Hidden in history : examining Asian American elementary teachers’ enactment of Asian American history

Compared to other groups of color, Asian Americans are arguably the most invisible ethnoracial group in the traditional narrative of U.S. history that pervades K-12 schooling. In contemporary scholarship about teachers of color, Asian Americans are also largely ignored. This qualitative case study examined how three Asian American elementary teachers enacted Asian American historical narratives in their classrooms through an Asian Critical Race Theory (AsianCrit) framework, with particular attention to their understanding of the dominant narrative of history, their use of Asian American children's literature, and their conceptualizations of citizenship. The teachers' racialized and hybrid experiences as 1.5 and second generation immigrants deeply informed their approaches to teaching Asian American history through multiple interpretations of resistance to the dominant narrative. This study revealed the complexity of teaching more critically conscious histories of groups that have long been excluded from social studies textbooks while demonstrating the transformative possibilities of such work with diverse young students.