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At the Immigrant History Initiative, we use history to empower Asian Americans to see ourselves as the heroes and leaders of our own stories. We are the first to reach rapidly growing, first-generation immigrant enclaves at the grassroots level.
Our mission is to empower Asian Americans, build empathy for multiple generations of immigrant communities, and foster solidarity to address hate and intolerance. We do this by providing comprehensive education programming and resources that center on the histories and lived experiences of immigrant communities and people of color. IHI’s model has four key components: 1) community education and empowerment, 2) multimedia curriculum & course design, 2) anti-racist resource development, and 4) equitable education support. We work with families, communities, educators, and organizations to share the untold stories of immigrant diasporas. Immigrant history IS American history. |
OUR ROOTSstarting in our own communities |
The Immigrant History Initiative (IHI) is led by founders Julia Chang Wang and Kathy Lu, two Yale Law School graduates. As children of immigrants, we grew up knowing next to nothing about our heritage in the United States. The recent resurgence of xenophobia has prompted us to think deeply about how we talk, teach, and think about migration and race as a society. We started IHI to teach about erased and whitewashed immigrant experiences from history that can help us understand our current day. Our organization seeks to preserve these narratives for generations to come.
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OUR JOURNEYbuilding a larger movement |
As experts in history and law, we are the first to serve new, rapidly growing Asian American communities who have never had access to this empowering knowledge.
The Immigrant History Initiative's first pilot program was established at Yale University, training Yale undergraduates to teach a course on Chinese American history at the Southern Connecticut Chinese School in New Haven. Since then, we have broadened our reach nationally and globally:
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