Solving The Identity Dilemma

Calvin Li was fun and outgoing, a wide receiver on the Wootton High School team who loved cracking jokes and was overjoyed last year when he was accepted to the University of Maryland.

Calvin was, in short, the sort of person called “all-American.” Yet, as the son of Chinese immigrants, he didn’t always feel accepted in his country. He chafed at strangers asking where he was “really from” and his family’s attempts to teach him about his ancestral culture. It was a complex identity crisis that was unresolved when Calvin tragically died in a drunk-driving car accident last June.

“When I looked back, I felt there were a lot of things about my son I didn’t understand because of the cultural experiences,” says Paul Li, Calvin’s father.

In memory of his son, Li is giving $1.2 million to the University of Maryland to create the Calvin J. Li Endowed Fellowship in Asian American Studies. It will fund a postdoctoral fellow or visiting scholar to research the issues facing second-generation Asian Americans.

These children face a complicated racial landscape, says Professor Janelle Wong, director of UMD’s Asian American Studies Program. They often can feel like “perpetual foreigners,” even as some more recently immigrated parents may rely on them to navigate language and cultural barriers such as how to pay bills.

“They become an authority in that role,” Wong says. “It can create an interesting but sometimes challenging family dynamic.”

Li says Asian-American children like Calvin often struggle with the “model minority” stereotype of exceptional academic achievement, heaping even more pressure on kids struggling with their identity.

“I wanted to turn this tragedy into something meaningful,” Li says. “I would say Calvin would be proud that I did this. I think there are a lot of kids like him.”