Happy May! Teachers (and students!), you are so close to the end of the school year.

Before the school year ends, it is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month! This year, more than ever, it is important to uplift and share AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) voices as we are facing a huge increase in hate crimes and anti-Asian sentiment. The Library of Congress hosts this site with lots of teacher resources, both historical and current. Another helpful resource is Standing Together from the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center which addresses the need to stand together against rising racism, hate, and violence. This site also provides facts and resources.

Newsela has a lot of articles and text sets that would work for AAPI Heritage Month depending on what you want to focus on. Also, make sure you look at a map! It’s always helpful to talk about what “Asian” actually means, learn about the different regions in Asia, and think about population, religion, languages, food (my personal favorite) and more. I often find students are confused about terminology and appreciate the clarification. For example, I share how I identify (American, Asian American, Indian American, South Asian American, etc.) and how these terms all work for me and they are just more or less specific. We look at different maps to make sure we understand exactly what these terms mean, and I explain my preferences and emphasize that how I chose to identify is unique to me, and you should always ask or let people share with you before you assume.

Last year, Gabby shared this post with some book suggestions for everyone from babies to adults. Here are a few more (new-ish) books that I couldn’t resist sharing that would work for so many purposes. There are so many wonderful books out there, but I challenge you to make sure your AAPI protagonists aren’t all immigrants or focusing on their immigration experience.

Picture books:

Bilal Cooks Dal (cover photo) by Aisha Saeed and Anoosha Syed (illustrator): this one isn’t that new (from 2019), but it is such a wonderful book on multiple levels! First of all, it is very important that everyone knows about dal, it’s eaten by over a billion people and is delicious and so versatile. Also, I love this relatable story about a child who wants to share his favorite food with his friends (and is confused that they don’t already know about it and later scared that they might not like it). And there is a recipe at the back of the book!

What I Am by Divya Srinivasan is a thoughtful and colorful response from a young girl to someone asking her “What are you?” Those of us who’ve gotten that question before and those of us who might have asked someone that question (and just all of us) could benefit from reading about her answers. This would be a great book to start a discussion or exploration about the complex facets of identify and how we can all adapt and change in varied settings.

Love in the Library by Maggie Tokuda-Hall and Yas Imamura (illustrator). This new release is on my “to read” list. It’s based on a true story about love blooming in the library at the Minidoka prison camp during World War II (where Americans of Japanese descent where incarcerated).

Drawn Together: also not that new, but such a gorgeous book! I’ve been waiting to read this book for Grandparents and Special Friends Day at our school for years now, but it keeps being canceled due to the pandemic. But you can use this book in so many ways, the theme of togetherness is not limited to language barriers and students really relate to the drawings and the idea of using your imagination.

Middle Grade/Young Adult:

Finding Junie Kim by Ellen Oh: while there is so much to admire in this book, I loved the element of students fighting back against racism with actions and organization. Parts of the story are dark (mental health struggles, the protagonist learns about her grandparents’ experiences during the Korean War), but it fits with the current times in an honest, realistic, but still hopeful way. Also, it tells an immigration story, but is really a story about someone who is a third generation American, but not always perceived that way, which is an important distinction to share with students.

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo: set in 1950’s San Francisco, I learned so much from reading this! And couldn't put it down. While this is historical fiction, the injustices in the book really happened. Chinatown is a legacy of days when Chinese and Chinese-American people were not welcome in any other neighborhoods. The “Red Scare” and the discrimination and intimidation that went along with it did involve threats of deportation and taking away citizenship. This is all the backdrop to Lily, the main character, coming of age, grappling with her identities and opposing loyalties, and discovering lesbian culture in San Franciso

Almost American Girl by Robin Ha: this is a fun memoir graphic novel that I read in one day. It is an immigration story, also touches on gender norms and expectations in different cultures.

Adult:

The Fortunes of Jaded Women by Carolyn Huynh: I read this book as an eARC from NetGalley and LOVED it. From my review: There is an amazing cast of characters and we hear from all of them. The shifting narrative is really well done as each character has their own voice which is impressive as there are so many characters. Also, so many funny/relatable moments. I'm not Vietnamese-American, but as the child of immigrants, so many details rang true for me. And I loved all the descriptions of food. There was nothing predictable about this story, but so many things to enjoy: a curse, fortune tellers, lots of family and relationship drama, and other surprises I won't mention because of spoilers. Some of the family reunion scenes made me laugh out loud.

The Verifiers: this is on my “to read” list and has so many things going for it: identity, family expectations, detective agency, potential romance, and a technology twist with a Chinese-American queer protagonist.

Happy Reading and almost summer!

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Oh how we love representation, it is so essential and of course, it benefits all of us. As we typically note, designated 'months' for any given demographic of humans is not something we follow-- every day is a day to learn about communities and cultures you do or don't belong to! However, we do appreciate the added push for elevating underrepresented voices and perspectives!

Representation was our focus this month, ensuring that as many API perspectives were integrated into our daily learning as possible. Here are a few resources that our students especially loved during "API Heritage Month"!

Representation through awesome characters:

Aru Shah and the End of Time and The Serpent's Secret (both pictured above) are both great adventure novels were tons of fun, and both were packed with mythology and had bright heroines! We felt like we learned a lot and the world building in both was strong and captivating.

The Alvin Ho series (first book also pictured above) is one that we have come love and deeply appreciate as elementary educators. It is at the right level for so many of our readers, it has solid representation of a Chinese family, strong girls characters (We love Flea and his little sis Annibelly!), and it talks openly about Alvin struggling with anxiety, talking with a therapist etc. Of course, it is also goofy and appeals to 'boys' so Alvin runs away from his piano teacher, tries to miss school, and tries out Shakespearean curses on his therapist. We'll take it for the way it brings our students in, and the conversations we have been able to have through it. This one is great to unpack with students and led to some thoughtful conversations about gender and mental health in our classroom. It's exciting that this is a series because a few of our reluctant readers can't wait for the next one, which is the perfect way to send them off to the summer (prepped for their next book!).

There are also of course other great resources besides fiction, like Newsela's API Text Set that can provide some great resources for continuing learning and staying up to date!

2. Representation through music:

We love starting the morning calm and and centered and we always have music playing. It has been especially fun to play all sorts of different music from different countries in Asia. We have been more partial to Chinese music we've found, likely because we have both been there and we have been able to find some really calming pieces. It's also likely that my (Gabby's) attempts at learning Erhu and Guzhen make it even more exciting to share with the students! They love looking at the different instruments, learning facts (like how the guzhen has a history that is over 2,500 years old), and comparing it to instruments that they may play or know (the guzhen was compared to a sliding guitar so we did some compare and contrasting the other day!).

3. Representation through Images:

We always start the morning off with a projected image. This gives us the easy lean into a conversation we may want to have with students, or a way to pre-assess and see what they know (or are excited about). This month, all of our images were pictures from different Asian countries. Be warned, these images made us all yearning for some serious travel! The students always wanted to know where the pictures were taken, and it always got us talking, which leads us to….

4. Representation through maps, statistics reminders:

The morning images usually brought us to looking at the given country on a map! We would talk about where it was nearby (if we had already discussed a neighboring country) and it got us thinking about population, too. We love to remind students (not just in May!) that the continent of Asia has over half the world's population (we are talking over 4 billion humans!!!). We love this video if the world were a village of 100 people, because we think it helps bring some perspective!

5. Representation through…. GIFS! (because we are oh-so trendy and cool!).

James Curan's Tokyo Gif-a-thon has hands down been one of our student's favorite activities and breaks this month. We earn it (sly teachers!) by getting cleaned up early or having an extra moment before we need to start the next class. We love doing the reveal of the next gif, and then we all stare in wonder at what he created. The students have endless (actually endless, the DETAILS they notices surprise us all of the time!) observations of how he made the gif, why he made it that way, and the most miniscule details within the art. As the reveals and months go on, they are able to make more and more connections as to what he might be referencing about Tokyo. We've been to (and love!) Tokyo, so this is also fun for us to share additional background information about why he made certain gifs and what it might be connected to in the city. We were especially intrigued about how the conversation about cherry blossoms ended connecting us back here to where we live-- DC!

These are just a few of the ways we try to infuse additional representation into our classroom (we've also had a ton of fun with languages this month!), but it never ends and we are always thinking of how to do more, and do it better. If you have ideas or other things you've been trying out, we'd love to hear!