As the first formal entity established to represent the generations of Asian graduates, our principal mission is to build the foundations for and diligently maintain the bridges that will give our community the ability to create and sustain meaningful relationships with each other. It is from this effort that many of our other goals will derive such as:
- Empowering our members to thrive personally and professionally
- Fostering a strong and diverse sense of community
- Celebrating our shared cultural values as well the spectacular breadth of our unique cultural heritages
- Providing opportunities for service
- Advancing the cause of racial and economic justice
We acknowledge that “Asian” is a broad and somewhat ambiguous term. While the founding committee represents alumni who are East, South, and Southeast Asian descendants, alumni who are biracial, and alumni who came to the U.S. as international students at Bowdoin, we are not comprehensive of all Asian identities. Over the coming months and years, our hope is that our membership and programming allow all Asian-identifying alumni to feel seen, heard, valued, and included.
To that end, RepresentAsian is dedicated to highlighting the diversity of the Asian experience at Bowdoin and beyond. This does not mean simply highlighting our successes and feeding into the model minority myth, often to the detriment of our queer, disabled, neurodivergent or other marginalized brothers, sisters, and siblings. Instead, we want to lift up the lived experience of Asian voices with all their intersectional complexity with both courage and vulnerability.
Furthermore, this organization, like our greater Bowdoin community and society writ-large, does not exist in a vacuum. Our history is woven through and shared by generations of every other community that has existed as a minority in this country. We believe that it is fundamental to stand for, elevate and celebrate our fellow Black, Indigenous and Latino/x alumni to not only help shape an inclusive future for Bowdoin College, but to empower that work beyond Maine Street.
RepresentAsian is part of an initiative by Bowdoin's Office of Development and Alumni Relations, led by Director of Multicultural Alumni Engagement Joycelyn Blizzard, to form stronger alumni communities among Black, Asian, and Latinx alumni. The official Asian group grew out of listening sessions that Blizzard organized in June 2022.
After a year of regular virtual convening following the listening sessions RepresentAsian has selected its leadership thru June 2025:
President: Minal Bopaiah ’99 (DC)
Vice President: Matt Yantakosol ’10 (ME)
Communications Officer/Secretary: Sara Edel ’02 (HI)
Committee Chairs
Governance Chair: Melissa Martin ’98 (DC)
Membership Chair: Hae-Min Gil ’08 (NY)
Alumni Connections Chair: Tim Choi ’02 (CA)
Campus Support Chair: Mark Lucci ’04 (CA)
At Large Members:
Mai Le '00 (MA), Jared Liu '99 (CT), Andrew Park '15 (DC), Abe Sharma ’08 (CA) and David Wu ’17 (CA)
We invite you to join us in creating the community that we need and deserve. Join RepresentAsian: For those interested in becoming part of the conversation and community, please click here to sign up.
