Brown University Pre-College Leadership Institute — Social Change & Leadership - Community Social Issue Project 2024

Project Topic: The Misrepresentation of Chinese Culture: A Youth Perspective on Anti-Asian Racism and Cultural Identity

Download Action Plan Report | Presentation Video 

PROJECT BACKGROUND
At Brown’s Leadership & Social Change program, I focused on a problem I felt close to: a spike in anti-Asian bias and how little many peers knew about Asian cultures. I didn’t want another abstract paper; I wanted a plan people could use. With guidance from a Brown mentor, I did independent research—researching about the rising anti-Asian racism and reviewing possible school-based interventions and communicating informally with classmates and teachers about what they were seeing. The pattern was clear: misinformation, shallow representation, and few structured chances for positive contact with my culture. From that analysis, I built a ready-to-launch action plan.

It outlines a semester of low-cost, high-engagement modules—calligraphy and other realistic and fun workshops, foodways and language mini-lessons—paired with outreach scripts for social media, and reflection prompts for improvements. To make the case, I produced an impact presentation video; to make it actionable, I also wrote an implementation report with budget templates, roles, timelines, and risk-mitigation steps for sustainability. I left with tangible tools and a concrete feasible plan that any student team can adopt immediately. This project matters to me because it turns such a large social issue into structured learning opportunities. It offers anyone a practical, replicable path schools and communities can use to reduce bias and strengthen cross-cultural understanding of not just my culture but all cultures as well.

PROJECT DETAILS

• Investigated anti-Asian hate as a case study and interacted with students/teachers to surface system gaps not just in Asian hate, but systematic multi-culturalism issues as well—misinformation, one-note representation, and too few structured chances to connect across cultures.
• Designed a launch-ready semester plan that starts with Asian cultural modules and scales to other cultures—hands-on calligraphy/knot-tying, foodways, language micro-lessons, and storytelling circles to build real cross-cultural contact.
• Engineered a plug-and-play toolkit (lesson outlines, outreach scripts, reflection prompts) so any student team can run inclusive programming immediately and adapt it for multiple cultures.
• Produced an impact video and authored an implementation guide (budgets, roles, timeline, simple risk checks) to make rollout painless and sustainable.
• Packaged and prepared for future rollout by me or other clubs; positioned to reduce bias and advance multicultural representation; not yet deployed.