{"pk":61666,"title":"Moving from Essentialism to Intersectionality in Asian American History Curriculum: California as a National Model","subtitle":null,"abstract":"<p>In recent years, activists have campaigned across the country for schools to<br>incorporate ethnic studies into their curricula. For example, in 2021, California Governor<br>Gavin Newsom signed a new law mandating an ethnic studies graduation requirement for<br>all high school students, starting with the class of 2030. While this movement has greatly<br>benefited students by exposing them to multicultural perspectives, misconceptions, such as<br>the model minority stereotype often assigned to Asian Americans, still pervade school<br>curricula. The stereotype portrays Asian Americans as having more of a hard-working<br>mentality and a propensity for achieving socioeconomic success, compared to other ethnic<br>groups. This is especially important in a state like California, which is home to nearly a<br>third of the country’s Asian population and twenty-one Asian ethnic groups. School<br>curriculum standards must move away from an essentialist point of view, which assumes<br>that Asian Americans have a uniform experience, and explore the intersectional oppressions<br>that impact the Asian American community. For example, Asian American students in Berkeley High School only learned about Chinese and Japanese culture and never discussed<br>Southeast Asian history, such as the wartime conflict in Laos. Schools should also recruit<br>and support Asian American educators, as these teachers’ cultural knowledge and racialized<br>experiences will bring the revised curriculum to life. Changes to California’s curriculum<br>can serve as a model for the rest of the nation at a time when the model minority myth is<br>manipulated by legislators to suggest that Asian Americans have overcome racism to<br>achieve socioeconomic success and fuel the anti-critical race theory movement, that<br>suppresses learning about racial oppression in schools altogether.</p>","language":"eng","license":{"name":"All rights reserved","short_name":"Copyright","text":"© the author(s). All rights reserved.","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/authors"},"keywords":[],"section":"Articles","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6q11x7v7","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Lavanya","middle_name":"","last_name":"Sathyamurty","name_suffix":"","institution":"","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2025-12-16T04:24:00+06:00","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/uclalaw_apalj/article/61666/galley/47576/download/"}]}