“People ask me to touch my hair. The idea that my hair is something that is different and it doesn’t make much sense to you … is kind of degrading.”

Zeigler: Microaggressions are words or actions that people say kind of without thinking of them that end up being offensive to certain communities. … A lot of times people will say, “Oh, you’re so busy and you’re so high-achieving because you’re Asian,” and that’s not really any of the reason. … And an interesting facet of it, too, is I’m adopted and my family — apart from my younger sister, who’s also adopted — is white. So there’s nothing there if we want to say it’s a cultural thing that’s really making me a quote-unquote better Asian.

Crutcher: People ask me to touch my hair. That’s a microaggression. The idea that my hair is something that is different and it doesn’t make much sense to you, so I have to, like, give you my head for you to experiment with is kind of degrading.

Liam Baronofsky: One microaggression is like one paper cut, so it’s something small but it hurts the person at the core of their identity level. But it happens so often, you come home every day with like 15 paper cuts … and it really hurts.

Zanib Cheema: Sometimes they’ll just stick my face on something… They were doing a university life presentation… and they had one slide and the title was “diversity,” and the face was me. That’s it … I’m not the only person, you know, it’s not just about me. There are so many minority groups; you can’t just put one title to it.