Rooted in History, Rising with Community: A Community-Engaged, Responsive Workshop with Asian American and Migrant Communities

• In Event: Highlighted Session: Learning amid Migration, Displacement, and Division: Educational Practices, Community, and Peacebuilding

Proposal

This study explores the experiences of community members who participated in a youth-led workshop on Asian American history, co-created through a community-responsive pedagogical framework. The workshop emerged from a collaborative design process with Asian American youth, who developed educational materials such as artwork, children’s books, and interactive games. While the camp where youth designed these materials provides important context, this research centers on the workshop itself, where community members, including children, parents, students, and participants from diverse ethnic backgrounds, engaged in intergenerational history learning facilitated by youth. At the heart of this inquiry is the recognition that Asian American histories remain marginalized or absent in mainstream educational spaces. The workshop created an alternative site of learning where these histories could be shared, discussed, and reimagined through community grounded pedagogies. Community members did not simply consume information; they participated in dialogic, interactive activities that encouraged personal, familial, and communal reflection, collective storytelling, and recognition of shared struggles and fights across communities. In this way, the workshop functioned as both an educational and communal event, fostering connections across generations and across ethnic groups. This study employs a methodologically community-engaged approach. Semi-structured interviews with community participants serve as the primary data source, capturing their reflections on what they learned, how they engaged with the content, and the meanings they made of the workshop experience. By centering participant experiences, the study seeks to understand how community members encounter Asian American histories in non-school settings, and how these encounters shape their perspectives on history, themselves, belonging, and solidarity. Key research questions include: (1) How do community participants describe their learning experiences in a youth-led, community-engaged workshop on Asian American history? (2) How do community-engaged pedagogical spaces reshape participants’ understandings of themselves, Asian American history, and community? The findings will contribute to scholarship in Asian American education and community-based learning. Ultimately, this study underscores the transformative potential of community-engaged, youth-led workshops as a mode of intergenerational, collective, and reciprocal education. It suggests that when communities gather to learn about Asian American histories in participatory, intergenerational spaces, they not only gain historical knowledge but also strengthen bonds of belonging and solidarity.

Author

• Yeji Kim, University of Missouri - Columbia