𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐃𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐇𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐓𝐨 𝐁𝐞 𝐀𝐬𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐓𝐨 𝐉𝐨𝐢𝐧

When college freshman Ta'Rnessey "Ren" Sherman joined CSUN's Vietnamese Student Association, she thought she was walking into community, culture, and connection. Instead, she found silence, exclusion, and a hard truth hidden behind the word diversity.

You Don't Have To Be Asian To Join a raw, faith-driven memoir about a Black woman's experience inside an Asian American student club that promised inclusivity - but practiced the opposite. What began as an innocent campus assignment turned into a battle against systemic racism, colorism, and complicity within a community that claimed to be "open to all."

Told with striking honesty and cinematic detail, Ren's story traces her journey from hope to heartbreak, from silence to speaking up. From the moment she was told, "You don't have to be Asian to join," to the moment she realized what that really meant - that she was never meant to belong - this book exposes the quiet racism that hides behind polite smiles, performative diversity, and university politics.

But this isn't just a story about pain. It's a story about purpose, faith, and courage - about what happens when God places one voice in the middle of a community that refuses to listen, and how truth can still rise in spaces built on silence.

With the intimacy of a diary and the force of a documentary, You Don't Have To Be Asian To Join challenges readers to rethink what inclusion truly means - and what it costs to tell the truth when everyone else stays quiet.