 Media Credit: Lai-Yan Tang Arar Han BC ´03 spoke to the UGBC and the AHANA Leadership Council yesterday. Han recently edited a book, Asian-American X , describing the Asian-American experience. [Click to enlarge]
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Not too long ago, Arar Han was a philosophy and human development major in the Lynch School of Education. Now, at age 23, with what she calls "a hope and a dream," she is a co-editor of Asian-American X, a compilation of autobiographical essays written by Asian-American college students around the country, expressing their identities within the Asian-American community. Han, who was born in Korea and came to the United States in 1986, began to see the importance of having such a nationwide dialogue when she was studying at Boston College.
"Race issues are something that I have been thinking about ever since I arrived at BC, because my contextual environment changed so much," Han explained.
"My high school in Cupertino, Calif. was half Asian-American, and going to a place that was overwhelmingly Irish and Catholic was a big surprise, and I began thinking about where I belong, where I connect, and where the divisions of commonality were."
While at BC, she was a student of LSOE Dean John Cawthorne, and he says that she vocalized her opinions about race relations from the very beginning of her college career, when she was in one of his freshman classes. "Arar was in my Family, School, and Society course, and that is where I realized how bright and committed she was," Cawthorne said. "She raised issues in class that were 'explosive on race, class, community, and never took the easy answer when doing so."
Han, who currently is a case writer at the Harvard Business School, entered the working world immediately after her graduation but continued to reflect upon these issues of race.
"In the midst of my own questions about race, there was an article in the Harvard Crimson that really stirred things up in the Asian-American community, when a sixth-generation Chinese-American man accused Asian-Americans of perpetuating their own stereotypes," Han said.
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