Disrupting curriculum of violence on Asian Americans
Project LEARN Category
L- Listen
E- Educate
A - Acknowledge
Intended Audience(s)
Theme/Focus
Racism
Activism
Article Details
Citation:
An, S. (2020). Disrupting curriculum of violence on Asian Americans. Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 42(2), 141–156. https://doi.org/10.1080/10714413.2020.1753492
Article Abstract
Article Abstract - Mommy, would we be slaves if we were alive back then? —Sunny Kwun, 10-year-old Korean American
For me, the exclusion of Asian American history from the U.S. history narrative is highly problematic. It was a source of a lot of confusion and alienation. My college experience opened my eyes to a different kind of historical narrative that includes the stories of people of color and gives them value and priority. —David Zhou, a fourth-generation Chinese American
I am worried about the next week. It brings memories of feeling guilty when hearing about the bombing of the Pearl Harbor and seeing my classmates stare at me because I was the only Japanese girl in the room. Though I obviously did not play a role in that horrific event, I still felt a sense of guilt because I am proud of my heritage and where I come from. —Hanna Saito, a Japanese American preservice teacher
I think it was around 9/11’s anniversary. Kids pushed me, and I fell off the school bus and broke my leg. Throughout my school years, I was called a terrorist, Bin Laden, or told to “Go back to your country.” I was teased, pushed, and kicked, but the teachers didn’t do anything. —Gary Singh, a Sikh American preservice teacher
If you don’t like America, go back to Korea! If you don’t like our democracy and capitalism, go back to your communist country! —Anonymous preservice teacher
As an Asian American mother, scholar, and teacher educator, I encounter anti-Asian racism, directly and indirectly, every day. My 10-year-old daughter, Sunny, asked me one day after school, “Mommy, would we be slaves if we were alive during the time of slavery?” From kindergarten to fifth grade, the social studies curriculum at her school featured a long list of White with few African Americans. Among those included and studied, there was not a single person or event of Asian American history. This curricular practice sent the message to Sunny that the United States is a country of White people and that people of color, especially Asian Americans, have little to no place in it. Puzzled, Sunny was trying to find a place where she and other Asian Americans could belong in the story of the United States (An, 2020a).