Montclair Kimberley Academy (MKA) is a co-ed private school in Montclair, NJ. The school is tri-campus, containing grades Pre-K to 12th.

Check out the school website

Alana: So…how did we start?

Emma: Yeah, how did we start?

Alana: Well, I mean it probably began in sixth grade when you first came to MKA, #besties. I mean, I didn’t really think about being Asian necessarily until I met you. I’ve been at MKA since pre-K, and I think that as it is a predominantly white institution, I unconsciously hid aspects of my ethnic and cultural identity to fit in with my peers. Then you showed up and served as an outlet where I felt comfortable and safe enough to begin uncovering parts of myself that I had concealed.

Emma: Aww, I love our origin story. I completely agree. I think that we connected immediately, I mean, we’re soulmates, and our dialogue always felt meaningful in the sense that you helped me delve deeper into parts of my identity I hadn’t known before. In terms of our middle school experience, teachers kept confusing us and other Asian students for one another: we would always laugh about that, but I mean, even then we recognized how ridiculous and biased it all was. The beginning of high school was bizarre due to Covid, hybrid learning, and also the, not really emergence, but increased visibility of anti-Asian prejudice. Asian-ness has always been a frequent topic of conversation, but as we were witnessing hate crime after hate crime and then the March 2021 Atlanta Spa Shootings, we legitimately reached a breaking point.

Alana: I fully remember leaving school and breaking down in the car the day that Filipino Lola got assaulted in New York. I called you–

Emma: Yeah, you called me and then we were both sobbing on FaceTime, absolute hysterical messes with tears, snot, the whole shebang. After, we became pretty resolute about taking action ourselves, and we made that doc called “Doing Something.”

Alana: Honestly, never thought that that would come to fruition, but look at us now! Then we started meeting with school faculty advisors to express our frustrations and how we could get involved…

click here to read more about our thoughts freshman year (March 2021).

The purpose of the affinity group is to foster a safe environment for Asian-identifying MKA students and faculty to engage in conversations revolving around various experiences and shared/differing aspects of identity.

We became the leaders of the MKA AAPI Affinity Group at the beginning of our sophomore year. We then went on to give presentations, host events, and coordinate food fundraisers to raise money for charities like Stop AAPI Hate, AAPI Montclair, and the Maui Wildfire Relief Fund.

Check out past AAPI Affinity events!

For our junior year, we decided to conduct a year-long independent study titled, “Asian American Identities: an Exploration of Our Place in America.”

Our research came to fruition through this website!

click here to read our proposal (September 2022).

click here to read our mid-project written statement (January 2023)

Alana and Emma will be graduating from Montclair Kimberley Academy in June 2024. Alana will attend Villanova University (‘28) as a Finance major and St. Martin de Porres Scholar, and Emma will attend Pomona College (‘28), majoring in Media Studies. Both hope to continue to give voice to AAPI stories as they move on to higher education and look fondly at the legacy they left in their high school.

“It’s been an empowering experience: talks of resolution signifying the beginning of greater AAPI awareness and diversity within curricula as curricula has either the choice to uplift or reduce valuable voices. So in continuing this progressing trend, our website, our legacy, will continue in the capable hands of AAPI underclassmen – the creatives, the visionaries, the future – to ensure our voices are uplifted and, perhaps, serve as a platform to find, reconcile, advocate, or re-articulate their own place within AAPI’s expansiveness.”

—quote from our presentation at the Princeton Prize in Race Relations Award Ceremony