Coming Together as a Community

By June H. Ng, MD

As a Complex Family Planning fellow, improving reproductive health equity for marginalized populations is important to me. In 2019, I dedicated my fellowship research project to studying the impact of China's one-child policy on the reproductive decision making of people of the Chinese diaspora in the United States. My project started recruitment in 2020, just as anti-Asian hate crimes were increasing and the presidential administration made liberal use of terms such as "China virus" and "kung flu." I walked around New York City's Chinatown distributing flyers, messaged AAPI community groups on social media, and interviewed participants. I was blown away by the support I received from the AAPI community: elderly folks in Chinatown, young people abandoned as babies in China and adopted in the U.S., and my peers and mentors across the nation.

While anti-Asian hate remains unacceptable and incredibly upsetting, our AAPI community motivates me. I'm excited to advocate not only for the inclusion of AAPI people in reproductive health research, but also the deconstruction of structural racism in our field, because uplifting our AAPI community also helps fulfill our commitment to uplifting all Black and indigenous communities and communities of color as well.