Editor’s note: This story has graphic language and descriptions of racial slurs, harmful rhetoric and violence against Asians and other students of color attending public schools. If you need support or have experienced violence, discrimination, harassment or racism, find an organization that can help in this database.
Hai Au Huynh was fed up.
The 45-year-old Texas mother had been trying to reach a resolution with teachers and administrators for months after both her boys experienced anti-Asian racial harassment at their elementary school. Despite multiple emails, meetings and officially filed grievances, school officials would neither condemn the racist acts nor guarantee her boys any protection, she said.
On Nov. 13, she took the podium in front of the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District board meeting in the Houston suburb, ready to share her story.
“My Asian-American children have been the target of several racist attacks in CFISD this past year. My 8- and 11-year-old should not have to repeatedly tell other children why it is wrong to use racist slurs,” she said.
Huynh told the board her boys had been called “ching-chong-wing-wong” on their entire bus ride home, an incident caught on video. After her older son and classmates commemorated their last day of school by signing each other’s shirts, he looked at the back of his own and discovered to his horror someone had drawn a swastika on it.
“The lack of accountability by CFISD is appalling. The district’s job is to protect all children, and it has failed miserably in that regard,” she said as she asked the board to grant a “stay away” order against the student who drew the swastika, a request school officials denied. “My children do not feel CFISD will keep them safe.”
The school district did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.
The experiences of generations of Asian American and Pacific Islander children educated in U.S….
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