For John Y. Hsu ’03 and Arar Han, “Asian American” is more than a vague racial category—it serves as a powerful collective identity from which diverse individual Asian American personalities spring. In Asian American X, released this past August, Hsu and Han impart the experience of being Asian American through a compilation of 35 short essays by college-aged Asian American authors from across the country.

With titles like “Thin Enough to Be Asian” and “Another American Mutt,” the essays clearly cohere around questions of ethnicity and identity in America.

But the book’s genius lies in its variety. Asian American X is not about a quintessential Asian American experience; it is about unique voices that speak to the diversity within the category.

Hsu said in a phone call that he and Han thought about the potential danger involved in endorsing the “Asian American” label, since labels often beget stereotypes.

But Hsu insists that Asian American X makes stereotyping impossible. “When you pick up this book you realize that there’s no single stereotype or image or phrase that captures what it means to be Asian American,” he said. “That’s why it’s Asian American X. ‘X’ is a variable.”

Hsu explains that the “X” also alludes to The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Generation X, the film American History X and the concept of intersection.

Hsu and Han grew up together in Cupertino, CA, where they say Asians are in the majority. They agree that, as young Asian Americans coming of age in “a suburban Asian enclave,” it was relatively easy for them to establish strong individual identities outside of their collective Asian American identity.

Hsu and Han say they began formulating the idea for their book as college sophomores, Hsu at Harvard, Han at Boston College. In March 2001, The Crimson published Justin G. Fong ’03’s op-ed piece entitled “The Invasion.” He accused Asian American Harvard students of reinforcing Asian American stereotypes.

The piece provoked heated debate among students on a number of college campuses. Han wrote a letter to The Crimson in response. She admitted that Fong’s accusations may have been too strong, but immediately recognized the necessity of his outcry. “He had hit a raw nerve in college communities that needed to be tapped, and a productive discussion had begun,” she said in a phonecall.

Hsu and Han say they found their imperative in the fury with which the Asian American community reacted to Fong’s j’accuse. “We a saw a collective yearning to be understood and heard,” Han said.

Hsu remembered having conversations with Han early on in college during which they would remark how strikingly different their college experiences were from high-school. Han said she felt as though she did not belong at Boston College and wondered why. She credited her discussions with Hsu and to an even greater degree Fong’s article with crystallizing this sentiment and inciting her to action.

“The wondering became constructive through my readings, as I used them to map my existence in the terrain of American society,” Han said. “And then I realized that I, and probably the many other Asian Americans in my generation too, had something to say about where we each belonged on the map.”

Hsu also identified the desire to understand the prerogative of other Asian Americans across the country as the creative impetus for Asian American X.

Thus began Hsu and Han’s three-year collaboration on Asian American X, modeled after the spirit of important works such as Eric Liu’s The Accidental Asian, Richard Rodriguez’s The Hunger of Memory and Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s The Bondswoman’s Narrative.

The two-person editorial team put out a call for essays during the summer after their sophomore year, which they subjected to a four-round selection process. Various faculty members, including Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy John Holdren and Assistant Professor of Chinese Literary and Cultural Studies Eileen Cheng-yin Chow, advised them on the publication process along the way.