to promote equity”), and author of Asian American Is Not a Color: Conversations on Race, Affirmative Action, and Family. He currently serves as a Senior Fellow for Educational Equity at the NAACP LDF Thurgood Marshall Institute and as a consultant to the State of Illinois.
At Possible Futures, Poon spoke about her book alongside bookstore owner Lauren Anderson and Anderson’s friend, education and race studies scholar Jenny Heikkila Diaz. During the panel, Poon explained the inspiration for “Asian American Is Not a Color” and shared her thoughts on what it means to be Asian American and how that identity impacts recent developments in affirmative action.
“Asian American Is Not a Color” is centered around a series of questions and conversations Poon posed to her 9-year-old daughter. Poon began the event by talking about the question her daughter asked that inspired her to write the book: “Are we black? Are we white? What are we?” The answer is that “Asian American is not a color, but an identity that is centered on community care and upliftment across diverse diaspora communities.”
Poon then moved to a more specific discussion of college admissions and affirmative action, focusing on the Supreme Court’s ban on affirmative action in 2023 and recent statistics released by various universities regarding students entering the class of 2028. He described the college admissions culture as one where increased levels of competition, elitism, and selectivity foster a cutthroat atmosphere in which applicants see each other as enemies rather than allies.
Asked about the role of misinformation in public perceptions of affirmative action, Poon said his experience has been that most of the public, even affirmative action activists, often define the practice incorrectly.
“Despite sharing the same misinformation, the difference was that opponents of the policy felt the problem was not systemic,” Poon said. “Proponents of the policy defined the problem as systemic.”
Poon also spoke about her college search process and the role her identity plays in racial studies: Growing up in a racially hostile environment, she aspired to attend an elite school as a way to prove her worth, and her own experiences with racial identity led her to pursue studies in race and education.
Jolianna Yi, director of the AACC and an associate dean at Yale University, told the News that the center previously hosted Poon at Yale to speak about his work on affirmative action in 2019. Yi said the event came about after Laura Anderson, owner of Possible Futures, contacted her over the summer to ask about being a co-sponsor.
“I jumped at the opportunity to support a fantastic local New Haven bookstore and to generate conversations about Asian American identity among esteemed scholars, students, and New Haven residents,” Yee wrote in the News.
Kelly Kelshall-Ward, a New Haven resident and mother of a Yale student, became interested in the event because of her experience navigating the college admissions process as an adviser to College Bound BIPOC Students, an organization founded by her two sons that aims to provide free college-related resources and programs to middle and high school students from Black, Indigenous and people of color communities.
“Participating in this event gave me a greater understanding of where people stand on how intimidating and overwhelming the college admissions process can be,” she said. “If we work together to understand the process, we can ensure equal opportunity for everyone to receive an affordable higher education.”
Possible Futures is located at 318 Edgewood Ave.
Carla Cortez
Carla Cortez is in Student Policy and Affairs at Yale University. Originally from Woodstock, Georgia, she is a sophomore political science major at Silliman University.
