"We Are Stronger Than Fear of Hate": A Longitudinal Study Amplifying the Voices of Asian American and Migrant Teachers Amidst COVID-19

• In Event: AsianCrit in Teacher Education Research and Practice

Abstract

Theoretically framed by AsianCrit (Iftikar & Museus, 2018), the current study used a longitudinal qualitative study to explore how larger socio-historical contexts such as the pandemic shape Asian American and migrant elementary teachers’ daily lives and teaching practices. A longitudinal qualitative study is an approach in which data are repeatedly collected from the same participants over a certain period of time to “capture through long-term immersion” (Saldaña, 2003, p. 16). This approach offers the opportunity to explore the complexities of participants' perspectives, experiences, and/or behavior that occur related to change over time and deliver fresh insights that might not be attainable through a one-time, single traditional qualitative and quantitative paradigms (Saldaña, 2003). In this study, we recruited eight in-service and afterschool teachers in public elementary schools in New York City and collected data over a five-year period for a longitudinal analysis of Asian American/migrant teachers' lives and teaching before and after COVID, with focus paid to how COVID-related circumstances and contexts affected them.
The study's findings demonstrate that, following the COVID-19 and an upsurge in anti-Asian hate crime, the teachers' experiences of racism and positions as Asian Americans and migrants in New York City had radically changed. Before covid, Asian American teachers had been regularly questioned about their belonging to the US through questions like “where are you really from?” whereas migrant teachers often faced name-based microaggressions such as “why don’t you change your name to an American sounding one?” While the pr-pandemic racism was centered on these microaggressions, post-pandemic racism was more overt and extreme, involving physical threat and attack.
Their shifted racialized experiences further influenced their elementary school teaching practices, compelling them to become committed to antiracist education. Before the pandemic, teachers’ sense of belonging to NYC and limited encounters with overt racism in their city shaped their instruction to be centered on promoting students’ cultural awareness and appreciation of diversity. But during and after the pandemic, participants’ daily experiences of explicit and violent racism in New York City moved them to shift their focus on explicitly teaching about and against racism. Through the use of multimodal resources and activities as well as history and cultural and community assets in Asian communities, teachers helped young children to make sense of and challenge anti-Asian hate and bias and teach them about long-standing racism and solidarity.
This longitudinal and timely study will contribute to the emerging literature on the lives and teaching of Asian American and migrant teachers during COVID-19, providing several implications for teacher education and future research.

Authors

• Yeji Kim, University of Missouri

• Sohyun An, Kennesaw State University