What
Asian-American history is—and is not—taught
The U.S. has
no national curriculum that requires the teaching of any kind of history, let
alone Asian-American history. But individual states’ social studies standards,
which influence what will be included in standardized tests and textbooks, only
scratch the surface of Asian-American history. Though there’s no central
database of how Asian-American history shows up in those standards, curricula
tend to focus on a few milestones, including Chinese immigration in the
mid-19th century, Chinese laborers’ role in building the transcontinental
railroad, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and the incarceration of nearly
120,000 people of Japanese ancestry—including American citizens—during World
War II.
But those
moments hardly tell the whole story. And, educators say, they don’t give an
accurate picture of the Asian-American experience.
A more
complete version of the history might include a deeper look at anti-Asian
discrimination, with lessons about the mob violence faced by immigrants from
Asian countries. It would also include milestones in U.S. history achieved by
people of Asian descent, from labor leader Larry Itliong’s role in organizing
the landmark Delano Grape Strike to Patsy Mink becoming the first
Asian-American woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. And it would
go beyond the boundaries of the United States. With that in mind, on March 19,
Moé Yonamine, 43, a high school social studies teacher in Portland, Ore.—who
teaches five minutes from where 3,676 Japanese Americans were held before being
transported to internment camps—reminded her students that Asian-American
history can’t be understood fully without considering the consequences of
foreign U.S. actions and how those actions shaped circumstances
that led people to flee Asian countries. Yonamine said she will be spending her
spring break putting together a lesson plan about Asian-American history-makers
to know.
“It feels
like, while I’m grieving, I’ve been put in action to teach things that we don’t
have enough curriculum for,” says Yonamine.
Patsy
Takemoto Mink attending a subcommittee hearing/markup around 1971-1972.
Courtesy Gwendolyn Mink/Patsy Takemoto Mink papers, Library of Congress.
Sohyun An, a
professor of elementary and early childhood education at Georgia’s Kennesaw
State University who has researched how Asian-American history is represented
in state social studies standards nationwide, lives about 20 minutes away from
the spas that were attacked. She worries that if students only learn about
Asian American history as an immigration story, they may not realize how long
the community has actually been here. And, she says, that ignorance can have
serious consequences.
“Asians were
part of the United States even well before many white European immigrants came
through Ellis Island,” An tells TIME. “Kids grow up in Georgia and think Asians
are all foreigners, and when they become ‘the enemy’ to the national crisis
like COVID-19, ‘the military enemy’ and ‘economic competitor like China or
Japan,’ it’s all coming from a missed opportunity in school [to teach] that
Asians are a part of America…Curriculum is not a matter of academic debate. The
danger is real.”
‘They don’t
want to talk about race’
Georgia’s
state social studies standards for what fifth-grade students are expected to
know list Japanese aggression in Asia and the Pearl Harbor attacks, but not the
incarceration of Japanese-Americans in the U.S. One of An’s students, Lisa Chu,
29, a fifth-grade teacher in suburban Atlanta, says she’s asked her students in
the last year to consider why that is.
“They’re
able to kind of see we don’t learn this because we either don’t think it’s
important enough to learn, or it just kind of puts the U.S. in a bad light,”
says Chu, “and so it’s better to talk about other countries and their
wrongdoings than it is our own and to be reflective of our own past mistakes.”
Scholars
agree that one of the reasons a full history of Asian Americans has not been
incorporated into core U.S. History curricula in K-12 schools is because it
doesn’t portray America in a positive light.
“K-12
American history texts reinforce the narrative that Asian immigrants and
refugees are fortunate to have been ‘helped’ and ‘saved’ by the U.S.,” Jean Wu,
who has taught Asian American Studies for more than 50 years and is a senior
lecturer emerita at Tufts University, said in an email to TIME. “The story does
not begin with U.S. imperialist wars that were waged to take Asian wealth and
resources and the resulting violence, rupture and displacement in relation to
Asian lives. Few realize that there is an Asian diaspora here in the U.S.
because the U.S. went to Asia first.”
Occasionally,
major world events can lead to more teaching of Ethnic Studies—but that hasn’t
been the case with Asian-American history.
“Attention
to teaching histories and realities of racialized marginalized groups has
always been reactionary instead of proactive in U.S. K-12 education,” Wu says.
“Historic moments such as the murder of Vincent Chin, the Japanese-American
Redress Movement, the destruction of Koreatown, 9/11 and targeting of South
Asian Americans did not engender interest in AAPI histories and curricular re-evaluation
in K-12.”
The
obstacles to improvement are many. For example, Noreen Naseem Rodríguez, an
Assistant Professor of Elementary Social Studies at Iowa State University, says
that many of the teaching candidates she supervises have not had exposure to a
wide range of historical perspectives, and might hesitate when it comes to
instructing them. In the 2017-2018 school year, about 80% of public school
teachers were white, compared to 2% who were Asian.
“I see this
real terror that they’re going to say or do something that will upset parents
and end their careers, so they don’t want to talk about race,” Rodríguez says.
“They want books that have diverse characters, but they don’t really want to
talk about racial discrimination or stereotypes, unless it’s through a
simplified context of bullying. So when teachers are trying to emphasize
notions of being nice or kind rather than being anti-racist, not being unjust,
that’s why we’re not ready as a society, or particularly as K-12 educators, to
deeply engage with these topics because perhaps we ourselves haven’t done that
learning.”
“I see this real terror that they’re going to
say or do something that will upset parents and end their careers, so they
don’t want to talk about race,” Rodríguez says. “They want books that have
diverse characters, but they don’t really want to talk about racial
discrimination or stereotypes, unless it’s through a simplified context of
bullying. So when teachers are trying to emphasize notions of being nice or
kind rather than being anti-racist, not being unjust, that’s why we’re not
ready as a society, or particularly as K-12 educators, to deeply engage with
these topics because perhaps we ourselves haven’t done that learning.”
The way
forward
There are
signs, however, that people may be ready to learn. The increase in Asian
Americans in Congress, in Hollywood, in newsrooms and among K-12 teachers have
all been key to raising awareness of the lack of Asian American history,
historian and author Erika Lee tells TIME, after testifying during the historic
March 18 congressional hearing on anti-Asian discrimination. The real question
now, she says, is whether that frustration over lack of resources will be
channeled into meaningful systemic change in rethinking core U.S. History
curricula.
Leading
education non-profits and publishers such as Zinn Education Project, Learning
for Justice and Rethinking Schools have long tried to address the issue by
publishing articles and lesson plans on Asian-American history-makers and
milestones and that adapt historians’ work for young readers. And the education
organization Facing History tells TIME it is working on a new curriculum on
Asian Pacific Islander and Asian American Pacific Islander history. There are
also Asian-American organizations that offer resources, like the Smithsonian
Asian Pacific American Center’s education website. One new resource for
teachers that came out in 2020 are lesson plans for K-12 by Asian Americans
Advancing Justice, pegged to the PBS Asian Americans documentary that aired in
May 2020, and the organization is figuring out how to organize professional
development workshops for teachers.
However,
there is not one universal aggregator for U.S. teachers for all available
resources on this subject. If educators want to teach this history, it’s
usually up to them to hunt for the information, websites, and professional
development workshops to attend.
“This is a
problem with education, because no one wants to put any money towards it,” says
Karen Korematsu, Fred Korematsu’s daughter and Executive Director of the Fred
T. Korematsu Institute to promote education on Japanese-American incarceration.
In terms of
policy efforts, a Connecticut House bill aims to include Asian American history
in a model curriculum for public schools, and an Illinois House bill aims to
require an Asian American history unit in elementary schools and high schools.
On March 18, the California State Board of Education approved a roughly
900-page Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum that includes
about a
dozen AAPI lessons. The curriculum isn’t mandatory, but a reference for school
districts; Karen Korematsu was involved in the effort for it to include more
AAPI topics.
“Right now
we’re seeing so much interest and response to learning about Asian-American
history, Asian-American women, and the history of anti-Asian racism,” says Lee.
“There is the potential for this moment right now to be an opportunity where
there is a greater reckoning of the ways in which this lack of historical
lessons are a disservice to our country and our communities. There is a moment
here, an opportunity, where we may see not just an interest this week and next
week, but a newfound commitment and resources and institutions that will
sustain it for the many years to come.”