By: Sam Kang '27
Art by: Shena Han '25
Back home, the Asian Pacific Islander Student Association (APISA) at my high school was constantly ignored or conveniently forgotten. My school always made sure to emphasize “cultural diversity” but stopped short of , remembering to buy graduation stoles for the Asian affinity group, providing adequate support for campus events run by APISA, or addressing hate crimes towards Asian students. The most popular events we hosted were the Spicy Ramen Challenge and the Crochet Asian Food Fundraiser, which also happened to be the events where we “sold” already popular East Asian cuisine. Coming to an institution like Dartmouth, I naïvely expected things to be different. It wasn’t rooted in any logical explanation, but simply in a hopeful desperation that it had to be at this prestigious, well-funded, and well-educated school.
In my first quarter at Dartmouth, I experienced racial microaggressions from a professor in an introductory public speaking class. Through my speeches, I explored the history of sexual violence and fetishization of East Asian women. The professor often offered critique — expected for a college classroom environment — but the feedback harbored demeaning, racial undertones.
What do the white men in the room think of this speech?
Where did you get these sources from?
Isn’t only 2% of the Dartmouth student population Asian?
The last assignment of the class was to write and record a celebratory speech. I chose to write a celebration of life for the victims of the Atlanta Shooting. The process was incredibly painful; many of the women who died reminded me of my own 할머니 (Halmeoni), my Korean grandmother. As such, it took many attempts in front of the candlelit altar I created to finish the recording. Instead of solidarity, or an acknowledgement of this grief, however, my professor offered one critique:
You should have been angrier about the Asian women’s death … for stronger rhetoric.
What amount of rhetoric is needed to convince someone to care about the lives of the women who were murdered? Aren’t their names, faces, and hobbies rhetoric enough? Be angry, but just the right amount to get your point across. Grieve, but not excessively. Write a celebration of life, but you better still be angry while doing it otherwise I’m not convinced of the pain and oppression that you feel.
One of my best friends at Dartmouth observed unsettling dynamics between Asian women and white men in Greek Life at Dartmouth, from both her own experience and her friends. At one fraternity, a friend overheard brothers saying that they should “let all the Asian girls in.” Later that year, she was asked not to tell a guy’s parents at dinner that “her dad was Asian,” because his parents had to “come around” to the idea of it first. Nonetheless, he seemed to love her “island girl vibes” (she is a gorgeous + powerful Hawaiian and Vietnamese woman) on the condition that she dressed “not homeless” and that her hair was “straight instead of wavy.” In his words, she wasn’t wife or child-bearing material because he couldn’t handle the thought that she struggled with her mental health at times.
I, along with several of my Asian women friends have had uncomfortable interactions with white men on campus. From overly-touchy to persistent attempts to be (more than) friends, there is a transparent trend that seems to be all but invisible to the rest of the Dartmouth “community.”
Fetishization & Racialized Sexism throughout American History
The most prominent example of fetishization of Asian women is “Yellow Fever,” a term that describes a sexual preference or obsession with East Asian women, most commonly by white men. Though Yellow Fever is not a new concept, its origins in Asian-American history are relatively unknown. Most people are familiar with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which banned the immigration of Chinese laborers into the US. Far less known, however, is the Page Act of 1875, which banned “the importation into the United States of women for the purposes of prostitution.” Two qualities stand out about this piece of legislation. First, it is rooted in the belief that all women from outside the US are sex workers. While sex work is undeniably a part of Asian-American history, East Asian women were singled out among their white counterparts for carrying sexually trasmitted diseases and threatening the institution of marriage as “temptations.” Second, the word choice of “imported.” Objects are imported. People are not. This phrasing inherently objectifies Asian women as goods to be exchanged. As Maria Hwang and Rhacel Parreñas explain in their 2021 analysis of the hypersexualization of East Asian women throughout history, “the Page Act established the gendered racialization of Chinese women as diseased immoral prostitutes — in other words, villainous temptresses.” Flash forward to WWII. As the US military presence in Asia increased, sex industries were mounted around American camps to serve the men who inhabited them, a trend that would only continue throughout the Korean and Vietnam wars. Under these white supremacist ideologies, what became a colonization of Asian countries, also became a colonization of the bodies of Asian women. This history permeates the culture around Asian women today; the duplicitious ideas that Asian-American women are both hypersexual objects and dangerous temptations prevents them from being seen as individuals.
Fetishization & Racialized Sexism at Dartmouth
Dartmouth, too, has an insidious past concerning Asian women and sexual violence. In 2000, the Sexual Abuse Awareness Program (SAAP) released a report on the prevalence of sexual violence against women: 40% of sexual violence reports in 1997, 37% in 1998, and 30% in 1999 were reported by Asian women, who made up 12.3% of the undergraduate population at the time. That between 3–4 in 10 of these reports were coming from only 12.3% of the population is appalling. In response, the Pan Asian Council (PAC) formed the Sexual Assault Committee, which was “not as popular as they had hoped.” In 2002, there was a decrease in the amount of sexual violence reported by Asian women, at 7% compared to 30% in the previous survey. However, there was a sense of ambiguity about the subsequent decrease: it is “unclear to this day whether they decreased due to the effectiveness of PAC's response programs, or an increased fear of the visibility and consequences of reporting an incident.” Given the severity of the initial three reports, it seems obvious that further investigation on sexual violence towards Asian women was (and is) warranted. But no further reports were ever created.
To this day, there is a muddy picture of how sexual violence continues to affect Asian women at Dartmouth. Every two to three years, Dartmouth administers a sexual misconduct survey to the student body, and the data is posted online. In the 2022 survey, you could sort by either gender identity or race, but not both simultaneously. Further, Asian was not a category, instead falling under “Other.” When we asked Kristi Clemens, the Title IX coordinator last fall, about this discrepancy, she responded that sorting for intersectional identities was not included because it reinforced stereotypes about certain groups of people and helped maintain confidentiality. She assured us that they monitored the data carefully to ensure that there were no groups with data that would cause “significant concern.” However, she declined to give us access to data regarding Asian women on campus. This is explained similarly on the 2022 Survey Dashboard, as a “dashboard with no data suppressed was delivered to Dartmouth’s Title IX Coordinator and a select few administrative staff whose responsibilities include sexual misconduct prevention and response.” As of the 2024 Sexual Misconduct Survey you can now simultaneously sort by level (undergraduate or graduate) and gender; the option to see data on race has been eliminated completely. It’s curious that “Dartmouth is committed to discovering the reasons for trendlines and continuing to work to address all areas of concern,” but they make it nearly impossible to distinguish those trendlines to the public. There is a huge oversight in acknowledging intersectional discrimination; it is not possible to “address all areas of concern” without acknowledging that certain groups experience unique kinds of racialized sexism and violence.
The Sexual Misconduct Survey is also by no means comprehensive. The 2000 SAAP report “cross-referenced student reports with sexual assault peer advisors, deans, and program counselors, and compiled data,” which is important to account for the tendency of Asian women to underreport sexual violence. Therefore, even if current Sexual Misconduct Surveys analyzed in private do not show enough “concerning” data, this is far from the full picture.
This meeting, along with our personal and overheard experiences within our first few weeks at Dartmouth, sparked many additional meetings with other organizations and departments on campus, most of which were equally frustrating. For concision, here is a brief summary of what we did and who we met with in the 2023–2024 school year:
Amanda Childress, Sexual Violence Prevention Project. We discussed our concern about trends of sexual harassment towards Asian women on campus, and why it was not addressed in the SVPP curriculum. Ms. Childress told us that SVPP aimed to provide a broad foundation for all students to understand sexual assault, rather than examining specific groups. She offered that we could add a few scenarios to the sessions related to fetishization, but it was difficult to reach her to follow up on this idea. She also told us any research or current surveys that we wanted to conduct would be for “personal” satisfaction or use only (i.e. not necessary to create policy change).
Dr. Mishka Murad, Office of Greek Life. We deeply enjoyed talking to Dr. Murad about Asian women and Greek life dynamics on campus. She served as an advisor to us in writing a grant to research current sexual violence towards Asian women on campus. When we inquired whether we could incorporate new training to Greek Life leaders (which are required each year before rush), she told us we would need to have a strong research basis first.
The Student and Presidential Committee on Sexual Assault, Hoffman Grant. The Hoffman grant is a stipend offered to students each year to conduct research on sexual violence. With Dr. Murad’s mentorship, we submitted a proposal to interview Asian women about their experiences on campus and collect data about the prevalence of sexual violence. Although the SPCSA stated that there was no set limit on the number of grants that would receive funding given as long as the proposal was relevant and compelling, we did not receive the grant nor any other feedback on why we were not selected.
Baker-Berry Library Student Displays. We proposed a collage project raising awareness on sexual violence against Asian women to be presented duringAsian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month (AAPHIM ). We submitted our request before winterim for display in May. We were tentatively approved, and then the display was canceled due to “staffing issues” although students were expected to mount their own displays.
Office of Pluralism and Leadership. We reached out to OPAL in hopes of collaborating to create displays and programming for AAPHIM related to Asian women. We were redirected to the student coordinator, Deborah Jung ’24, who tried to help us get our display up in Collis after it was declined from Baker-Berry.
Collis Student Involvement Center. We emailed Collis inquiring whether they could display the collage we had intended to make for the Baker-Berry display. We did not receive a response.
We ended our freshman year extremely frustrated by the lack of support that our concerns received. However, I want to emphasize our appreciation that so many people were willing to meet with us and openly discuss our concerns. Rather, the reaction we received represented a systematic and bureaucratic failure by Dartmouth’s sexual violence and diversity resources as a whole. The very organizations that are supposed to advocate for the safety and voices of marginalized groups of students ultimately failed us as Asian women on campus. We didn’t get very far despite exhausting the resources so readily advertised to us. We spent the entire year in a sort of echo chamber, hearing the same reassurances, affirmations, and suggestions over and over again: “Have you tried reaching out to ______?” “I’m going to send you over to ______; this is more of their department.” “Thank you for bringing this to our attention.” There was a preface of concern and a seeming willingness to take action which never quite translated to real life. It was too “niche,” “too specific” an issue to incorporate into the SVPP curriculum. Are these not the issues, the “niche” and invisible ones, that need to be addressed? A broad blanket of sexual respect does nothing to address the complexities of racialized sexism and discrimination. What of other minority groups affected by sexual violence? Are their concerns too “niche” to address, too?
The response of SVPP, along with other organizations, translated to a resounding message: this is important, but not important enough.
Last year, two Asian students were found dead in the Connecticut River.
Won Jang ’26 drowned in a river due to hazing. He did not know how to swim.
Kexin Cai, a twenty-six-year-old graduate student, was found dead by a fisherman following a “mental health crisis” as reported by her boyfriend.
If Won Jang were white, would he have died that day?
If Kexin Cai were white, would she have been found faster?
I want to be clear that these tragedies are not directly related to sexual violence against Asian women on campus. But they highlight the perpetual narrative of Asian invisibility:
Of course it was two Asian students who died in the same year.
Of course their faces flitted past on misspelled remembrances without any acknowledgement of the systems of power that had enabled their deaths.
Of course it was an Asian student who was left behind.
Of course there is only one small room dedicated to the Pan Asian Community on campus.
Of course my friend’s boyfriend loved her “island girl vibes,” but only if her hair was straight, too.
Of course it’s important to publish data on sexual violence, but only if gender and race are kept separate.
Of course Asian women have historically represented a huge portion of sexual violence that goes on at Dartmouth, and of course no one knows that.
Of course it makes sense that Asian pain would fade into the background, because it always has and always does.
On Oct. 10, 2024, Daniel Lin ’23 wrote an open letter to Asian students at Dartmouth following the death of his friend Won, saying:
We are allowed to mourn these absences, but only as pinpoints of grief in an otherwise happy composition. The deaths of our community members and the lack of institutional support can only exist as siloed, unfortunate events — as isolated dots on a page. What if we dared to connect them?
I don’t have a definitive solution. Far from it. I am angry, I am grieving, I am hopeful. For now, I’m writing to offer a few more dots, and maybe some strings too. What if we dared to connect them? Let’s.
If you are interested in connecting, helping with these issues, or adding your own “dots” to the page, fill out this form or reach out to me @samantha.j.kang.27@dartmouth.edu or @zoe.e.manning.27@dartmouth.edu.
Notes & Citations:
Daniel Lin and Deborah Jung, “Lin: An Open Letter to Asian Students at Dartmouth,” The Dartmouth: Opinion (The Dartmouth, Inc., October 10, 2024), https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2024/10/lin-an-open-letter-to-asian-students-at-dartmouth.
[2] On March 16, 2021, 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long went on a shooting rampage of three spas in the Atlanta Area, killing six Asian-American women and a white man and woman. He was arrested a week later and pleaded guilty, explaining to the police that he had a “sexual addiction” and needed to eliminate his “temptation” (Ruth Graham et al., “8 Dead in Atlanta Spa Shootings, with Fears of Anti-Asian Bias,” New York Times, March 17, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/03/17/us/shooting-atlanta-acworth.).
[3] An act to execute certain treaty stipulations relating to Chinese., Public Law 71, U.S. Statutes at Large 22 (1882): 58-61. https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/STATUTE-22/STATUTE-22-Pg58-4.
[4] An act supplementary to the acts in relation to immigration., Public Law 327, U.S. Statutes at Large 18 (1875): C477-C478. https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/STATUTE-18/STATUTE-18-PgC477.
[5] Maria Cecilia Hwang and Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, “The Gendered Racialization of Asian Women as Villainous Temptresses,” Gender & Society 35, no. 4 (July 14, 2021): 567–76, https://doi.org/10.1177/08912432211029395.
[6] To this day, many state governments refuse to take accountability for endorsing the sexual exploitation of comfort women during WWII. In 2021, South Korea dismissed demands for reparations to be paid to Korean comfort women sold into sexual slavery by the Japanese military. (Amnesty International, “South Korea: Disappointing Japan Ruling Fails to Deliver Justice to ‘Comfort Women,’” Amnesty International, April 21, 2021, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2021/04/south-korea-disappointing-japan-ruling-fails-to-deliver-justice-to-comfort-women/).
[7] Susan Marine, “Annual Statistics Report of Sexual Abuse Incidents, 1995-2000,” Sociology 76 (Winter 2023): Race, Power, and Politics -Dartmouth Course Exhibits, 2000, https://course-exhibits.library.dartmouth.edu/s/SOCY76/item/3291.
[8] “Responses to the Report of Sexual Violence against Asian Women on Campus · Sociology 76 (Winter 2023): Race, Power, and Politics · Dartmouth Course Exhibits,” Dartmouth.edu, 2023, https://course-exhibits.library.dartmouth.edu/s/SOCY76/page/responses-to-asian-targeted-sexual-assault-incidents-on-campus.
[9] “Responses to the Report of Sexual Violence against Asian Women on Campus · Sociology 76 (Winter 2023): Race, Power, and Politics · Dartmouth Course Exhibits.”
[10] “Responses to the Report of Sexual Violence against Asian Women on Campus · Sociology 76 (Winter 2023): Race, Power, and Politics · Dartmouth Course Exhibits”
[11] Dartmouth College Title IX Office, “Intro and Navigation Tab, 2024 Sexual Misconduct Survey: Students,” Office of Institutional Research (Dartmouth College, July 2024), https://www.dartmouth.edu/oir/sms_results_2024.html.
[12] Dartmouth College Title IX Office, “2024 Sexual Misconduct Survey: Students.”
[13] Dartmouth College Title IX Office, “2024 Survey Conclusion, 2024 Dartmouth College Sexual Misconduct Student Survey: Executive Summary of Results” (Dartmouth College, July 2024), https://www.dartmouth.edu/oir/pdfs/executive_summary_sms_2024.pdf.
[14] “Responses to the Report of Sexual Violence against Asian Women on Campus · Sociology 76 (Winter 2023): Race, Power, and Politics · Dartmouth Course Exhibits.”
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