Civic Engagement of Asian American Student Leaders examines the civic lives of Asian American youth and analyzes their civic engagement through in-depth interviews with fifteen student leaders from a Tier One university in Southeast Texas. This book provides a counter-narrative to the portrayal of Asian Americans as apolitical and less interested in civic matters. Such depictions arise from the characterization of Asian Americans as model minority who mainly focus on economic success and are socially and economically integrated in American society. However, the stories of the student leaders, cultivated by Ma. Glenda Lopez Wui and Cameron S. White, illustrate that their challenging racialized experiences inspired their civic involvement. Their civic engagement creates empowerment in terms of asserting their ethnic identity, imbibing leadership qualities and long-term commitment to civic engagement, and subverting stereotypes against Asian Americans. The book paints a more varied picture of Asian American youth civic engagement that is not entirely anchored in ethnic identity or non-political involvement, contrary to articulations of existing studies. Wui and White hope that the student leaders’ narratives shed better light on the civic commitments of Asian Americans to American society especially in these times when there is increased bias and racial prejudice in the current atmosphere and culture.

Civic and political engagement is woven into the fabric of higher education and many higher education institutions have intentionally incorporated this in their mission statements. Civic engagement often refers to passive activities like community service, partnership, and reciprocity with others in society while political engagement refers to activities that influences inherent interaction with the government, most common is voting (Verba et al., 1995). Verba and Nie's (1972) defined political engagement using four elements: voting, campaign activities like membership or working for political organizations or donating, contacting public officials, and engagement in local communities that tackles local issues. The problem is that no model or robust framework exists that explains the student experiences of civic and political engagement in higher education. Furthermore, there is an absence of greater empirical studies on civic and political engagement regarding ethnic/racial students like Southeast Asian Americans (SEAA).There is little known about the pathways of civic and political engagement among Asian American college students. Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) trace their roots from East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. Despite attempts on the heterogenization of Asian Americans' civic and political engagement trends in research, there is still limited understanding on civic and political behaviors and attitudes based on ethnicity. Southeast Asian Americans often experience challenges that remain invisible in higher education. A phenomenological approach is utilized to analyze the interviews of seven Southeast Asian American college students. Five themes emerged from the data collected: Civic engagement as more accessible, political engagement driven by key issues, intersectionality of Generation Z and political engagement, limited college influence, and ethnic identity as motivation for engagement. Overall, participants viewed civic activities as more accessible than political engagement. There was a lack of comprehensive knowledge to what political engagement entailed other than voting. The participants were driven by specific issues to political engagement. These activities other than voting used channels like Instagram to engage. They perceived institutional messaging or outreach regarding engagement as absent. The participants had a positive experience in student organizations they were a part of, and these networks increased their civic and political awareness. The study was guided by the Asian Critical Race Theory. The tenets of Asian Critical Race Theory were particularly present when discussing their experiences and motivations for engagement. Issues related to Asian hate crimes that led participants to speak out, attend rallies, promotion of Asian related stories via Instagram, voting out political leaders that they perceived propagated anti-immigrant and Asian discrimination were motivations for participation. These were reminiscent of Asian Critical Race Theory. Through disaggregation of data, the implication of this study hoped to refocus the attention of higher education on Southeast Asian Americans and address their unique needs to promote civic development among students. The implications from the findings included increase opportunity for higher education to refine definitions of engagement, removing barriers to college access for Asian Americans and Southeast Asian Americans, advancing the AAPI agenda in institutions and colleges, and connecting college students to Asian American leaders.

An accessible yet comprehensive guide to understanding and working with Asian American college students--a diverse but often misunderstood population on college campuses. Linking theory and research with practice, this volume covers a range of topics that influence Asian American college student experiences, including: student and identity development, psychological health, religion and spirituality, academic and career issues, engagement and activism. The volume ends with an extensive list of resources and critical questions for readers to reflect on themselves, their departments, and their institutions to help better understand and appropriately serve Asian American students. This is the 160th volume of this Jossey-Bass higher education quarterly series. An indispensable resource for vice presidents of student affairs, deans of students, student counselors, and other student services professionals, New Directions for Student Services offers guidelines and programs for aiding students in their total development: emotional, social, physical, and intellectual.

Through the power of social media and increased access to mobile technology, our country is witnessing a rise in college student-led protests and mobilizing to try to challenge racism on college campuses (Curwen, Song, & Gordon, 2015). One of the key functions of higher education institutions is cultivating our engaged citizenry (Hurtado, 2007). We know civic engagement in college influences future civic participation of students (Coley & Sum, 2012). However, very little is known about the factors in college that promote civic engagement of students. The purpose of this study is to explore the institutional- and student-level characteristics that affect the development of students' level of civic values after four years of college enrollment, utilizing data from the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP), a longitudinal dataset of college students. Overall, this study found differences in the factors that promote civic values of students based on race/ethnicity and institutional contexts. More specifically, various civic-related curricular and co-curricular college experiences and institutional contexts influenced the development of civic values of racial/ethnic minority students differently. For example, service learning, a proven curricular approach that promotes the civic values and engagement of students, negatively influenced the civic values of Latina/o students. Additionally, Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Institutions (AANAPISIs) were particularly influential in promoting civic values, but only for Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) students. Moreover, the same factors that influenced civic values also influenced student's aspirations to pursue a career in service. The findings will help higher education researchers and practitioners understand the student- and institutional-level factors that promote the development of civic values in higher education, as well as shed light on which higher education institutions develop the next generation of leaders and engaged citizens.

An accessible yet comprehensive guide to understanding and working with Asian American college students--a diverse but often misunderstood population on college campuses. Linking theory and research with practice, this volume covers a range of topics that influence Asian American college student experiences, including: student and identity development, psychological health, religion and spirituality, academic and career issues, engagement and activism. The volume ends with an extensive list of resources and critical questions for readers to reflect on themselves, their departments, and their institutions to help better understand and appropriately serve Asian American students. This is the 160th volume of this Jossey-Bass higher education quarterly series. An indispensable resource for vice presidents of student affairs, deans of students, student counselors, and other student services professionals, New Directions for Student Services offers guidelines and programs for aiding students in their total development: emotional, social, physical, and intellectual.

Leading off this volume, three undergraduate Asian American students share their experiences in college. In subsequent chapters, authors highlight the diversity of Asian American college students, analyze the "model minority" myth and the stereotype of the "perfidious foreigner," and point out the need to consider the racial identity and racial consciousness of Asian American students. Various authors propose a model of Asian American student development, address issues of Asian Americans who are at educational risk, discuss the importance of integration and collaboration between student affairs and Asian American studies programs, and offer strategies for developing socially conscious Asian American student leaders. Two authors who wrote about Asian American college students in 1987 reflect on the preceding chapters and provide suggestions for more effective work with Asian American students. With an extensive list of resources, ranging from associations and media to policy reports and landmark scholarly works, this volume is a valuable guide to student services practitioners and researchers alike. This is the 97th volume in the Jossey-Bass quarterly report series New Directions For Student Services.

Asian Americans are seen as the model minority and not needing any assistance within higher education, given their history of success. Although there is some research that indicates that Asian Americans face a glass ceiling and are underrepresented in leadership positions, little research has been conducted on leadership preparation for Asian Americans, especially in college where many of these skills are typically learned. Examining the experiences of Asian American college student leaders provides valuable knowledge about how these students were able to successfully navigate through their higher education experience and pursue a leadership position. This study utilizes qualitative methodology to help understand how Asian American college students experience, interpret, and perceive their race as playing a role in their leadership participation. A semi-structured interview approach was utilized to interview twenty-four Asian American college students who were current leaders within extracurricular organizations at two highly selective public universities in California. Twelve paid university staff members who worked closely with Asian American college students at the same two universities, including faculty, student support services, and administration, were also interviewed to obtain a more informed and multidimensional perspective. The interviews explored the experiences of Asian American student leaders and the institutional factors that Asian Americans perceived as either enabling or inhibiting the pursuit of leadership opportunities. The results reported are divided into six distinct categories: entry into leadership, levels of support, campus, being Asian American, model minority stereotype, and Asian American leadership. First, the reasons why students became involved in student organizations, what lead them to pursue leadership positions within those student organizations, and benefits that students saw as a result of their participation and leadership in student organizations are discussed. Next, different levels where students might receive support for their leadership in general and their Asian American leadership are investigated. Then, campus dynamics and being Asian American is explored. Further, students described how the model minority stereotype influenced their lives. Lastly, Asian American leadership is explored, including how Asian Americans have not yet had the chance to become leaders and Asian Americans not being encouraged to become leaders.