A young African American man speaks genially yet matter-of-factly into the camera. “So I’m looking for a petite, gracious woman which typically, traditionally happens to be an Asian woman.” A white man wearing a black t-shirt emblazoned with a red and gold Chinese dragon says earnestly, “It’s so hard to explain. It’s just like why do some people like blue more than green?” A mustached man with flowing dirty blonde hair, glasses and a soul patch says with a sheepish-but-proud little chuckle, “From my experience, Asian girls have been better lovers.”

Here are the experiences of three Asian Americans who attended HBCUs in search of a unique experience in higher education.

Tucked away down an alley in San Francisco’s Chinatown, the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory has been mixing, baking and hand-folding its cookies since 1962. It is frequented by tourists year round, who vie for a glimpse of the cookie’s life cycle before it ends up next to sliced oranges on Lazy Susans across the globe. But most tourists don’t know that the hand-folded demonstration is actually a romanticized notion of the genesis of these ubiquitous cookies.

Is there an Asian American cookie monster? She'd want to see this.

Alison Roh Park was 14 the first time she saw a man masturbating across from her on the subway. Another time, a group of drunk white men obstructed her path outside a bar and asked for a massage. “Men will explicitly refer to me as ‘China Doll,’ ‘Dragon Lady,’ ‘Chinita,’ ‘Miss Chin,’ even ‘Sushi!’ ” says Park, a 29-year-old Korean American activist from Queens, NY, who is part of a growing movement against street harassment. Thanks to the proliferation of smartphones and GPS technology, she and women around the globe are finding new ways of speaking up and talking back.