In March of 2019, I spoke at the Empower conference by Kollaboration, a 20+ year old Asian American organization & event series. My talk was organized by JD Chang, a media producer and creator of Crushing the Myth, a speaker series for Asian Americans. The talk went into the story behind the Asian American Man Study and some of my personal stories on why I started it and what it means to me.

You can see a video of the talk below.

After careful consideration and taking feedback from the community, we're proud to introduce the third edition of the Asian American Man Study. Our theme is social institutions: School, Work, Groups, and Friendship.

Perhaps one of the things that most unites Asian Americans in general is the family expectations that are placed upon us. Starting from childhood, we are challenged to do well in school, learn our culture and history, and pursue a career that will make our family proud.

But those expectations from our Asian culture sometimes seem at odds with the ethos we encounter in our new American home. Whether be it in films, books, or even our teachers, we hear messages like Follow your heart. Go off the beaten path. Expand your horizons. Question everything. Every Asian American man responds to this juxtaposition a little differently.

Then when we enter the workplace, we encounter a complex system where what we may have learned in school. Working hard, getting the right answer — these are just one aspect of an often bewildering web of rules, stakeholders, and power plays. We were curious to better understand how our Asian identity plays a role in our ambition, our perspective, and how we are treated.

And finally, we have the groups that bring us together. From fraternities to professional networks to circles of friends, our identities are often shaped by the people we surround ourselves with. Given the emphasis on relationships in career success, health, and happiness, as well as the painful story of Michael Deng at Baruch College, our study explores what these social groups mean to us.

I am grateful to our research fellow Alan Yang, who has been a tremendous partner in developing this year's study, as well as the many who gave feedback and perspective. Special shoutout to to Kifah Shah and Mahait Gollamudi, two wise Asian American women, who provided important perspectives on survey design and shed a light on issues central to the South Asian community.

Demographics

• Total size: Having been around, we were able to recruit a larger respondent base, with 497 respondents, a significant increase from our initial study's 354 respondents. With 40 questions (up from 28 for the original study) this study represents nearly 20,000 data points, more than twice that of the original study.
• Ethnic Diversity: our 2015 study was heavily weighted toward East Asia, with 75% of respondents indicating they had East Asian origins. This year, 54% of respondents indicated East Asian origins, with a full 30% indicating primarily South or Southeast Asian descent. These figures are more closer to being representative for the US Asian population.
• Older Men: while definitely still skewing towards men under 35, this year's study has better representation among men over 35, growing almost a third from 14% to 19%.

New Data

• Geographic, economic, and professional data: one piece of feedback we received from the initial study was that maybe the experiences of Asian Americans in certain geographic locations (Southern California, New York City) might differ from those living in other parts of the country, so this year, we were able to capture income, location, industry, and other data points that could help us better understand our findings.
• More ethnically relevant stereotypes: another piece of feedback was that our stereotypes seemed more geared toward East Asian men and that we lacked stereotype options for South and Southeast Asian men, which we were able to address. We're also now sharing the stereotype data by sub-ethnicity.
• Religion and Politics questions: as this was the year of a U.S. Presidential election, we added a number questions about the political and religious leanings of Asian American men.
• New open-ended questions:  we introduced several open ended questions like "Who is the Asian American man you most admire?" and "What is the best / most difficult thing about being an Asian American man?", each which shed new insight into 

What's Next?
Over the coming weeks and months, I'll be writing up deep dives of each of the seven sections, adding commentary from respondents and my own experience and views. I'd like to ask all of you to promote our findings in the communities and platforms you're a part of. Let's help more people understand what Asian American men believe, experience, and stand for.