Lai says that as she learned more about what she called systemic injustices against people in Taiwan, she became increasingly interested in broader issues of racial and ethnic prejudice in the United States as well.

Lai lived a relatively sheltered life growing up in Pittsford, N.Y., a small suburb outside of Rochester.

Her high school was made up of relatively affluent students, about 92 percent of whom were white, four percent black, and four percent East and South Asian.

Lai says she first realized that this composition was not necessarily typical when she attended a Center for Talented Youth (CTY) summer program and other camps during her high school years.

“A huge proportion of where I’m from is very conformist, upper-middle class, suburban, and white,” she says.

Lai decided she liked the diversity she experienced during her summers, and made it a criterion in her college search. She chose to attend Harvard, a school she believed would offer the diversity she craved.

Yet, Lai says attending Harvard only served to open her eyes to a whole new range of inequalities that exist in American society, despite its seeming diversity.

When she entered as a first-year, Lai says she bought into the so-called “model minority” myth about Asian Americans—they were naturally hard-working and dutiful, and thus attained more success in American society than other minority groups.

“I thought that if people had strong values, worked hard and delayed gratification, they would be successful,” she says.

Lai says she was proud that she had attended a public high school, and that her father had worked his way out of poverty and given her the opportunities that allowed her to reach Harvard’s halls. She decided hard work was the key to success in the Unites States.

Yet she soon discovered she was an exception rather than the rule.

“I realized I was unusual, that my father was actually poor in Taiwan but that at Harvard many kids come from elite Taiwanese families,” she says.

She notes that she has observed the same phenomenon among other minority groups on campus, as well, with many coming from relatively privileged families.

“At Harvard I realized that some people, no matter how hard they work, will never get here. Society is really not mobile,” she says.

Lai had initially joined the Harvard Republican Club, because they shared her meritocratic values.