For Immediate Release: April 29, 2005
Contact: Ilana Sabban (202) 588-7206
(240) 793-7867 (cell)

BEYOND KUNG FU FIGHTING TO FIGHTING FOR CIVIL RIGHTS
Honoring Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

It’s Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, a perfect time to go beyond the popularized fragments of Asian culture like Yoga, Sushi, Kung Fu and Asian décor. The vast traditions and history of Asian Americans is incredibly important to our nation, but what do we know about Asian American culture, history and struggle for civil rights?

In many schools across the country the human rights struggle of Asian Americans is segmented from the Civil Rights Movement. Students are often only taught about the Vietnam War and the internment camps where Japanese-Americas were imprisoned, but aren’t given the historical context of the civil rights era. Students are also rarely taught about how Asian Americans organized to fight for equality and how the Asian, Latino, African American and Native American struggle for freedom influenced and inspired one another.

A new book, Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching, published by Teaching for Change and PRRAC, seeks to change this and is one of the few resources that links the African American struggle for civil rights with the freedom struggles of Asian-Americans, Chicanos and Native Americans.

“When people talk about the ‘Asian Movement’ they see images of the Basement Workshop in NYC, Kearny Street in San Francisco, and the JACS (Japanese American Community Services) office in Little Tokyo…For me, the Asian Movement is the image of 40 Asian brothers struggling to define what ‘Serve the People’ means in an old Chinatown storefront in Stockton, California …I really understand what camaraderie is, what struggle is...” Nelson Nagai, “I Came from A Yellow Seed”, Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching.

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Teaching for Change and PRRAC work to spread social and economic justice in public education by promoting critical thinking and civic activism. For more information on Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching visit www.civilrightsteaching.org.

Art by Nancy Hom

Message from Debbie Wei, Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching advisor, on Asian Pacific American Heritage Month