AAPI Heritage Month At Stanford: Amplifying Asian Success To Combat Hate

Nancy Wang, MBA ‘23, grew up in Beijing, China. She moved to the United States at age 13, without her family, to attend boarding school. She studied journalism at Northwestern University, and worked as a McKinsey consultant helping multinational companies enter new markets in the U.S. and China.

Now, as a dual enrollment student pursuing an MA Education/MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, she hopes to build a career that combines her passions for storytelling, multicultural diversity, and bridging communities.

May is Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders Heritage Month, a time to celebrate the success and contributions of Asian Americans to our history, culture, and society.

For Wang, it’s also a complicated month to celebrate. She still has family in Asia. It has been difficult for her to watch the rising tide of Asian hate and geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China since the start of the pandemic.

“I think, for me, raising awareness is not enough. We have to put real actions into place, raising this community as a whole, celebrating their successes, and sponsoring this generation to move a step forward,” says Wang, co-president of the GSB’s Asian Business Student Association (ABSA).

“Whether you call that breaking the bamboo ceiling or progressing in leadership across industries, empowering this community through real actions is why I took on a leadership role at the GSB and why I use my spare time to amplify storytelling from this community through my podcast to show, on an individual level, what people are experiencing.”

AMPLIFYING ASIAN EXPERIENCES

Throughout the month, ABSA has organized events to amplify the voices of the AAPI community. That has included group dinners and speaking events, a kickoff barbecue, and a gala that featured Asian American business leaders. They also launched the Student Voices Campaign on GSB’s various social media channels to celebrate the diversity in the school’s AAPI community and explain what the month means to them. You can see that campaign here.

Poets&Quants connected with four ABSA members to explore AAPI history and representation in this particular moment. Read their stories below.

NANCY WANG, MBA ‘23: WHAT ACTION LOOKS LIKE

For Nancy Wang, action in AAPI representation means pulling up the people below you.

Working in corporate America for a 30,000 employee company, she saw great Asian American representation at the analyst and associate level. But the numbers dropped significantly in managerial roles.

“This has a lot to do with sponsorship and representation at the leadership level, and enlightening the right leaders who will truly embrace their identity and advocate for those that share their identity. I think that’s really important,” she says.

It’s also important to remember that the Asian community is not a monolith. The AAPI acronym represents about 23 million Americans with roots in 50 different ethnic groups and more than 40 countries, all with their own cultural identities.

Action, then, also means celebrating all these differences within the community.

“There are so many different paths of talent whether it in culinary, in entertainment, in nonprofits. Asians are everywhere, and are powerful, and we have been contributing to the success of this country and the world,” she says. “There are so many opportunities for younger generations to see that they can be what they want to be, despite this stigma that’s been around for decades.”

Earlier this month, Dara Treseder, global head of marketing at Peloton visited Stanford as part of the dean’s speaker series. As Wang was personally grappling with yet more news of Asian hate incidents and anti-Asian sentiments, Treseder said something that struck a chord: Pressure is privilege, and that is when you are called upon to stand up and do the work.

“That really resonated with me. We are privileged to be here, and we are privileged to be able to have the space and the momentum to do the work that we’ve been trying to do for decades,” Wang says. “So for me, yes, it’s stressful. It’s depressing. But I truly feel fueled with this energy and huge momentum to get things done. We are so lucky to be leading an organization (like the ABSA) together and actually have a voice.”

ABHI SATYAVARAPU, MBA ‘23, PRIVATE AND PUBLIC ACTION

As the child of immigrants, Abhi Satyavarapu knows too well the tradeoffs families make in order to care for their elderly family, educate their children, and secure their own financial futures. The U.S. has the resources to minimize such tradeoffs, if it has the will to use them.

“I’m passionate about building an economy and government that provides effective social safety nets for our most vulnerable populations – racial or ethnic minorities, seniors, immigrants, among others – to age with dignity,” says Satyavarapu

Simultaneous to his MBA, Satyavarapu is pursuing a Masters of Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School. He hopes to someday work on democracy reform and equitable economic growth. As a policy advocate, he sees himself working to reform election laws to increase voting acces, reducing the influence of money in politics and expanding the middle class.

“Leveraging the network from my MBA, I’m hoping to commercialize or invest in emerging technologies such as blockchain voting systems, mobile voting, and online platforms to improve civic engagement,” he says. “While the permanent solution to issues of representation and socioeconomic inequity policy will change, in the short term, we can use entrepreneurship (specifically, political entrepreneurship) to search for answers.”

The rise in the frequency and visibility of anti-Asian violence highlights the lack of AAPI representation in our government. The Pew Research Center reports that, since 2000, Asian American voter eligibility has risen 139% compared to 7% of their white counterparts. However, Asian American turnout trails white turnout by 13%, according to the U.S. Census. Meanwhile, a report from the Reflective Democracy Campaign shows that AAPI members make up less than 1% of elected leaders while comprising 6% of the population.

“This is especially pronounced in positions of power within criminal justice, where there is an active need for more representative leadership to combat hate crimes through better tracking, training, and transparency. Representative leadership is critically important to creating constructive policies that can span the racial, language, and socioeconomic diversity that exists within the AAPI community,” he says.

“Moments like AAPI Heritage month enable us to shine a spotlight on the importance of driving turnout among Asian American constituencies and advocating for legislation to create a more accessible and equitable democracy.”

NEXT PAGE: Stories from Megan Ruan & Kevin Liang