The Asian American community is perceived as the ‘model minority,’ with this comes preferential societal treatment but with COVID and the rise in AAPI hate incidents, this changed. Gary Duong writes about his experience as a queer Asian American man with an African American partner. There are levels to the discrimination minorities face and Gary does an efficient job at examining the elevated prejudice his partner and him are exposed to due to their ethnic racial identity. Duong dives into the intricacies of identifying as an Asian American man and forming part of this community–highlighting the feat of accomplishing the largest representation in Congress to date but also one that has endured microaggressions and overt racism as a result of society’s deeply prejudicial thoughts towards Asian Americans.
