Dear Friends,

It has been 40 years since the 1982 baseball bat beating death of Vincent Chin in Metro Detroit, and you can find many 40th commemoration events around the country this weekend, the documentary film “Who Killed Vincent Chin” on your local PBS station June 20, and a big Asian American Unity March that we are co-sponsoring in Washington DC on June 25. And check out our Spotlight section below to see the details on our upcoming Teachers Workshop.

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The 1990 Institute is proud to be a partner organization for the Unity March, taking place in Washington DC
next Saturday, June 25. Join us!

How is 1990 Institute reshaping and relaunching its Teachers Workshop, adding arrows to teachers’ quivers?

By Frances Kai-Hwa Wang

“[Former 1990 Institute director] Megs Booker had a relative who was a teacher and seemed to be missing teachers’ professional development opportunities on China,” said 1990 Institute Executive Board officer and program lead Sandra Pan.

From that initial idea, 1990 Institute began holding teachers workshops from 2013-2019, in person, over two days, with 60 to 80+ teachers attending. “Teachers came initially from the Bay Area,” said 1990 Institute Board President Grace Yu. “But over time, we had teachers from Hawaii and Southern California and other states. In the past, the workshop focused on Modern China, but in 2022, the workshop will be online and [will] focus on Asian Americans and on Modern China.”

With the new online format this summer, 1990 Institute hopes to reach more teachers across the entire nation to enhance their ability to teach these topics in the classroom, “sort of like adding arrows in their quiver,” Yu said.

The newly designed 2022 Teachers Workshop has two tracks, one on Asian Americans and one on Modern China. Each track has two sessions. Each session consists of a one-hour lecture by an invited speaker followed by a 30-minute interactive time where attendees may ask the speaker questions and discuss with each other how to structure a lesson plan around the materials.

“Our goal is to provide relevant information and expansive resources to teachers [who] can immediately apply the material in their classroom,” Pan said. “Like our previous workshops, our speakers are from different disciplines and backgrounds to provide a balanced perspective on the subject matter.”

The Asian American track will follow California’s ethnic studies requirements on Asian American history and include topics such as the Asian American experience and Asian American legal cases. The workshop is geared towards middle and high school history and social studies teachers but all students and parents who want to learn more are encouraged to attend as well. “We are working on getting our workshop [approved] this year so California teachers may earn CEU professional development credits again. We are also looking into getting our workshop qualified in other states,” Yu added.

“Our goal is to help teachers build the confidence they need to discuss subject matters that they themselves may not have learned before,” Pan said. “Asian Americans are the fastest growing population in America [and] China is a rising superpower. Both of these [points] cannot be ignored for students in the 21st century. Our goal is to prepare our youth with the knowledge base to face issues in the future.”

Teachers recognize the impact of this content on their students.

“I believe it is very important for my students to walk out of my classroom with more tools to understand the real world they live in,” said San Lorenzo, CA social studies teacher Eunjee Kang who has attended several 1990 Institute teachers workshops. “It is very crucial to empower our young scholars. And one of the most effective and positive ways is to have them learn about their own communities, including themselves, their classmates, and their neighbors. Ethnic studies is definitely an effective tool to teach our learners to navigate this learning journey in this multi-layered society.”

Click here for more information on the 1990 Institute 2022 Teachers Workshop.

Register now for Teachers Workshop 2022 with sessions on Asian American Studies and Modern China.
Join us for one or both days!

Curated News

Opinion:  A single photo can change the world. I know, because I took one that did. | Washington Post  By Nick Ut – “Then I heard a child screaming, ‘Nong qua! Nong qua!’ Too hot! Too hot! I looked through my Leica viewfinder to see a young girl who had pulled off her burning clothes and was running toward me. I started taking pictures of her.”

VIDEO: Through A New Lens: Revisiting ‘Who Killed Vincent Chin?’, Asian American Civil Rights Nearly 40 Years Later | Detroit Public Television  Nearly four decades after the film premiered, the filmmakers and Anderson come together once again with Detroit-area filmmaker Chien-An Yuan to talk about the making of the “Who Killed Vincent Chin?” documentary, the civil rights movement they covered in real-time, and the significance the film still holds nearly 40-years later.

Inside a N.J. school leading the charge for teaching Asian American history | NBC News  Amid an increase in anti-Asian hate, New Jersey now requires that Asian American studies be taught in public schools.

NYC to teach Asian American, Pacific Islander history in over 1,800 schools | NBC News  A new pilot program will teach students about the history, contributions and culture of the Asian American community.

Rhode Island Lawmakers pass bill requiring schools to teach Asian-American history | WPRI  All public elementary and secondary schools in Rhode Island will provide students with at least one unit of instruction on Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander history and culture.

Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies Curriculum for CT Schools Being Developed | NBC Connecticut  Schools in Connecticut will be required to teach Asian American and Pacific Islander studies to students in Kindergarten through grade 12 beginning in the 2025-2026 school year.

How China’s biggest online influencers fell from their thrones | MIT Technology Review  Three top livestreaming personalities on the platform Taobao commanded legions of fans who bought billions of dollars’ worth of goods—until they suddenly went dark.

In Hong Kong, memories of China’s Tiananmen Square massacre are being erased | CNN  Many say the Hong Kong government would be stretching belief if it again banned the event on the grounds of Covid. Yet that appears to be what outgoing Chief Executive Carrie Lam has suggested. 

Behind the Story: Curtis Chin’s new documentary film, “Dear Corky,” pays tribute to the late and legendary photographer | Medium AAJA  “Dear Corky” captures the breadth of Corky Lee’s life, career and tireless fight for Asian visibility in American photojournalism.

Explainer | Why archaeologists are so excited by China’s Sanxingdui ruins | South China Morning Post  An ancient treasure trove reveals deep connections between the mysterious Shu kingdom and other early Chinese settlements. Thousands of intricate relics of gold, bronze, jade and ivory have been found, all relating to sacrificial activities.

WATCH: Biden approves steps toward an Asian American and Pacific Islander museum | PBS NewsHour  Calling the museum “long overdue,” Biden said, “Asian-American, Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders have literally shaped the history and the contours of this country.”

LIsten in as Derek Mio from AMC’s “The Terror” shares how the Japanese-American community helped him break into the industry in our new Bund to Brooklyn podcast episode called Paying it forward through acting and comedy with Derek Mio.

1990 Institute
P.O. Box 383  | San Francisco, California 94104
 contact@1990institute.org

www.1990institute.org

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