Hidden Dragons: Asian American Women and Sport

In this research, the authors take a multicultural feminist approach to examining Asian American women’s participation in sport during the high school years. Data come from the nationally representative, longitudinal National Educational Longitudinal Survey. Asian American women are virtually invisible in the sport literature in part because of simplistic stereotypes of submissive, subservient Asian American women. Findings suggest considerable diversity across groups of Asian American women in sport participation. They also show that Asian American women, as a whole, have a different pattern of sport participation than other women. However, they are not less involved in sport. They are slightly less involved in sport than are young Asian American men, but this gender effect exists across race and ethnic groups. Implications of these findings for understanding the complexity of Asian American culture and the importance of examining Asian American gender systems as unique products of Asian American history and culture are discussed.