Our Children Need to Know: Embracing AANHPI History

That’s why I’m involved with Foundations and Futures: Asian American and Pacific Islander Multimedia Textbook. Three years in the making, this free, online resource — which will begin its rollout this summer — is deeply researched and designed to uncover history that has been hidden for decades. As we say on our website, “By making our experiences visible, we generate historical empathy and redefine the American narrative towards a more equal, just and inclusive democracy.” The project benefits every child, whether AANHPI or another ethnicity, with a fuller telling of this country’s history.

Not only that, Foundations and Futures will support educators in fulfilling ethnic studies requirements observed in 37 states, including California, where the project is based within the University of California, Los Angeles, Asian American Studies Center.

Real Stories, Real Life

The thing I like best about the Foundations and Futures textbook is that it is full of first-person stories, all from an AANHPI perspective — not from an outsider’s viewpoint but from our own.

Sadly, my own childhood experience as a third-generation Japanese American did not include that full story. Not only did we miss out on any AANHPI history at school, outside of class my young life was clouded by shame. People would see my face and ask me, “Where are you from?,” as if I did not belong here, as if I were not from Los Angeles, just like them. They would tell me that I spoke English well, as if it were not my native language. I felt like a foreigner, not a real American.

To combat that — and influenced by the “model minority” myth — I made a conscious decision to fulfill that role, in the hope of being accepted and loved. At school, I sat quietly and rarely spoke. But I still felt like an outsider. When I got older, the model for beauty was the blond white woman — not the dark-haired Japanese woman like me. I didn’t feel good about who I was.

At the time, I didn’t understand the strong cultural values that influenced my life, such as the importance of marriage and the status of marrying a minister as a young woman. All of this led to silencing myself until I had a self-revelation and healing that led me to embrace who I am. Being an Asian American and Japanese woman was not a deficit or “model minority” identity. I was able to visit Japan, which led me to further understand my internalized racism and the feeling that being Japanese made me the enemy.

Passing It On

I am sansei — third-generation Japanese American — and I have a responsibility to pass on our history and the pride in who we are. Most of all, I want children to understand the complicated history of this country and to resolve who they are as people of color in a white-dominant society. Being part of the Foundations and Futures project has taken me back to my roots, to learn the history and stories that I never knew. I want future generations to know these stories.

The stories in our textbook are just so rich. I was moved in learning about Asian women influencers — people like Yuri Kochiyama, a powerful Japanese American activist, and Patsy Mink, the first woman of color to be elected to Congress and the person who wrote Title IX. The Mexican-Japanese union alliance and the Filipino farmworkers are close to my heart as a unionist.

I think of my own grandfather’s book of drawings: He shows how he was nearly drowned when he was small because his family didn’t have enough food to feed their many children, and he describes the miles and miles he walked to school. The poverty, hunger and war that led to emigration and refugee status are stories our young people need to know, but we’ve been so invisible in the curriculum.

I am hoping I can help change that. My hope is that a different kind of education can help change that for my grandchild, and for all children in our schools, whether they are in Los Angeles or across the country. Every child deserves to know the stories and history of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, as they embrace their own identity and purpose.

Republished with permission from AFT Voices.