Racial identity is an important but often overlooked aspect of working with Asian American college students. An understanding of racial identity theory can provide useful insight into the ways students experience and deal with college experiences, peers, and their identity. NEW DIRECTIONS FOR STUDENT SERVICES, no. 97, Spring 2002 © Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 33 4 Racial Identity and Asian Americans: Supports and Challenges Alvin N. Alvarez From the Thai American student coordinating an Asian American heritage celebration to the Japanese American student who prefers to distance her- self from Asian American student groups to the South Asian student grap- pling with a newfound awareness of racism in his Asian American history course, the varied faces of “Asian American racial identity” clearly challenge student affairs practitioners to recognize yet another level of heterogeneity in the Asian American student community. While various authors (Chun, 1980; Suzuki, 1977) have argued convincingly for recognition of the eth- nic, generational, socioeconomic, and linguistic heterogeneity of the Asian American community, the concept of an Asian American racial identity has generally been treated as a homogenous construct, as though all Asian Americans identify psychologically with the Asian American community to the same degree. Even a cursory poll of Asian American students about Asian American racial identity will most likely yield a continuum of reac- tions, ranging from pride to confusion to outright rejection of such an iden- tity. Consequently, a challenge for student affairs professionals in serving such a heterogeneous community is to address critical questions about the role of racial identity development for Asian American students—for instance: How is it that some students develop their racial and political con- sciousness whereas others do not? What facilitates this process of racial consciousness? And what role do student affairs professionals play in the development of an Asian American racial identity? The purpose of this chapter is to examine the relevance of race and racial identity for Asian Americans in college as well as their implications for student affairs profes- sionals.