Asian-American & Latinx Student-Athlete Trailblazers at Duke

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Lilly Ma, Malai Escamilla

Spring 2022

Throughout the past half-century, sports at Duke University have gained widespread traction and fame nationwide. As home to the famousBlue Devils and having a total endowment of just under $13 billion, it’s no wonder that sports at Duke has millions of fans.

In this article, we will be discussing the early Asian-American and Latinx pioneers in Duke Athletics. In doing so, we worked closely in both the University Archives and the Duke Athletics website in searching for not only the firsts of these categories but also influential athletes who helped to shape sports at Duke as a whole. As such, it is important to acknowledge that our findings are based on only a few weeks of research, and there may be some discrepancies. Given that the university has transitioned from paper to online newspapers and resources, along with the shortage of complete information previous to the 1980s, we did our best to work carefully past information gaps in ensuring the most accurate information. We look forward to presenting our findings on early prominent Asian-American and Latinx student-athletes at Duke University, and hope you enjoy.

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