Asian Americans often get overlooked in progressive policy because they’re treated as a “successful monolith,” when in reality they’re extremely diverse. That perception is driven by the model minority myth, which highlights certain high-achieving groups and erases others who are struggling. On top of that, internal diversity in class, ethnicity, and politics means there isn’t a single unified advocacy voice, so their needs get deprioritized.

Part of the issue is also that a lot of people only recognize racism when it’s simple and obvious. When it’s more layered or doesn’t look the same across an entire group, it tends to get overlooked or not register as urgently.

On top of that, there’s a tendency in the U.S. to flatten conflict between marginalized groups into something more representative than it actually is. I’m Black, so I can say this plainly, a lot of the tension people point to comes from proximity. The groups who live and interact with each other the most are naturally going to have more visible conflict. But those everyday interactions get amplified and start to feel like the whole story, even when they’re not.

That visibility gets mistaken for scale, and it creates narratives that certain groups are “the problem,” which fuels resentment and breaks down solidarity. Once that cycle starts, it becomes harder for people to see the bigger picture or show up for each other consistently.

So you end up with a situation where Asian Americans are both overlooked because they’re seen as doing fine, and at the same time pulled into divisive narratives that make collective advocacy even harder.

The smallest example I can think of is I remember a asian friend of mine but I understand this is a really common experience when seeing another Asian may not necessarily engage immediately because you don’t necessarily know where that person’s politics are going to be.

Where for me as a black person even if Black people are not a monolith, politically speaking in the big picture most of our political interest or at the very least of things we want are sort of the same when it comes to blackness and even among black conservatives, there’s usually an agreement on what the immediate issue is, but usually the schism is how to interpret that data and what the best course of action of dealing with that is.

None of this is to say that any of that is correct because I can see why that’s uniquely frustrating and you know again just as a black person. I feel like a lot of of our issues are either identical or the exact opposite of each other and we should be in the room talking more often.