aads198: champion learning academy & the nc chinese american community

champion learning academy & the nc chinese american community Aida Guo + Rachel Qu

for Dr. Calvin Cheung-Miaw’s AADS 198: Introduction to Asian American History

introduction We (Aida Guo and Rachel Qu) are a pair of students in Dr. Calvin Cheung-Miaw’s AADS198: Introduction to Asian American History course. Many many years prior to Duke University, we attended the same Chinese after school program at Champion Learning Academy (now rebranded as Champion Education). After attending elementary school at Mills Park Elementary, when school ended, we would get picked up and driven 10-15 minutes away to Morrisville, NC. For our final project, we have decided to revisit and dissect our experiences in order to investigate Champion’s impact on community formation in the Morrisville/ Cary/ Apex area.

In order to facilitate this exploration, we collected oral histories in the form of interviews from people whose lives have been touched

by Champion Learning, listed below. Their perspectives and ours are scattered through the pages that follow.

Olivia Ouyang: Champion co-founder, principal, and director Rui Guo and Jianhui Lu: parents of (former) Champion students Judy Chen, Anna Hu, and Lucia Wang: Champion alum

In order to explore Champion Learning’s impact on community formation, we must also explore the general concept of a Chinese school. In the Triangle area, there exist (at least) two other (mainland) Chinese schools: Raleigh Academy of Chinese Language (RACL) and Cary Chinese school, both of which meet once a week on Saturdays to teach Chinese second language classes to students (generally children ranging in age anywhere from elementary to high school).

After Chinese classes in the morning, there is also often the option of extracurricular activities ranging from SAT prep and Mathcounts to dance and art. Administrative and teacher roles are generally taken on by parents and the classes are hosted in rented-out local public school buildings. Their existences are generally substained by the sizeable population of Chinese families (generally consisting of firstgeneration immigrant parents and second-generation children).

There exists research on heritage language schools, even those specific to Chinese langugae schools as general environments for community members to “learn about Chinese culture, be among coethnic peers, hone Chinese-language skills, and negotiate an identity that would encompass both the students’ Chinese and American backgrounds” as an immigrant group strategy of “preserving their ethnic heritage in the United States” (Fang). An ethnographic study of Chinese schools in Chicago indicated that parents send their children to Chinese school as a means of “preservation of Chinese culture, keeping family ties, and maintaining the Chinese identity” (Lu).

As such, it is safe to assume that parents send their kids to Champion Learning for similar reasons. But Champion Learning is unique from other (local) Chinese schools in its function as a weekday after school (enabled by its permanent residence at 106 Pheasant Wood Court (Morrisville, NC 27560)), as well as its additional offerings of summer camps and additional weekend activities.

With its differences, it has managed to become something beyond a “traditional” suburban Chinese school. With this project, we explore Champion’s relationship to the community within and beyond those differences.

Olivia Ouyang and Jeff Lee moved from California to North Carolina in 2006, with intentions to create a Chinese language learning after school program. They had heard from multiple people that North Carolina was both a good place to invest and a quieter place to raise a family. In August, Ouyang began teaching students out of their house – many of them who were children of friends or neighbors.

This was the beginning of Champion Learning Academy.

Eventually, Ouyang and Lee rented a church between High House and Highway 55, hosting three classes and hiring teachers to help with the after school program. Chinese language learning for heritage speakers was the primary focus, but there were also visual arts and dance classes. In 2008, they were able to buy the current Champion building in Morrisville. From there, the school expanded with the population of Asian/Americans in the south, to serve a larger number of students as well as create more programs. (Sakamoto et al. 132) They have now rebranded from Champion Learning Academy to Champion Education.

According to Ouyang, Champion’s growth took a pause during the pandemic in 2020, due to the lack of need for childcare as many parents were forced to stay at home. In fact, the entire after school program shut down for a year. They have begun to pick back up, but even now, due to the increase in remote jobs, the after school program has fewer students than prior to the COVID-19 lockdowns.

They have now adjusted to offer online after school programs.

Most of the students who attend are children of Chinese immigrants, living in Cary, Apex, or Morrisville. Additionally, the Triangle Business Journal points out that there is a more affluent, well-educated Asian American community to support the school” (Triangle Business Journal).

Front of Champion Education building in December 2023.

Inside Champion Education classroom in December 2023.

after school

Chinese class schedule (Champion Learning website).

The after school program was and remains Champion Learning’s main body and program. For parents, it provides a space for both childcare and Mandarin-language learning; as Rui Guo says, "It is good to take care of kids and learn Chinese. I want my daughter to learn Chinese so she can speak Chinese with me, I feel more close [to her].” For children, it means classes with around 15 other students, some of whom might eventually become friends, and textbook-based learning.

J. Chen – "...you would ride a special bus from the bus stop that would take you to the Champion Learning building.”

Map of schools: there are students being picked up from 25 schools on a typical school day in 2023 (Champion Learning Website).

Champion Education classroom (December 2023).

After school will usually last 2.5 hours for most students (including the bus ride). Students from Apex, Cary, and Morrisville schools are placed into classes based on Chinese skill level. Many of the Chinese teachers are either parents or found through local connections

by Ouyang, such as asking friends or people at church. Some are also some found through job websites like Indeed.

After school class schedule (Champion Education website).

For students, after school meant spending a lot of time with other ChineseAmerican peers. Lucia recounted, "I think spending so much time there around the same people definitely lent itself to forming a lot of close friendships.”

The "Zhong Wen” textbook has 48 volumes, with 12 levels, and was designed for "Overseas Chinese and their children.” The series was designed by the Chinese Language College of Jinan University and sponsored by the Office of Overseas Chinese Affairs under the State Council of the People’s Republic of China.

These textbooks are typically structured as a main text and vocab, with accompanying worksheets.

Jinan Zhong Wen textbook, level 1.

Champion Education after school class schedule (2023).

weekend activities Weekend activities are primarily art-focused. Ouyang mentions how the weekend art programming has expanded more in recent years to include classes like a writing and illustration class or an Adobe Photoshop class. She also mentions, "Many kids will end up going to art school, but some kids will use the classes as an extracurricular.”

The art program is split into three main components: "Kids Art”, "Teens Art”, and "Portfolio Intensive”. Outside of art, there is also Chess, STEM, and English Writing classes. These are primarily targeted towards students who might already be out of elementary school (and Champion Learning after school). Many students would be encouraged to submit to competitions like the "Scholastic Art Competition”.

Anna attended the Teen Art and Portfolio Intensive programs from middle to high school. These classes were typically on Saturday afternoons and would last 3-4 hours. She said, "The art program also taught me a lot about basic traditional art techniques. Since Ouyang was also an artist she was able to provide a lot of feedback.”

Champion art studio space (middle, right) and paintings (left).

summer camp O. Ouyang – “In terms of summer camp, we try to every year, offer a few good classes. When you were little [about 10+ years ago] there were really only art classes and perhaps a few other activities. But now we have more STEM curriculums... Every year, we try to have new classes or curriculums.”

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE (from the website): 8:30-9:30 AM: morning care (optional) 9:00 - 9:15 AM: warm-up/ orientation 9:15-10:30 AM: E-STEAM project 10:30-12:00 PM: academic hour/ visual art/ building/ crafting 12:00-12:30 PM: lunch care 12:30-1:00 PM: technology time/ brain-stretching activities 1:00-3:50 PM: chinese language/ cultural + humanities (or art) 3:50-4:00 PM: clean-up and waiting for being picked up 4:00-6:00 PM: extended care (optional)

Champion Learning Academy is open for summer camp when school isn’t in session. From drop-off in the morning to pickup in the afternoons, it provides a space for children to continue their Chinese education in a familiar space. While the programming itself has evolved over the course of many years, it remains a way to continue Chinese-American community ties between families in the Morrisville/Cary/Apex area.

Champion day camp program flyer (2023, Champion Education website).

J. Lu – there was a topic each week, split morning and afternoon (mornings were always Chinese, afternoons were topic-specific like art, tennis, history, swimming, etc.)

Camp offerings for September/October schedules (2023, Champion Education website).

THROWBACK: compare and contrast...

(qdhuangliangliang Flickr)

art works from summer camp (around 2007-2010?). who did it better?

Artwork photos by Hannah and Rachel Qu (from paulllhuang Flickr).

LUNCH!!!

Lunch schedule and details (2023, Champion Education website).

from summer 2023

Daily schedules for campers (top) and specific to pre-K students (bottom) (2023, Champion Education website).

renting out the space When not used for Champion Learning Academy programming, the building’s space was rented out to different organizations and activities for use.

What were the activities that they rented out the building for?

Picture of the middle area in the building that was often used to hold practices. They’ve since put in another classroom into the space, so it no longer functions as a practice space.

J. Lu – Ruby Slippers (红舞鞋), RACL dragon dance (舞龙), “Chinese lady dance club” (Triangle Chinese Dance 红雀艺术团), etc.

Ruby Slippers Chinese Dance Club Mountain Niu Niu dance performance (2013/2014, Ruby Slippers Chinese Dance Club website).

RACL Dragon Dance CAFA performance (2019, CAFA NC Facebook page).

J. Lu – “At that time [late 2000s, early 2010s], there was no activity place for Chinese community, so people started looking for locations.”

Champion Learning Academy provided a convenient location in Morrisville for a relatively cheap price. Its rental became a way for the physical space to facilitate further interactions in the Chinese American community.

what is champion community? how is it expressed?

Champion classroom (2023).

Champion started primarily through forms of personal relationships for Ouyang, in terms of finding both students and teachers. "The parents have become my friends, especially the really early bunch,” she says, noting their similar cultural backgrounds and shared language.

She also discusses how many long-lasting student friendships have resulted due to Champion. Ouyang describes how her own daughter still remains close with friends she made at Champion, and how Ouyang herself became friends with their parents.

J. Chen – "Even now, when you come across another Chinese American person [from the Triangle] you are like, I feel like I vaguely know you, and chances are it could be through Champion. I definitely met a lot of friends there.”

A. Hu – "My favorite thing was meeting other Asian kids who I became friends with. Most of them I am not that close with anymore but we still know each other and are part of a community, so I feel grateful for that.”

Many students would also keep in touch with the friends they made during after school through participating in the other extracurricular programs in middle and high school. Even students in college have come back to teach summer camp programs and/or conduct their own projects (like us!).

Due to the size of the community, nature of the program (both commonalities in language and heritage, as well as time), and intergenerational connections (not only student to student relationships, but student to parent/teacher, parent to parent/ teacher, teacher to teacher), Champion has become a significant component of Chinese American community building in the Cary/ Apex/Morrisville area.

who counts as community?

But who takes part in the Champion community is also decidedly based upon who can afford it. Financially, Champion’s tuition itself can range up to $3,190 per year, with extracurricular classes like Portfolio Prep around $2,993.00 per year. These programs are targeted towards the middle and upper middle class families who match the statistics often used to describe Asian Americans in Cary, such as, "the median Asian American household income in Cary is $135,371 and 83 percent of Asian Americans in Cary have a bachelor’s degree” (Gentry). This can be compared to the mean household income for Asian Americans in the south of $83,628 (Sakamato et al. 150).

Champion art portfolio prep class description and rate (Champion Art website).

Champion after school tuition and fees (Champion Education website).

So who is allowed to hold these long-lasting friendships and knowledge of both language and heritage is tied to a steep financial cost. Who can afford childcare, both during the weekday and the weekend? Who can afford to continue language learning and art?

Who can afford to build friendship and be part of the ongoing community structures Champion has built?

Furthermore, although Champion is open to all/any students, it primarily serves those who have access to a Chinese speaking environment at home. Ouyang noted that, “There used to be three [non-Chinese] people who went to class, but in the end, it’s very hard to do it very well, because they don’t have the environment at home.” This not only limits who is able to attend Champion to Chinese families, but mostly first generation Chinese students who have immigrant parents. So again, who is allowed to continue language and cultural learning?

Lastly, the textbooks are structured in a very academically traditional way, focused on memorization, testing standards, and a singular curriculum for all students. Students are tested and scored, sometimes even in comparison to each other (there was a ranking in one of the classrooms of “Honor Students” and “Star Students” with polaroids of students’ faces). This bleeds into a further distinguishing of community- who counts as a “successful” student and who is not?

how does champion form community? how does community form champion?

It’s interesting to consider the feedback loop of connection that forms between Champion and the community – where Champion grew/ grows primarily through word of mouth and personal connections of established clientele, its existence serves to further expand those connections. If the foundations for a web of interconnectedness are pre-set with existing attachments, Champion complicates the web by further drawing lines between families, kids and parents alike. The existence of a place like Champion Learning allows for more ties to form inside and outside of its walls – in this way, the community and the establishment feed off of each other and enable mutual growth.

R. Guo – “First time I heard about is from my coworker, they send their kids to Champion. Same thing, they want their kids to learn Chinese.”

J. Lu – “Most people were initially introduced by friends. For me, we were at Kids ‘R’ Kids [preschool] with her son…”

J. Chen – “It does a good job with setting you up to know all the other Chinese kids in your age and even higher or lower grades. Because even now, when you come across another Chinese American person you are like I feel like I vaguely know you, and chances are it could be through Champion or something” At the time of its establishment, Jeff Lee and Olivia Ouyang had two young children, around the age of the kids who attended Champion.

Parents’ introduction to Champion coincided with their introduction to Lee and Ouyang as parents themselves, and the closeness in age enabled a sort of comfort. The connections made years ago are still everlasting, but it seems that newer connections may be fewer and farther between.

J. Lu – “The beginning was in her [Ouyang’s] house, after her reputation started getting better. Very friendly and flexible (if you were late [to pick up], she’d wait for you, maybe wouldn’t charge you money for it)” and (about summer camp) “if you were close [if you lived close to her house], you could drop off at her house and she takes you [to Champion], sometimes if [school] is closed, you would get treated like a friend and she’d watch you there.”

how has champion grown and changed?

As time has passed, the kids attending Champion Learning have hovered around the same age, but Lee and Ouyang have aged. Champion itself has also changed with time, expanding its programming and redecorating to a more uniform (overall, much more blue-themed) aesthetic. The activities offered now hold more range, with a general focus on stereotypical academic excellence – while they still offer courses like the strategy game Go and the everpresent art classes, newer courses that weren’t available ten years ago include speech and debate, writing, and coding.

Old (2009, Champion Education website) vs. new (2023) Champion building exterior.

The building now houses two classrooms equipped with computers: the digital art lab and the classroom for its branch of Afficient Academy (a math prep program). The digital art lab space cuts in what used to be an open floor space that was rented out as a dance practice area – the piano that used to stand in the open is now closed off into the space as well. The space where lunch tables used to sit in a hallway is now closed off with folding screen dividers; inside is a storage collection of extra desks and chairs. The space itself has been renovated with a more cohesive color scheme, and touches of ten years ago still linger here and there, but so much of it now carries a sense of modernization.

Champion projects its students as talented, “doing very good academically in their schools” while offering a space for them to “find friends with the same heritage” (Gentry). It’s clear from the expanding activities that it is positioning itself as a space to nurture not just heritage Chinese language skills but also more stereotypically Asian/American academic success. It is no coincidence that this comes with the literal painting over of the more weathered-in appearance, trading in more muted yellows and greens for bright blues. With a more professional, structured reputation comes less of a personalization. As time has passed, the blurred lines between personal and professional relationships that arguably enabled Champion’s growth have become more rigid.

Lunch at the tables in the hallway (2009, Champion Education website). The bookshelves at the end of the space have since been moved to a different space and the area has been covered with dividers, serving as an extraneous storage area.

so, what does it all add up to?

While Champion has facilitated Chinese American community formation through intergenerational relationships and long-lasting friendships, it simultaneously and intentionally positions itself as a place to reach capitalist metrics of success – in terms of academics and extracurriculars. Champion has been and is undoubtedly vital in its role as a space for Chinese Americans in Apex/Morrisville/Cary, yet it also is limiting in exactly who it decides to serve as a space for.

With this in mind, we wonder about the future – what will the sustained growth of Champion look like? What legacy will it ultimately leave behind?

Photo Gallery

Works Cited "Champion Learning Academy.” CHAMPION LEARNING ACADEMY. MORRISIVILLE, www.championlearningacademy.com/. Accessed 14 Dec. 2023.

"Champion Education.” Champion Education, www.champion-education.com/.

Accessed 14 Dec. 2023.

Chen, Judy. Personal interview. 26 November 2023.

Gentry, Connie. "Carving Their Niche.” Bizjournals.Com, Triangle Business Journal, 22 Oct. 2021, www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2021/10/22/morrisvillechampion-l.

Guo, Rui. Personal interview. 25 November 2023.

Hu, Anna. Personal interview. 23 November 2023.

Huang, Paul. Flickr, Yahoo!, 14 Dec. 2023, www.flickr.com/photos/ paulllhuang/5523230871/in/photolist-6u8Q4x-6ucZfU-6u92fz-9q517t-9q4VKi9q52m8-9q4RDV-9q5ruR-9q8iuu-9q87PY Lu, Jianhui. Personal interview. 5 Dec 2023.

Ouyang, Olivia. Personal interview. 3 December 2023.

Qdhuangliangliang. Flickr, Yahoo!, 14 Dec. 2023, www.flickr.com/ photos/30124350@N03/3600210223/.

Qu, Guo, et al. Photos from our personal collection. 2010-2023.

Sakamoto, Arthur, et al. "Moving out of the Margins and into the Mainstream: The Demographics of Asian Americans in the New South.” Asian Americans in Dixie: Race and Migration in the South, edited by KHYATI Y. JOSHI and JIGNA DESAI, University of Illinois Press, 2013, pp. 131–64. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/ stable/10.5406/j.ctt3fh5ww.10.

Wang, Lucia. Personal interview. 1 Dec 2023.

Xing Lu. "Bicultural Identity Development and Chinese Community Formation: An Ethnographic Study of Chinese Schools in Chicago”, Howard Journal of Communications, 2001, pp. 203-220, DOI: 10.1080/106461701753287723