All posts tagged: Rhode Island

Affirmative Action: Forging Our Own Identity

This is the last part on a series about how data effects Education and Affirmative Action. You can catch up with Part One here and Part Two here. Recap: We’ve discussed our need to be seen as a distinct group from the rest of Asian America and we’ve also highlighted some of the obstacles we’re running into, with regards to our push for personhood. As I noted in the last segment (part 2), creating our own Lao American platform, with a good amount of distance from the rest of Asian America, is not about hostility or division: it’s about priorities. As a less-resourced, less-accommodated ethnic group, we have to prioritize ourselves because the big players in Asian America (typically East Asian American groups) don’t seem to have our community’s concerns within sight. Luckily though, work to prioritize Lao Americans has already begun to take root, being championed by our own community members. Know Your Role I mentioned before that Southeast Asian Americans worked to win Asian American educational data disaggregation in Rhode Island. Lao Americans were part …