Eri Lee knows who she is and where she's going.
 
But the journey and identity affirmation has been a complicated experience.
 
Lee, a child of Japanese and Korean immigrants and first-generation descendant of the Asian Diaspora, says that growing up, there was no shortage of Asian and Asian American skaters to look up to as role models. But as such, she felt unfair expectations to be the kind of Asian skater that felt familiar to peers, coaches and officials.

 
Those contradicting experiences, however, cemented her love for skating.
 
"Skating gave me an outlet for emotional expression and freedom of movement," Lee explains. "As an Asian American, skating has been a space of both exclusion and empowerment, ultimately shaping the work that I do in coaching and research today."
 
Lee, who was born and raised in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, began skating at age 3, and joined her first synchronized skating team when she was 5. In grade school and middle school, she competed in singles, pairs and synchronized skating, and by the time she was 12 she made the Chicago Jazz junior team and competed with the U.S. National Team for the first time. She moved to Boston as a senior in high school to compete with the powerhouse Haydenettes, representing The Skating Club of Boston.
 
"I'm realizing how important the synchro discipline was for me," Lee says. "The team aspect of synchro is something that has stuck with me. I see the value in the team aspect, and those experiences shaped the way I think about systems and cultures in the world."
 
For example, Lee says that during the COVID pandemic she struggled seeing many of the injustices happening to Asian Americans. It prompted her to learn more about her family's history, and to ask questions: Why did they migrate to the U.S.? What are the challenges they've faced? And to use her voice as a U.S. National Team athlete to start conversations.
 
"I think among Asian American athletes in particular, we tend to be silent about the sort of hardships we've been through," Lee says. "But I'm rambunctious. I have a bubbly personality. I can be loud. And there were moments when I felt like I wasn't being the kind of Asian that made sense to most people. I learned from a young age that the first thing people see is my race. Whether or not I meet their expectations of what that is or is not, there's still that very cognizant awareness."
 
Those experiences, combined with her interest in culture and society, led Lee to obtain a bachelor's degree in sociology. She then found herself wondering how she might connect the dots between her academic interests and sports. Those two interests came together when she enrolled as a graduate student at the University of Minnesota, currently earning her master's of science in kinesiology, and planning to join a PhD program in feminist studies this fall. Her research sits at the intersection of critical sports studies, intersectional feminist studies and Asian American studies.
 
"My focus is on figure skating, and synchro skating specifically," Lee says. "I'm primarily interested in how Asian Americans come to understand their roles as National Team athletes who represent the United States, despite being children of immigrants or immigrants themselves. I feel fortunate to be able to explore my passions in a way that feels meaningful to me."
 
Alongside her studies, Lee coaches for the Northernettes juvenile and novice teams based in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. She says she doesn't want her students to go through the same challenges she did.
 
"The nature of participating in competitive sports means there will be challenges," she says. "I don't have to manufacture those challenges for them. I want to do my best to equip them with the tools to confidently and gracefully guide themselves through those inevitable challenges."
 
Part of that, Lee says, is building honest relationships with the students as well as their parents so they can make decisions that are best for their families.
 
"That also means teaching my students, and sometimes the parents, that competitiveness is good, but that winning isn't always the most important thing," Lee says. "It's my job as a coach to redirect the focus. What are the lessons we're learning? Are we developing into good learners? Good teammates? And good community members?"
 
Lee aims to complete her PhD in the next five years. From there, she'd like to become a professor where she can connect with young students.
 
"I would love to create space where Asian skaters, as well as other skaters with marginalized identities, can ask questions about ourselves, our histories and our relationship with skating to create a world in which more people can fall in love with skating," Lee says. "It all starts by learning about our histories."