Educator and race scholar OiYan Poon’s new book Asian American Is Not a Color: Conversations on Race, Affirmative Action, and Family (Beacon Press, 2024) is inspired by her daughter’s questions about race and racism. Poon conducted interviews with Asian Americans throughout the U.S. who have been actively engaged in policy debates over race-conscious admissions and looks at how the debate over affirmative action reveals the divergent ways Asian Americans conceive of their identity. Poon combines extensive research with personal narratives from both herself and others across the Asian American community to respond to the question: “What does it mean to be Asian American?”  A 1998 Boston College graduate, Poon cites an influential class taught by BC Professor Emeritus Ramsay Liem in her book. Poon is co-director of the College Admissions Futures Co-Laborative and a senior research fellow for education equity at the NAACP LDF Thurgood Marshall Institute. Her work has appeared widely in media outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Atlantic, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and the New Yorker. She was born and raised in Massachusetts to immigrants from Hong Kong.