Ep. 63: Jess Lee on Race, Identity and the Trouble with Categories

On We Made This Political, hosts Lura Forcum and Lauren Hall talk with sociologist Jess Lee (Cal Poly) about how the umbrella category “Asian American” was created as a post–Civil Rights political instrument to gain visibility and protection, yet can distort reality by centering East Asians, masking vast subgroup diversity, and limiting personal possibilities through stereotypes like the “model minority.” Lee explains how broad categories affect representation, resource allocation, and quantitative research, obscuring poverty, first-generation college needs, and shifting census definitions (including Middle Easterners being counted as white and many Asians reduced to write-ins). The conversation also covers interracial and interethnic dating as largely shaped by access and homogamy (especially socioeconomic), sex ratios in immigration flows, and how assimilation is increasingly seen as hybridization that reshapes what “American” means at the local level.

00:00 Breaking Asian Stereotypes
00:34 Meet the Hosts and Jess Lee
02:19 Why Asian American Feels Messy
07:04 Origins of the Asian American Umbrella
14:25 Model Minority Myth Costs
17:27 Who Counts as Asian
22:20 Selection Effects and Stereotype Promise
30:26 Measurement Problems in Research
36:55 Interracial Dating and Homogamy
49:20 Race Boxes and Census Confusion
52:11 Assimilation and Hybrid America
58:34 Local Hope and Closing