Listen to the most recent episode of the MindShift podcast to learn about how trainees are learning about the more comprehensive contributions of Asian Americans and their advocacy and what that indicates for public engagement.
Episode Transcript
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Ki Sung: Invite to the MindShift Podcast where we explore the future of learning and just how we elevate our youngsters. I’m Ki Sung.
Ki Sung: Today, I want to take you to an intermediate school in a Los Angeles suburb so you can meet Karalee Wong Nakatsuka, an 8 th grade history educator at First Method Intermediate School. I checked out back in May, which marked the beginning of a very unique month.
Karalee Nakatsuka: Early morning. Delighted AANHPI Heritage Month. No Phones!
Ki Sung: Ms. Nakatsuka, greeting trainees at the door, was especially enthusiastic for Oriental American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage month.
Ki Sung: I have actually recognized her for concerning a year now, and allow me inform you she is very passionate regarding her job.
Karalee Nakatsuka:
So, we’re speaking about citizenship and keep in mind Joanne Furman states citizenship is about belonging.
Ki Sung: This lesson has to do with a Chinese American man named Wong Kim Ark. Prior to this year, the majority of people had not become aware of him. However anybody birthed in the USA over the previous 127 years– has him and the 14 th modification to thank for united state citizenship.
Karalee Nakatsuka: Wong Kim Ark was birthed of Chinese immigrants. And he says, I am an American, appropriate? And they’re challenged, they check him whether he can be in America. And what do they say? They claim no.
Ki Sung: Wong, with the support of the Chinese neighborhood in San Francisco, defended HIS AND their right to citizenship.
Karalee Nakatsuka: However he challenges it, goes to the High court, and they claim what? Yes, you are an American.
Ki Sung: Yet Eastern Americans like Wong Kim Ark, and their activism, are seldom born in mind. Pupils might spend a great deal of time on social media sites, but he doesn’t turn up on anyone’s feed. I asked several of Karalee’s pupils about times they have actually gone over AAPI background outside of her class.
Pupil: I believe in seventh grade I might have like heard the term once or twice,
Trainee: I never truly like recognized it. I believe the first time I really began finding out about it was in Ms. Nakatsuka’s class.
Student: Like, we did Black background, certainly, and white background. And afterwards additionally Indigenous American.
Pupil: I think in Virginia when I matured, I was bordered by like an all white institution and we did find out a whole lot around, like slavery and Black background however we never discovered anything similar to this.
Ki Sung: These trainees are bordered by details since they have phones and have social networks. Yet AAPI history? That’s a harder subject to learn about. Even in their Eastern American family members.
Pupil: My moms and dads immigrated here and I was born in India. I seem like general, we simply never ever actually have the possibility to speak about other races and AAPI history. We just are more secluded, so that’s why it was for me a huge offer when we really started finding out about a lot more.
Ki Sung: Coming up, what influenced one teacher to speak out concerning AAPI History. Stay with us.
Ki Sung: Karalee Nakatsuka has actually been instructing background since 1990, and brings her own individual history to the topic.
Karalee Nakatsuka:
Chinese exemption is my jam, due to the fact that when my grandfather came, he was a paper boy.
Ki Sung: Definition, he concerned this country by asserting that he was a loved one of a person currently in the United States. Up up until the Chinese Exemption Act in 1882, details immigrant groups weren’t targeted by exclusionary laws– anyone that appeared in this country simply did so. Yet legislations specifically omitting people of Chinese descent made difficult points like civic involvement, justice, police protection, reasonable salaries, home ownership. Including in that, there were racist murders and calls for mass expulsions all fanned by the media, matching low wage workers versus each other–
Karalee Nakatsuka: I, myself, since I didn’t comprehend background as well as I wish I comprehend it better currently, like I’m speaking with my students, like seeing the patterns, remembering– I imply, I’ve been instructing Chinese exclusion, I think most likely from the start, but after that linking those lines and attaching to the present, that these view of the perpetual foreigners, sight of yellow peril, these mindsets are still there and it’s truly hard to tremble.
Ki Sung: Regardless of her family members history, Nakatsuka really did not just find out how to instruct AAPI background over night. She didn’t instinctively know exactly how to do this. It required professional growth and an expert network– something she got only recently.
There are several programs throughout the country that will train teachers on particular ages people history– the early colonial period, the American revolution, the civil rights movement. Nevertheless …
Jane Hong: The reality is there’s really little training in Asian American history usually,
Ki Sung: That’s Jane Hong, a teacher of history at Occidental University.
Jane Hong: When you reach Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander histories, there’s even much less training and also fewer possibilities and resources I assume, for educators, especially educators beyond Hawaii, kind of the West, you know.
Ki Sung: For context concerning her very own school experience, Teacher Hong grew up in a vivid Asian American neighborhood on the East Coast
Jane Hong: I don’t think I learned any kind of Asian American history.
Jane Hong: I did take AP United States Background. The AP US background test does cover the kind of biggest hits version of Asian American background so the Chinese Exclusion Act Japanese American incarceration which may be it right it’s actually those 2 topics and after that often right the Spanish American Battle and so the US colonization of the Philippines but also those topics don’t go actually deep.
Ki Sung: Last year, she organized a two-week training for regarding 36 middle and high school educators on how to educate AAPI background. It was held at Occidental University as a pilot program. So, Why did she create this program?
Teachers, like students, take advantage of having a facilitated experience when learning about any type of topic.
Ki Sung: In Hong’s training, mentor methods are taught along with history.
The instructors review books, visited historic sites and seen sections of documentary, such as “Free Chol Soo Lee.” The documentary is concerning a wrongly convicted Oriental American male whom cops urged was a Chinatown gang member in the 1970 s. The docudrama is additionally regarding the Oriental American advocacy that aided eventually free him from prison.
Educator Karalee Nakatsuka aided as a master teacher in Hong’s training. She understood she needed something like this after a pivotal year in the lives of a lot of: 2020
Ki Sung: While the murder of George Floyd sparked a racial projection, AAPI hate was steeply climbing. Oriental Americans were criticized for COVID, Asian senior citizens were pressed violently on walkways, sometimes to their fatality. Others onto subway tracks and killed.
Karalee Nakatsuka: My kids were, throughout the pandemic, somebody screamed Wuhan at them when they remained in the shop with my husband, with their papa, and like, I thought we remained in a really safe neighborhood.
Karalee Nakatsuka: And after that, the Atlanta medical spa shootings happened.
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Ki Sung: In March 2021, A white shooter killed 8 individuals, 6 of them women of Eastern descent. Investigators claimed the murders weren’t racially inspired, yet that’s not how Eastern American women regarded it.
Karalee Nakatsuka: And throughout the country, all these educators across, due to the fact that I had met these truly, actually great individuals essential individuals, history people, civics people, and they reached out to me from throughout the nation saying, are you fine? And I was like, “Oh, yeah, I’m all right. You must connect to your other AAPI folks.” But then I was … I was like, I’m not alright.
Ki Sung: After a series of exchanges with professional pals, Karalee did something about it. She ended up being much more visible.
Karalee Nakatsuka: This is not regular Karalee. This is what Karalee typically does. Yet I felt so forced to utilize my voice.
Ki Sung: She additionally became more forthright regarding her experience. Like on the Let’s K 12 Better Podcast with host Amber Coleman Mortley.
Amber Coleman Mortley: Does anyone else I simply wish to jump in on the question that I had actually positioned or.
Karalee Nakatsuka: I’ll speak up. When you say empathy, that’s like among my favorite words. And that’s massive due to the fact that after Atlanta, individuals, it’s simply all these wounds that we have actually had actually that have actually been smoldering that we do not take a look at. I indicate that as Asians, we resemble educated, put your head down and simply do whatever and do it the most effective, do it better, because we constantly need to confirm ourselves. And so we simply live our lives and that’s just how it is. But we have actually been really reflective. And we’ve experienced microaggressions and injuries and we simply kind of keep going. However after Atlanta, we resemble, perhaps we need to speak out.
Ki Sung: And there was a letter contacted colleagues– which a great deal of Eastern American ladies did at the time– in an effort for comprehending from their neighborhood.
Karalee Nakatsuka: … and I claimed, I simply intend to let you know what it’s like to be Asian- American during this moment. And if I check out that letter currently, it really feels extremely personal, it really feels really raw and sharing just experiences of getting the wrong progress report for my kid since they’re offering it to the Oriental moms and dad or my You know, various things, individuals mixing up Asian American people. So all those points came together to simply make me feel like, hello, I need to respond. So also in my classroom, I claimed I require to, I require to instruct anti-Asian hate. And these are all things that I don’t remember being officially educated.
Ki Sung: Karalee’s enthusiasm for AAPI history quickly got an even larger target market. She was already a Gilda Lehrman The golden state history instructor of the year. But after that she spoke up at more conferences and webinars and ran a professional community. She was included in the New york city Times and Time Magazine. She created a book called “Bringing Background and Civics to Life,” which centers pupil compassion in lessons regarding individuals in American background.
Ki Sung: Back in her class, background from the 1800 s feels contemporary.
Karalee Nakatsuka: Okay, so in the 1870 s, what is the mindset towards the Chinese after the railroad is already developed? They’re villains.
Karalee Nakatsuka: They’re bad guys. What else? They’re taking our work. They’re taking over our country. We don’t want them, right? And as a result of this anti-Chinese sentiment from across the nation, they determine, all right, we’re mosting likely to leave out the Chinese. So 1882, Chinese Exemption Act. All Chinese are left out. But was the 14 th Change still composed in 1882 Yeah, it was created in 1868 So what do we do about that birthright citizenship point? And they challenge it under Wong Kim Ark.
Ki Sung: The 1800 s is relevant once more as a result of the exec order authorized by President Trump in his 2nd term to redefine due citizenship. This executive order is making its way with the courts now AND upends the 127 -year old application of birthright citizenship as providing united state citizenship to individuals birthed within the United States.
Nakatsuka uses the information to make history a lot more relatable via an exercise. She starts by showing slides and video to assist explain the exec order.
Karalee Nakatsuka: On his initial day in office, President Donald Trump sent out an executive order to end universal due citizenship and limit it at birth to people with at the very least one parent who is an irreversible local or citizen.
Ki Sung: The head of state wants to give citizenship based on the parents’ migration condition.
Karalee Nakatsuka: Trump’s move can overthrow a 120 -year-old Supreme Court criterion.
Ki Sung: Nakasutka has the trainees use the executive order to real or make believe individuals.
Karalee Nakatsuka: Go out your post-it notes and take a look at what Trump is stating regarding who is enabled to be in America
Ki Sung: She then asks her trainees to write down those names, while she takes a poster and draws two columns: a “yes” column and a “no” column.
Karalee Nakatsuka: So if according to the Trump order, your person can be in America, that’s a yes
Ki Sung: Would that person be a person under the exec order? Or not.
Karalee Nakatsuka: And according to His exec order, your individual would not be, they need to have one parent that’s a long-term local or citizen.
Ki Sung: The pupils discuss among themselves individuals they selected and what category they fall into. After that, while the pupils start placing their Post-it notes in the of course or no columns, Nakatsuka shares understandings concerning herself about who in her household would be considered a citizen under the exec order.
Karalee Nakatsuka: So a lot of no’s are like my mommy, like my mama would not have been able to be a citizen.
Does this order impact us? Yeah, it does. I indicate it depends on individuals that you that you that you selected, right? so.
Trump, Trump’s bequest order, if it was when my mom was being birthed, my all my uncles and aunties would not be below, then I wouldn’t be right here if they weren’t permitted to be residents.
Ki Sung: Nakatsuka reminds them concerning the main question in this task.
Karalee Nakatsuka: You might know some pals, it could be your moms and dads, right? And so that due citizen order is similar to exactly how we checked out the past. Who’s allowed to be below, who’s not enabled to be below? That belongs in America, that is part of the we? Right?
Ki Sung: Some of the trainees’ post-its under the NOs, as in, no, they wouldn’t be citizens under the exec order are “mama,” “father,” “My friends” and “Wong Kim Ark.”
At the origin of this lesson in history, though, is a lesson students can use on a daily basis.
Karalee Nakatsuka: Alright, so citizenship is about belonging. What type of America do we wish to be? And we’ve been talking about that from the get go, right? At first, that is the we?
Ki Sung: Learning about AAPI history has wider effects, Here’s professor Jane Hong again.
Jane Hong: Due To Oriental American’s very details history of being left out from US citizenship, discovering how much it took for folks to be able to engage type of in the political process however additionally just in society much more usually, knowing that history I would hope would certainly motivate them to make the most of the the civil liberties and the privileges that they do have knowing how many people have actually fought and died for their right to do so like for me that that is among one of the most type of weighty and important lessons of US background
Ki Sung: And this understanding isn’t practically AAPI background, but all American history.
Jane Hong: I believe the even more you recognize concerning your own history and where you fit into kind of larger American society, the more likely it is that you will certainly feel some kind of connection and wish to participate in like what you might call civic society.
Ki Sung: Regarding a loads states have needs to make AAPI background component of the curriculum in K- 12 institutions. If you’re trying to find ways to find out more concerning AAPI background, Jane Hong has a couple of resources for you.
Jane Hong: One docuseries that I constantly recommend is the Asian-Americans docuseries on PBS. It’s 5 episodes, covers a long area of Asian-American history.
Ki Sung: Her second source referral?
Jane Hong: The AAPI multimedia textbook that’s released and being released by the UCLA Asian American Research Center. It is an enormous business with actually dozens and lots of chroniclers, scholars from across the United States and the globe. It’s peer assessed, so whatever that’s composed by folks is peer evaluated by various other specialists in the area.
Ki Sung: For Jane and others committed to Eastern American Pacific Islander background, the hope is that the complexity of American background is much better understood.
Ki Sung: The MindShift group includes me, Ki Sung, Nimah Gobir, Marlena Jackson-Retondo and Marnette Federis. Our editor is Chris Hambrick. Seth Samuel is our sound designer. Jen Chien is our head of podcasts. Katie Sprenger is podcast operations manager and Ethan Toven Lindsey is our editorial director. We receive extra assistance from Maha Sanad.
MindShift is supported partially by the generosity of the William & & Plants Hewlett Structure and participants of KQED. This episode was enabled by the Stuart Foundation.
Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Display Casts Guild, American Federation of Tv and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern The Golden State Local.