Ideas worth spreading

I am not your Asian stereotype

3,761,125 views |

Canwen Xu |

TEDxBoise

• April 2016

Growing up in the US in predominantly white communities, Canwen Xu struggled to reconcile her American and her Chinese identities. She explains the unique ways that racial bias affects Asian Americans — and shares how she has learned to embrace all of the different parts of her background.

Growing up in the US in predominantly white communities, Canwen Xu struggled to reconcile her American and her Chinese identities. She explains the unique ways that racial bias affects Asian Americans — and shares how she has learned to embrace all of the different parts of her background.

This talk was presented to a local audience at TEDxBoise, an independent event.

Read more about TEDx.

About the speaker

Canwen Xu

Student

Canwen Xu's slogan for life is “Canwen can win.” Born in Nanjing, China, she moved to the United States when she was two years old, and since then has lived in some of the whitest states in the country, including North Dakota, South Dakota and Idaho. A senior at Timberline High School, Canwen is passionate about politics, and is the national membership director and Idaho state director for the Young Democrats High School Caucus. Also a programmer, she started an all-girls computer science workshop called Code For Fun and received National Runner-Up in the 2014 NCWIT Aspirations in Computing competition. In her free time, Canwen enjoys breaking stereotypes, reaffirming stereotypes, and driving competently on her way to buy rice.

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This talk was presented to a local audience at TEDxBoise, an independent event.

Read more about TEDx.