Our lesson plans are developed in partnership with UCLA Asian American Studies Center and PBS LearningMedia. The thematic unit was created by Waka Takahashi Brown, Curriculum Specialist, Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE) with our lesson plans.

Asian American Pacific Islanders (“AAPIs”) have been historically scapegoated for calamities in the U.S. Once again AAPIs are scapegoated for the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the beginning of the pandemic we have seen an exponential increase of hate and racist acts towards the Asian American Pacific Islander (“AAPI”) community. In this workshop, we will go over lessons that can be taught to students to help them better understand these issues. In a 3–part unit plan, your students will be able to look at the current rise of anti-Asian racism as a result of the pandemic and a history prior to that. This unit will end on a positive note of community building in order to promote a more just and safe society.

What does it mean to be a U.S. citizen? What are the barriers to citizenship? Even today, AAPIs still face such barriers. A forgotten point is that there are Asian DREAMers. What barriers do they face? The Citizenship unit examines the social construct of race, and the definitions of ethnicity, nationality, citizenship and constitutional rights. The unit looks into the barriers AAPIs face in realizing citizenship. The workshop will explore the Citizenship unit.

Civil rights are not handed to us. They are fought for. The AAPI population is not an exception. Faced with adversities, the AAPI community has found ways to participate in the civil rights struggle. The Civil Rights unit covers Asian Americans’ legal battles in school desegregation, the constitutional violations of Japanese Americans during WWII incarceration, the Filipino Americans’ grape strike for workers’ rights, the victimization of South Asian Americans in the aftermath of 9/11/2001. In the workshop we will take a look at the Civil Rights unit, diving into its history and achievements the AAPI community has accomplished and challenges they face.

What does it mean to be American? The criteria for what defines an American have changed throughout history at the detriment to minority populations. The Identity unit examines the model minority myth and perpetual foreigner myth as forms of systemic racism against AAPIs. The unit also examines the social construct of race, and the definitions of ethnicity, nationality, citizenship and constitutional rights. This unit coves what it means to be loyal Americans, using WWII as a backdrop. This unit covers the rise of Asian Americans in public offices, in advancing equality for women and LGBTQ rights. This unit covers the importance of knowing your own history as key to knowing yourself and your identity. This workshop will explore the Identity unit and how AAPIs have been stereotyped and how they have found ways to forge their own identities in American society.

Immigration for certain groups of people is not always welcomed to the United States. Barriers are often placed to bar and restrict certain groups of people, even in the present. The Immigration unit covers the contribution of Chinese Transcontinental Railroad workers, the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which gave way to the passage of the Immigration Act of 1965 which led to Asian Americans to become the fastest growing population. This unit also covers the Southeast Asian refugees’ migration in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the Asian American DREAMers. The workshop will explore the Immigration unit, the desire for immigrants to come to the United States and the past and present challenges they face. This unit also explores some of the past and present immigration policies, the motivation behind the creation of these policies, and their impact.

Recent times have brought acts of anti-Asian racism and hate to the national spotlight. However, this is not something new, but rather something old. Over the course of U.S. history, AAPIs have been the targets of hate crimes and discrimination. The Racism unit covers how the Igorot people were used as human zoo in 1904 World’s Fair, the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Japanese American incarceration into concentration camps in WWII, McCarthyism and racial profiling, the American war in Vietnam, the hate crime murder of Vincent Chin and Joseph Ileto, the 1992 L.A. civil unrest and the systemic racism against Black Americans, 9/11/2001 and the victimization of South Asian Americans. This unit also examines the social construct of race, and the definitions of ethnicity, nationality, citizenship and constitutional rights. The workshop will explore our Racism unit. We will dive deeper into how discrimination and microaggressions affect minority groups and what we can do to prevent further discrimination and hate crimes in our society.

It is never too early to educate students about history and current events. This workshop will focus on delivering our curriculum to elementary school students.