One of the things that has helped me through the stress of this past year is striving to continue my learning about the history and forms of racism in US history and, particularly, how we can better incorporate anti-racism and anti-bias work in our teaching. I am reading books on culturally responsive leadership, participating in webinars and watching recorded talks about anti-racist teaching, participating in the IDC work (special thanks to Audra, Melanie, and Mary for launching this work with Inshirah Duwors and Ashley London Taylor and to the other staff and parents who are joining these meetings) and reading fiction and non-fiction that broadens my perspectives. 

Racism shows up in many areas of life.  Students continue to use memes that have racist histories because they have not tuned in to the racist history behind these memes.  I catch myself using language that has become totally normalized in our society but that is rooted in a history of bias and is offensive to different minoritized groups. It also shows up when we are uninformed or not clued into the bias and racism experienced by members of our community. 

Last Saturday evening, I participated in a Bollywood Cooking Lesson through the Geffen Playhouse in LA.  My original intention was to watch some Bollywood movie clips and learn to cook some Indian food.  Sri Rao, the author of Bollywood Kitchen, led the Zoom session, interspersing cooking with family stories. As an American of Indian heritage (his parents immigrated in the early 60s), he spoke about his life growing up as the only brown boy growing up in white middle America.  He spoke about the racism he encountered as a child and that his parents encountered as immigrants in a not always welcoming America. 

Racism faced by Asian Americans is too often unnamed.  Yet, our colleagues and families from Asia undoubtedly are assumed to be from “somewhere else” and not the US even though many of them have been born in the US.  There are expectations of meeting a certain standard of behavior and academic achievement.  And we don’t often teach the histories and contributions of their ancestors or the challenges faced by their ancestors as they arrived in the US.  Nor do we acknowledge the stress they feel as they walk down the street or ride the subway due to the increase in hate crimes targeted at Americans of Asian ancestry.

My challenge to our community is to be more aware of these experiences and to offer care to those in our community who may be encountering this stress. As we move forward as a community, it is important that we are mindful of the experiences of others and that we model this mindfulness and empathy for our children. I encourage families to stop by our monthly IDC parent workshops as well as we engage in conversations with others about our blindspots and unconscious biases and how by naming these we can guide our children to be a part of the society we wish to see.