Teaching Toward Justice and Liberation: Asian American Educators on the Implementation of Ethnic Studies in California K–12 Public Schools
by William Gow, Tracy L. Buenavista, Jasmine Nguyen, Virginia Nguyen, Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, and Karen Umemoto
ABSTRACT: The passage of Assembly Bill 1460 and Assembly Bill 101 is set to radically transform the relationship that California students have with the field of Ethnic Studies. When fully implemented, these bills will require that all students graduating from either a public high school or the California State University (CSU) system take a course in Ethnic Studies. However, the passage of these bills has not ensured that all students will be provided a critical grounding in the field of Ethnic Studies. Indeed, the implementation process has raised a series of unanswered questions.
This article brings together a diverse group of Asian American Studies stakeholders to discuss the future of high school Ethnic Studies in California. We ask: How will the mandate to teach high school Ethnic Studies shape the implementation of the CSU Ethnic Studies Area F requirement? Given that more than sixty percent of teachers in California self-identify as white and many have never taken an Ethnic Studies class, who will teach this new Ethnic Studies curriculum? How should California teachers navigate the conservative backlash attempting to ban the teaching of Ethnic Studies, Critical Race Theory, and Young Adult books with themes focused on race and sexuality? Who will create the textbooks and lesson plans that will be used in these courses, and how do we ensure they remain rooted in foundational Ethnic Studies principals? Finally, and perhaps most importantly, will CSU and California state bureaucrats dictate the answers to these questions, or will high school students themselves, more than nearly eighty percent of whom are students of color, have a voice in their own Ethnic Studies education?
For this article, we have recorded and transcribed a roundtable discussion focused on these and related questions. Roundtable participants have had the opportunity to lightly edit their responses for clarity before publication.
Article Citation: William Gow, Tracy L. Buenavista, Jasmine Nguyen, Virginia Nguyen, Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, and Karen Umemoto (2024) Teaching Toward Justice and Liberation: Asian American Educators on the Implementation of Ethnic Studies in California K–12 Public Schools. AAPI Nexus: Policy, Practice and Community: 2024, Vol. 21, No. 1 & 2.