Radical Pedagogies and Youth Activism: Disrupting Traditional Narratives Through Asian American Tween-Focused Media (Poster 4)

• In Event: Everything Everywhere All at Once: Asian Math Ed Edition

Abstract

Amidst an escalating climate of racial and cultural consciousness, our young people crave to learn about enacting activism in their communities, particularly those often invisibilized. This poster seeks to intensively examine ways to engage young Asian Americans in activism through detailing and critiquing a forthcoming youth-oriented publication, Auntie Kristina’s Guide to Asian American Activism by Beaming Books. This book proposes a groundbreaking approach to engage Asian American tweens, aged 10-14 years old, around community activism, problematizing mainstream narratives around Asian American youth identity and contributing to a more nuanced understanding of how Asian American youth can use their voices.

This poster not only scrutinizes the content of the book, but the underlying paradigms, deliberations, and mechanisms that shaped its conceptualization. Building upon an award-winning web series, Radical Cram School, this book advances the dialogues of identity affirmation and historical consciousness among young Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (Ladson-Billings, 1995). It also offers insights and connections into the lives of pioneering Asian American activists such as Grace Lee Boggs, Yuri Kochiyama, Amy Uyematsu, Mia Yamamoto, Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, Mia Mingus, and Alice Wong. And finally, it attempts to create a community activism mindset, for young people to connect with others to build a better world around Asian American narratives.

This poster will elucidate the ways the book renders complex theoretical constructs—Intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1991), AsianCrit (Museus, & Iftikar, 2013), and Counter Storytelling (Delgado, 1989)—into accessible youth-friendly discussions. Additionally, the poster analyzes the way pivotal issues intersecting with Asian American activism are communicated via the youth’s voices. Such as Environmental Justice, Self-Care, Allyship, and Inter-Racial Solidarity.

The book’s central objective is to provide an analytical window through which youth can critically appraise systemic injustices, equipping them with the necessary vocabulary, perspectives, and narratives to understand and challenge oppressive systems (Crenshaw, 1991; Matsuda, 1996). Our poster argues that these aspects, often overlooked, are integral to the struggle for justice within and for the Asian American community, and analyzes how this message can be presented to Asian American youth in engaging ways.

Finally, this poster will underscore the urgent need to teach activism to young Asian Americans. Even as Asian American representation begins to gain recognition in mainstream media, systemic racism, anti-Asian violence, and oppressive structures persist, thereby continuing to negatively impact many Asian American youths (Wu, 2022). Our poster aims to disrupt this status quo, by demonstrating the imperative to move beyond mere media parity and representation, towards genuine racial and cultural justice (Delgado, 1989).

This poster provides an academic lens to Auntie Kristina’s Guide to Asian American Activism, hoping to stimulate scholarly dialogue and incite future research on youth activism. We hope this analysis contributes to our understanding of how innovative pedagogical strategies can equip our young Asian American citizens with the tools to challenge oppressive systems and advocate for social justice in realistic ways.

Author

• Theodore Chao, California State University - Fullerton