A lot of people ask me why I went on Survivor.  There were several reasons, such as the hope of increasing the representation of Asian Americans on television and trying to get away from stereotypical depictions of people from our community.  But a deeper motivation was to have a platform for raising awareness of a need that's been haunting me ever since my days in college. 

In middle school, I befriended a soft-spoken kid named Evan.  He was the nicest, gentlest person I'd ever met, and he was especially timid around girls, although he had a weird knack of getting crushes from the girls that I liked.  In high school, we were inseparable, and when we got into college together, we were beside ourselves.  Four more years of goofing around, thinking about girls, and pulling all-niters! 

Evan liked to sleep a lot and he had this tendency to fart when he snoozed, which some girls found oddly endearing.  Sometime in our sophomore year, though, I started noticing that he slept more and more each day, until I got worried about him and made him go see a doctor.  I remember the day they told me that he had leukemia, it felt like my heart stopped. 

Evan went through multiple rounds of chemo and radiation therapy, but none of it worked.  The doctors told us that there was still one cure that might keep him alive -- a bone marrow transplant.  But the problem was that there weren't many Asian Americans who had volunteered to become potential bone marrow donors.  There were so few, in fact, that Evan's chances of finding a match in the national database was about 1 in 10,000.  Needless to say, they didn't find a perfect match.

I spent the next few months desperately trying to organize bone marrow drives to get more Asian Americans to sign up to become potential donors.  Back then, getting registered was a dicey proposition -- you had to convince someone to give a blood sample, and I couldn't tell you how many people walked away at the thought of getting poked with a needle.  Today, it's far simpler and totally painless -- you just have to fill out wipe a few cotton swabs inside your cheek.  But time ran out for my friend, and Evan passed away in our junior year.

This whole experience made me see a few things more clearly.  First, I saw how people within our community weren't necessarily committed to helping each other.  A lot of first generation Asian Americans had cultural aversions or misconceptions about giving away something from your body.  Many second generation Asian Americans we approached were focused on their studies or careers and didn't care so much about making a broader social impact. Second, the lack of Asian American representation in media, politics, and business really made it difficult for us to attract or organize support within the mainstream community, or even our own community.  It was hard to get out the message because we didn't have many visible leaders. 

In the years since Evan died, I've tried to stay active in the effort to register more bone marrow donors and to encourage more Asian Americans to get involved in politics or community service.  When I was recruited to be on Survivor, I thought it was an opportunity to have a megaphone through which I could speak to these issues both within and outside our community.  As it turns out, most of what I said on the show ended up on the floor of the editing room (which wasn't always a bad thing - I had some crazy digestive challenges on the show).   But I've since tried to use the platform I've been given to get more people thinking about making a difference, doing something beyond the limits of self-interest, and volunteering for a cause, whether it's bone marrow, politics, or domestic violence. 

Because the need is still there.  While we've made some progress, there is still a profound underrepresentation of Asian Americans in the national database for bone marrow (something called the bone marrow registry).  Because I've been a spokesperson for the cause, I've gotten to know many wonderful people, including kids, who need to find a bone marrow donor.  It's heartbreaking to know that many, if not most, won't find one. 

Please, if you haven't signed up to become a marrow donor, take a few moments to get registered.  You can get the facts by visiting the Asian American Donor Program's website at www.aadp.org.   Signing up is a simple process - you can either find and show up at a bone marrow drive in your area, or contact AADP and ask them to send you a testing kit in the mail. 

Better yet, if you have the time, consider organizing a bone marrow drive at work, church, or other community organization.  It's a pretty easy process.  You can contact one of the Asian American bone marrow recruitment organizations if you live near one of them, and they will provide the staff and equipment to set up a drive.  If you live in Northern California, the AADP is your best bet.  If you live in SoCal, contact the Asian for Miracle Marrow Matches at www.asianmarrow.org.  If you live on the east coast, contact the Cammy Lee Leukemia Foundation at www.cllf.org. 

Thanks for reading this, and if you are willing to take it upon yourself to potentially save someone's life, thanks for making a difference.

Yul

P.S.  Here's a youtube video about bone marrow that I helped make with the Asian Pacific American Medical Students Association: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY2bX1S0VpA