Asian American K-12 statewide policies have been sweeping states since 2020 as one of the primary responses to the rise of anti-Asian discrimination and racism. According to the Stop AAPI Report Card in 2022, the rise of anti-Asian hate reports was in the tens of thousands. Illinois led the contemporary Asian American K-12 movement with the passage of the Teaching Equitable Asian American Community History Act (TEAACH) in 2022, which stated:
“Beginning with the 2022-23 school year, every public elementary school and high school shall include in its curriculum a unit of instruction studying the events of Asian American history, including the history of Asian Americans in Illinois and the Midwest, as well as the contributions of Asian Americans toward advancing civil rights from the 19th century onward.”
The TEAACH Act influenced other states like New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Florida, and Wisconsin to follow suit. I moved to Wisconsin because I was accepted into a doctoral program at UW-Madison, with a goal of helping communities understand how to translate an ethnic studies policy into culturally relevant and sustaining practices.
Throughout my first year as a doctoral student, I toured the nation with my debut book, “Teaching the Invisible Race: Embodying a Pro-Asian American Lens in Schools.” As a racial justice educator and organizer with a decade of experience, I knew that states with low populations of Asian Americans would need help. Embodying a “pro-Asian American lens” promotes Asian American racial literacy in history and literature courses grounded in pro-Black, pro-Indigenous, pro-LGBTQIA+, and pro-disability theory and practice. According to Columbia Professor Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, “Racial literacy is being able to have healthy and constructive conversations about race, racism, and other concepts and realities that impact our lives.”
Instead of anti-Asian “hate,” the book examines hate as a symptom of anti-Asian…
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