His classmates, Asian American peers included, verbally bullied him. Nonetheless, these memories of social isolation remain vivid in his mind, even more than a decade after the incidents had passed. … They all made me feel so different.ĭespite the bullying that Randy faced in high school, he eventually grew up to become a successful registered nurse in Daly City, California. There were a lot of Asians at my high school, and even a few gay people. And I even thought about suicide my senior year.
I spent lunch every day by myself in the library studying. It lasted all through high school and into senior year. It all started my freshman year when people started to suspect that I was gay and started to bully me. Ultimately, our study highlights the need for educators to remain mindful of how the intersection of sexuality and race affect the school climate and educational experiences among gay students of color. Our article reveals that while anti-gay bullying is prevalent, Asian American gay students play up aspects of their racial identity and even strategically capitalize on the model minority stereotype to evade harassment. Though research on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students has emphasized bullying, our findings show that the relationship between sexuality and schooling is more nuanced than studies suggest. In this article, we draw on the educational narratives of 35 Asian American gay men to address this gap. While recent studies have highlighted the socioeconomic and cultural heterogeneity among Asian American students, few have examined how sexual identity and masculinity mitigate their academic experiences. Most research on Asian American education has centered on addressing and deconstructing the model minority stereotype.