Created by sophomores several months ago, these posters describe the failures of the Reconstruction era and are still hung on the wall of my history classroom even now (bottom photograph). My history teacher, a young woman of color, saw the severe lack of inclusion in her textbooks growing up. Now, she is very vocal about the discrimination against marginalized communities and expresses her love through teaching. As a teacher, she encourages her students to learn history by discussing and analyzing primary sources that challenge the Eurocentric narrative taught in most classrooms and embedded into our society. Reflected in the poster, students were not forced to comply with a specific format for creating these posters and were only asked to share the primary impacts they believed were important to shaping American society. My teacher chose to have her students handwrite the information because processing and understanding information through this medium takes more effort.

February was Black History Month, and to stand in solidarity with the Black community, the volunteer-based arts coalition at my school used chalk to draw colorful pictures and quotes around our campus (middle photograph). This statement, “Education is the most powerful weapon,” was located next to the lunch line, so it was likely seen by the vast majority of students and teachers every day. I took this during one of my classes, which is why no other people are in the photo. Our campus demographics are predominantly Asian and white. Still, the recent spike in hate crimes against Asian Americans and the long history of police brutality against Black folks have prompted many students to find their own outlets for activism, including through club engagement, journalism, and visual and performing arts. 

On February 20, 2023, my family visited the Manzanar incarceration camp for the third time, which is located in California and was the first of ten camps built after President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942 in response to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The law led to the mass forced displacement of all people with at least a sixteenth of Japanese blood, regardless of their citizenship status, to deserted camps across the United States. Those Japanese Americans were forced to leave their homes, their jobs, and their friends behind as they endured several years of isolation and discrimination at the camps, yet they found ways to navigate those challenges by setting up classrooms and playing ball games, among other activities. Despite their contributions to their communities before incarceration, Japanese Americans were shoved into crowded, minimally protective barracks with strangers. However, the media claimed that the relocation was voluntary and consistently referred to all Americans of Japanese ancestry as “enemy aliens”. Hence, the story we are told today tends to downplay the mistreatment faced by Japanese Americans. As a student in the early Asian American studies program at the University of California, Irvine, my mom believed it was important for my brother and me to learn about the oppression faced by Japanese Americans at the time and brought us to the camp.

White supremacist logic in America can be traced back to the Atlantic slave trade, slavery, the coolie trade, the stealing of Indigenous land, race-based immigration bans, the eugenic movement, mass incarceration, and perpetual wars abroad. Throughout history, the United States has benefited from the exploitation of the labor of people of color. Yet, the government has repeatedly passed policies and created systems that have intentionally or implicitly discriminated against those same groups. Pushed forward by the media, communities of color have been defined by stereotypes, perpetuating inequities and justifying ongoing surveillance, policing, and violence on these communities. Public high schools like mine in the Irvine Unified School District have a reputation for their strong academics, which has attracted many Asian American families in particular. As a result, this collage prompts us to question who is writing the education that we are receiving in schools. For her sophomores, my history teacher has shaped her curriculum to show us different perspectives and experiences throughout history. While the middle photo makes our school appear to believe that learning is key to fostering compassion and inclusion, some events that our school holds highlight the issues that still remain on campus today. To celebrate Lunar New Year, the only event planned by our Associative Student Body was a chopstick challenge with jelly beans, which does not highlight any traditional lunar new year customs but only orientalize and reduce the complexity of Asian American identity into the use of chopsticks. It was frustrating that there was no discussion of the various customs among different Asian groups because the celebration was treated as a form of entertainment. However, there is some progress being made toward standing in solidarity with the Black community. Our instrumental music director, Ben Case, is part of the California Band Directors Association. After the Association chose to perform “Requiem for the Unarmed,” a piece written by African American composer Kevin Day as a memorial to the countless lives lost due to racial injustice, Case followed and had his students perform the piece at our Spring Concert on February 28, 2023. Additionally, my mom was a victim of a bias-motivated incident on February 13, 2020 at the Great Park Tennis Center in Irvine, California, so she continues to prioritize education about historical events through travel in order for my brother and me to appreciate our circumstances and understand the importance of helping others that are not given the same opportunities.

Unfortunately, learning about history from multiple viewpoints is a form of love that is uncommon in most schools. In addition to endless book bans, Florida recently rejected the proposed Advanced Placement African American Studies course, citing too much discussion of critical race theory. People of color are not the only ones being impacted as assaults on education regarding gender identity have also been prevalent. The effects of untold history on gender, class, sexuality, immigrant status, and race or ethnicity are all intersectional.

However, in October 2021, California became the first state to sign a law requiring Ethnic Studies for high school graduation. I live in Irvine, and our district has some of the highest-performing students, in part because of the cultural emphasis on education among the predominantly Asian American community. As a result, the teachers in our area are held to higher expectations by parents and district administrators, and my history teacher is willing to provide the resources that empower students to consider different sides of the story through tough conversations in the classroom. I did not experience love in the classroom where I felt that people who looked like me were accurately represented and acknowledged for their contributions throughout history until I started high school, though my mom began taking my younger brother and me to museums at a young age in order to show us a glimpse of the voices that were left out of our history textbooks. Teachers at my school who share their knowledge and are willing to recognize their misconceptions or internalized assumptions are giving students the space to come together and stand in solidarity with different communities, as seen through campus artwork by the arts coalition at my school.

While all families have different reasons for coming to America, many Asian Americans come to Irvine to start families because of its new housing developments, reputable schools, and safe communities that they hope will enable their kids to succeed. However, intergenerational trauma and lack of opportunities in the home country often lead parents to use the sacrifices they have made as justification for overwhelming their children with academic pressure. 

Asian Americans express love by educating themselves and supporting the people they care about in reaching and sharing success with those around them. A concern that arises from this is that parent-child relationships focused too heavily on success may become transactional, which prompts discussion as to why so many Asian Americans feel that moving to a community known for its high-performing students despite its high costs of living and ultra-competitive learning environments will satisfy their definition of happiness for their children.

At the root of this anxiety towards securing a financially stable future for their children is a broader issue of cultural expectations to succeed without showing weakness or vulnerability because all Asian immigrants and Asian Americans have been lumped under the homogenous identity of a model minority that thrives without government support. This harms not only Asian Americans, but also Black, Latinx, Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander, and Indigenous groups because their needs for equity are downplayed by the success of some Asian Americans. The systemic racism and injustice that permeates the fabric of our society today cannot be dismantled unless we are honest about our past, so schools and educational institutions must push for a curriculum that encompasses a wider range of experiences living and working in America.