UC San Diego

Neoliberalism continues to exacerbate systemic racism and restricts efforts to address racial and social justice issues. Consequently, there has not only been an increase of public concern, but students are constantly driven to organize around their experiences. Asian American students are currently and have historically been one of these communities engaging in activism. Yet, there continues to be ongoing and pervasive misconceptions that they do not encounter any challenges related to race contributing the dismissal of their voices and experiences in postsecondary education. Consequently, scholarship surrounding Asian American student activists is still developing and there is still much to be explored in understanding their racialized experiences.

Through a critical qualitative inquiry, this dissertation study aimed to understand how neoliberalism shapes the experiences of Asian American college student activists. Findings revealed two core categories 1) how aspects of neoliberal culture were experienced by activists and 2) how it shaped the ways students navigated their activist work. The first category contained five subsequent sub-themes: 1) profit motives over people, 2) a culture of precarity, 3) an ethos of self-interest, 4) normalized exploitation of People of Color, and 5) advanced hyper-surveillance systems. The second category revealed an additional five sub-themes: 1) contextualizing students’ activism and advocacy, 2) encompassing collectivist approaches to activism, 3) strategically engaging in the university, 4) dealing with activism pressures, and 5) prioritizing refusal and rest.

By engaging neoliberal frameworks in a rigorous empirical project, it deepened our collective understanding of how racialization of Asian Americans and neoliberalism are not mutually exclusive. It also provided critical insight and essential knowledge about how neoliberalism can be detrimental to students so we can better support and foster their development. This topic also contributed to the growing body of knowledge surrounding student activists and Asian American experiences, as well as the administrators, faculty, staff, and other key stakeholders interwoven within the academy. Finally, it further underscored how student activism is not solely a critique or resistance of neoliberal systems, rather it can also serve as sites of critical hope and a desire for transformative and systemic change in postsecondary education.