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A $5,000 grant to Immigrant History Initiative awarded by CT Humanities will provide critical funding for the Immigrant History Initiative to maintain and expand educational resources on the histories of people of color.
Since the start of COVID-19 and the rise of anti-Asian racism, Immigrant History Initiative (IHI) has experienced unprecedented demand for resources to combat resurgent xenophobia during the pandemic. In response, IHI has developed free resources, including videos and live workshops and panels. Demand has only increased due to the timeliness of this work to address xenophobia and racism, while revenue streams have decreased due to the pandemic. Read the full press release here.
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IHI is partnering with Antiracist APUSH to adapt immigrant history lesson plans for the AP U.S. History curriculum! All lesson plans and activities will be fully aligned to AP standards. The first lesson plan, on Chinese labor and the transcontinental railroad, is now available and can be downloaded here.
The purpose of Antiracist APUSH is to help students identify and expose the racist policies that have led to the deplorable racial disparities in American society. This is achieved by exposing students to the research of leading professional historians. As Antiracist APUSH's founder, AP U.S. History teacher Matt Vriesman, notes: "Much structural change and healing is needed. As history teachers, we have an immense responsibility to confront racism and call it what it is." The first lesson plan is aligned with AP U.S. History topic 6.8 (Immigration in the Gilded Age) and topic 6.2 (Westward Expansion). includes a full slide deck, lesson plan, and activities for students to practice document-based analysis and thesis-writing skills. Download the materials here. Additional lesson plans will be coming out soon! A $4,215 grant to Immigrant History Initiative awarded by Connecticut Humanities will provide tools and resources to parents in the state on talking about anti-Asian racism and Asian American identity.
The workshop will be geared toward parents in Connecticut who are looking for strategies and concrete tools to guide their children through thinking about Asian American identity and how to respond to anti-Asian racism, which has seen a significant uptick since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The workshop will discuss the complex racial dynamics of Asian American identity, the history of anti-Asian racism and the current moment of resurgence, and trauma-informed practices and strategies for parents to utilize in discussing these important topics with their children. Read the full press release here. IHI's facilitation guide on anti-Asian racism featured by Harvard Graduate School of Education11/9/2020 Immigrant History Initiative's innovative facilitation guide, Empathy during COVID, has been featured by the Harvard Graduate School of Education's publication, Usable Knowledge! Our facilitation guide empowers educators to use principles of restorative justice, including non-hierarchical dialogue and anti-racist relationship-building, to lead powerful conversations around race, anti-Asian discrimination, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Harvard Graduate School of Education interviewed IHI Co-Founders Kathy Lu and Julia Wang, as well as our guest restorative justice expert, Sarah Appelbaum, on key strategies to tackle today's troubling racial dynamics. Read the Usable Knowledge article, "Combatting Anti-Asian Racism," here.  We are honored to be featured as the Spill the Boba podcast's first guests in honor of APA Heritage Month! Our co-founders, Julia and Kathy, discuss the IHI's beginnings and evolution, and give their own takes on Asian American identity. Listen to the podcast on Spotify, or at Buzzsprout.
A brief description of the podcast from Spill the Boba: "It's Asian Pacific American Heritage Month and our inaugural episode is all about Asian American history... or the lack thereof? We meet Kathy Lu and Julia Wang, co-founders of Immigrant History Initiative: a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded in 2018. The organization produces a curriculum focused on immigrant histories and works with schools and communities to establish courses sharing this knowledge. They also provide teaching and course development, support in partnership with other organizations bringing immigrant histories into the mainstream. We'll talk about growing up Asian American and learn about some of our lesser-known histories, all while sipping boba from Coco."  We at the Immigrant History Initiative are heartbroken by the surge of anti-Asian attacks in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak. This graphic explains the most troubling aspects of these attacks.
Attacks against Asian Americans reveal a complete lack of awareness for Asian American history and identity, and the integral role Asian Americans have played in the making of America. In light of the resurgence of xenophobia, hatred, and racism, we will be posting weekly mini-lessons to this page to educate the public about Asian American history and our community's deep roots in this country. Our first video will be posted TOMORROW, Tuesday (4/7) at 5 PM! Please share our weekly mini-lessons to your own communities to combat the anti-Asian sentiment. Other lesson plans are also available for download on our website at immigranthistory.org/curriculum. Stay tuned, stay informed, and stay healthy! We are excited to announce a new project to produce curriculum for the upcoming PBS series, The Asian Americans.
The Asian Americans series is designed to engage the American public about the evolving identity, contributions, and challenges experienced by the nation’s fastest growing racial group. We will help develop lesson plans that accompany the PBS episodes for high school, middle school, and elementary school students. The Asian Americans is scheduled to begin airing May 2020. Our New Haven Chinese American History pilot program wouldn’t be possible without our amazing volunteer teachers from Yale University! In May 2019, they received much- deserved recognition from the Yale Asian American Cultural Center (AACC) for their work on the pilot program.
The Yale Immigrant History Project, led by co- presidents Rita Wang and Alex Wang, are the recipients of the inaugural AACC Exemplary Social Justice Contribution award. Thank you for your commitment and your diligence! The Yale Chinese American History Initiative team will continue strong in the coming year, helmed by rising junior Stella Xu. For API Heritage Month, NBC Asian America profiled the Immigrant History Initiative and other groundbreaking organizations across the country that are passionate about “writing Asian American stories back into history books.” Read about the innovative projects spearheaded by IHI and our allies in the article here.
Advocates all around America have been fighting to get these marginalized narratives into schools for years, and we are making new strides every day. To support our efforts to empower communities through knowledge, consider making a donation! Immigrant History Initiative Co-Founders Julia Wang and Kathy Lu were presented with the Outstanding Service Award for our pilot Chinese American History program at New Haven’s Southern Connecticut Chinese School!
Spanning four terms and reaching over forty students, the IHI pilot course has contributed something both novel and deeply needed to the traditional Chinese school class roster. Our students engage in a variety of topics from the personal to the political, conducting oral history projects with their families while learning important stories behind the transcontinental railroad, Chinese exclusion, and pan-ethnic community building. |
Read about the latest updates on the Immigrant History Initiative's projects.
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