In/Visible: Thick Solidarity and Asian American Studies in Mathematics Education

• In Event: AsianCrit in Teacher Education Research and Practice

Abstract

With few exceptions (e.g., Authors, 2022; Chen & Buell, 2017), the literature has not significantly examined the racialization of Asian Americans in mathematics education. In this paper, we draw from social movement theory (Fujiwara & Roshanravan, 2018) and AsianCrit (e.g., Iftikar & Museus, 2018) as frameworks to interrogate white supremacist logic by challenging dominant essentialist model minority frames pervasive in mathematics education. The paper goal is to identify and push back against the unnatural invisibility and stereotypes of Asian Americans in mathematics education and to highlight and disrupt how the model minority myth - the belief that Asian Americans have “made it'' despite obstacles - is used in mathematics education to hurt our siblings of color, render Asian Americans invisible, and imply that mathematics education does not need anti-racist work.
We draw on scholarly and lived experiences as Asian American mathematics teacher educators, sharing both our approaches and challenges to centering Asian American identities, histories, and complexities to attend to mathematics education as a racial project. Specifically, we highlight how the Stop AAPI Hate Asian American Studies K-12 Curriculum Framework developed by (An & Rodriguez, 2022) has served as a mathematics professional development resource for mathematics teachers to identify and challenge dominant essentialist model minority frames pervasive in mathematics education and to consider ways to use school mathematics as a vehicle to critically analysis Asian American experiences, contributions, and challenges and their intricate relations with larger issues of racism and oppression.
Asian American studies should not belong only as a high school elective or within history and English courses. Asian American studies is and should be interdisciplinary. This paper offers guidance to mathematics educators and classroom teachers who want to bring Asian American identities, stories, within K-12 mathematics classroom spaces. The paper includes examples of three classroom lessons and its connections to essential concepts and themes from the Stop AAPI Hate Asian American Studies K-12 Curriculum Framework. Specifically, these lessons highlight how mathematics can be used to reclaim Asian American histories, mathematically measure the impact of cross-racial solidarity, and the complexities, contentions, and divisions within and across groups of Asian American.
What is not said in our (mathematics education) community matters just as much as what is said. The silence is just as loud if not louder. As such, we offer this paper as a beginning and invitation to join us in forging a defiance of silence, presumed compliance, and complicity imposed on Asian Americans and our mathematics education community.

Authors

• Cathery Yeh, University of Texas at Austin

• Naehee Kwun, University of California - Irvine