Teaching for Justice Amid the dramatic rise in anti-Asian hate, educators share resources and build community. .....................................................................................................................................................................
By Christine Byrd
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rowing up in the San Gabriel Valley’s thriving Chinese American community, Stacy Yung knew her great-grandfathers were buried in the nearby Chinese Cemetery of Los Angeles without their wives or daughters, but no one ever discussed the history that shaped her family’s experience. Not until Yung took an Asian American studies course as a UCI undergraduate did she begin to understand the immigration laws that for decades limited Chinese immigration and prevented Chinese women and families from coming to the U.S., and the many challenges her family faced when they settled in Southern California. “It was life changing, seeing my lived experience and my life centered in the class,” she remembers. After finishing her bachelor’s degree in social
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science that specialized in secondary education in 2007, and her master’s in teaching in 2009, Yung became a middle school history teacher, determined to incorporate experiences and voices that reflected the diversity of her classroom. “I was going to teach history the way I wished I had learned it, a history that is inclusive of all students’ cultural knowledge, histories and lived experiences,” Yung says. Now, that vision has turned into a movement: Yung left the classroom to pursue her passion of providing culturally relevant resources and support to teachers, and is part of a team of UCI faculty, staff and alumni intent on empowering educators who want to incorporate Asian American histories and experiences for their K-12 classrooms.
Photos courtesy of the Teaching for Justice Conference