We started the night reading the history of AAA, from its inception in 1976. Next, each of us shared our experience growing up as an Asian American and how it has shaped our identity. Some of what I heard resonated with me: Many of us had crafted our identities for college applications so that we didn’t appear “stereotypically Asian,” which was a sort of competition among all the Asians at our high schools. But most of these deeply personal stories were beyond my own experiences and even knowledge — people spoke of their desire to be white like those around them, or the effect being Asian had on their body image and the people they chose to befriend.