As the D.C. weather warms and students lounge on the lawn, the college admissions season draws to a close. With the commencement of Georgetown Admissions Ambassador Program (GAAP) Weekend, Blue and Gray tours will be replaced by doe-eyed Georgetown University admits seeing their futures unfold at the front gates. 

As I reminisce upon my own experience in the college admissions process last year, I’m hit with a bittersweet juxtaposition: memories of seeing Georgetown for the first time, as I prepared to submit my own application, contrasted with my college counselor’s attempts to mentally prepare me for the difficulty I’d face in college admissions as an Asian American female.

To see if my counselor’s worries were substantiated, I decided to search up college admission statistics for Georgetown. Georgetown’s 2023-24 Common Data Set reports the university’s racial and gender distributions but fails to include overlapping data. For example, within the data for Asian undergraduates enrolled at Georgetown, there were no specifications for the numbers of Asian male and Asian female students. When I looked for admission statistics for Asian girls from outside sources, I found the same lack of data. This discovery made me realize that society lacks intersectional discourse around Asian American women.

Asian American women face a unique experience due to the intersecting complexities of our race, culture and gender. We’re told that we have a debt to pay to the previous generations; we’re expected to work hard and surpass our parents’ accomplishments while remaining subserviently loyal to our families. My own parents taught me that, when I grow up, I must put my family first while fostering independence. This intersection of Western and Eastern values is the crux of the Asian American experience for many. 

Asian American women also have to battle the tensions of conflicting expectations. We struggle not only with the lifelong pressure to be pretty enough, but also pretty by two polarized beauty standards. Western media tells us we need to be tall, blonde and tan; but when we talk to our parents, we’re told that we should be on the petite side and avoid getting a “farmer’s tan.” 

We also are supposed to work hard while retaining our femininity. We must pave our own accomplishments and prove that we did it without the assistance of men, all while possessing the traditionally feminine qualities needed to attract a good husband and be the good wife that he needs. 

The life of an Asian woman is not the same as that of an Asian man; it is inaccurate and unfair to lump them into a single uniform group.

As Georgetown students, we must recognize the intersectional identity of Asian women. Asian Americans are overlooked in racial discourse. For example, in 2021, Illinois became the first state to require public schools to teach Asian American history. The fact that it took this long to include Asian American history in public school curricula reflects years of invisibility of Asians as a whole in American society. So it’s no surprise that we fail to recognize the unique identity of Asian women. In Georgetown’s elite academic environment, we should acknowledge the intersection of these multiple identities.

I commend the efforts of the Georgetown Asian American Student Association (AASA) to recognize Asian women. Last year, AASA founded the Women of AASA affinity group to make a safe space for and create community among Asian American female students. Most recently, on Feb. 15, they hosted a Valentine’s Day celebration to “honor the joy of platonic relationships,” adding an Asian flair to “Galentine’s Day,” which celebrates camaraderie among women. I encourage more affinity groups to openly recognize unique intersectional identities.

Recognizing intersectionality is what we need to forward Georgetown’s mission of promoting discourse among people of “different faiths, cultures and beliefs” to foster “intellectual and spiritual understanding.” In understanding every individual’s experience as a product of their own unique combinations of factors, we can truly see the “cura personalis” in the people around us. 

Julia Nguyen is a first-year in the College of Arts & Sciences. This is the third installment of her new column, “The Complexities of Coming of Age.”