Episode 10:
Rising Together: Investing in the Next Generation of AAPI Women and Girls
with Sophia Lai, Board Chair and Michelle Chen, Youth Leadership Program – Program Manager
Do you struggle to rest?
Lindsay sits down with ASPIRE (Asian Sisters Participating in Reaching Excellence) leaders Sophia Lai, Board Chair and Michelle Chen, Program Manager – Youth Leadership Program, to explore what it takes to nurture the next generation of AAPI girls and women.
They discuss the cultural and structural challenges AAPI girls face, why identity-rooted mentorship matters, and how ASPIRE’s programs turn mentees into mentors—creating a self-sustaining pipeline of leadership, sisterhood, and belonging. Listeners gain insight into how they get involved and support this vital initiative.
LISTEN OR WATCH NOW:
“We don’t know what questions to ask because we don’t know what we don’t know – and that’s exactly why mentorship matters.”
Michelle Chen
What you learn in this episode:
Why hard work alone isn’t enough for AAPI women—and how identity-rooted mentorship accelerates leadership, confidence, and opportunity.
How cultural expectations around silence, caregiving, and conformity uniquely shape the leadership paths of AAPI girls and women.
The structural barriers AAPI women face in education, mental health, and career advancement—and why early intervention matters.
How ASPIRE’s mentorship model turns mentees into mentors, creating a sustainable pipeline of leadership and belonging.
Concrete ways listeners can support, mentor, or get involved in expanding opportunities for the next generation of AAPI girls and women.
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About the Organization and Guests
ASPIRE’s (Asian Sisters Participating in Reaching Excellence) mission is to build and empower a community of Asian American women leaders through identity development, mentorship, and education. ASPIRE acknowledges a specific set of socio-cultural pressures that AA women face, that are targeted in our programs for developing leadership and career skills. Eliminating the widely perpetuated “model minority” myth and empowering Asian-American women to find their own stories to success are two of our main focuses. By tailoring our programs for girls and women in not only the Boston area’s but also other growing Asian communities, we hope that we can combat perceptions that limit Asian American women in our society.
With 1,800 subscribers nationwide and more than 200 volunteers since its incorporation, ASPIRE aims to create a cross-generational community of Asian American girls and women that fosters dialogue, learning, support, mentoring, self-exploration, and relationships beyond ASPIRE. By strengthening our own sense of community and connectedness, we hope to provide women of all ages with opportunities that serve as a vehicle to learn from each other, inspire social change, and encourage and promote leadership in Asian American girls and women.
Sophia Lai is the Board Chair of ASPIRE where she helps advance identity-rooted mentorship and leadership development for Asian American girls and women. She brings a longstanding commitment to community leadership and has served ASPIRE in multiple volunteer roles since 2014.
Find Sophia:
Michelle Chen is a Program Manager of ASPIRE’s Youth Leadership Program, where she worked closely with AAPI youth to build confidence, voice, and leadership through identity-rooted mentorship. With a background in community engagement and volunteer leadership, Michelle is deeply committed to creating supportive spaces for young women to explore their identities, share their stories, and navigate personal and professional growth.
Find Michelle:
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