Asian American Grassroots Movement for K–12 Asian American Studies in Georgia

• In Event: "Invisibility Is Not a Natural State for Anyone!" The Fight for Asian American Curricular Inclusion

Abstract

In Georgia, Asian American Voices for Education (AAVEd), a grassroots group promoting K-12 Asian American studies in the state’s public schools, was formed in May 2021. To collectively reckon with the murder of six Asian immigrant women by a white man in their own local community as well as the upsurge of anti-Asian violence across the nation during the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 100 people of Asian descent and their allies gathered at a virtual townhall meeting in May 2021. A consensus from the meeting was the importance and urgency of teaching Asian American histories in K-12 schools as a long-term solution to anti-Asian violence. Several Asian American parents, educators, and community members began organizing for the establishment of K-12 Asian American studies in the state’s public schools.
Inspired by Illinois’ TEAACH Act and similar bills in other states, AAVEd initially focused on pushing for an educational bill of K-12 Asian American studies. However, this task turned out to be extremely difficult due to the political climate at the time. In May 2021, state governor Brian Kemp called for banning CRT in GA public schools, and the Georgia State Board of Education and several local school districts responded to the call by passing anti-CRT resolutions. AAVEd thus changed its efforts toward building a coalition with other Communities of Color and civil rights organizations to legislate an ethnic studies bill. It also focused on building partnerships with local schools for empowering teachers with content and pedagogic knowledge of incorporating Asian American studies in the mandated K-12 curriculum. One of the challenges the collective has faced is a lack of resources. As a volunteer-run grassroots organization, it has been challenging for AAVEd members to devote time and attention to the work without draining essential personal or family resources. Also most AAVEd members are new to advocacy work, and there has been many trials and errors.
The presenter is one of the founding members of AAVEd. As a migrant settler from South Korea, she is a mother of two Asian American children attending GA’s public schools as well as a social studies teacher educator and curriculum scholar. In this paper, the presenter employs AsianCrit (Chang, 1993) as a theoretical framework to document and discuss the genesis, successes, challenges, and ongoing work of AAVEd. Taking up AsianCrit's tenet of social justice as well as the story, theory, and praxis tenet, she uses counterstorytelling as the method of inquiry and centers the voices of Asian American parents, teachers, students, and community members to debunk and disrupt anti-Asian racism. Data draws from individual and group interviews with AAVEd members, meeting minutes, and other artifacts from AAVEd work. Given the sheer lack of research on Asian American grassroots movement for justice-oriented curriculum in K-12 education, the story of AAVEd will provide a rare case study to contribute to the scholarly literature on educational justice movement and grassroots activism.

Author

• Sohyun An, Kennesaw State University
  Presenting Author