garden wall in San Francisco, CA
For history, as nearly no one seems to know, is not merely something to be read. And it does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do.
-James Baldwin, "Unnameable Objects, Unspeakable Crimes," The White Problem in America, 1966
-James Baldwin, "Unnameable Objects, Unspeakable Crimes," The White Problem in America, 1966
WELCOME!
This site is created to assist students who are enrolled in my classes at Santa Ana College and elsewhere in finding course materials, with easy access links to syllabi, assignments, Canvas, news media, and more. Should you not find what you're looking for, please email me using your course section name and number in the subject line.
Thank you!
Thank you!
Addressing Anti-Asian Racism and Violence
I feel compelled to share with you my brief thoughts after learning of the murders of 8 people in Atlanta, GA on Tuesday, March 16. What we know is that these murders were prompted by racism and sexism towards Asians, and specifically Asian American women. We study the roots of anti-Asian ideologies and laws in the classes I teach and I feel it is extremely important to recognize the through-line that connects Tuesday's horrific violence to the last 100 years of U.S. history, back to (since-repealed) laws like the Chinese Exclusion Act, and the Page Act, which sexualized almost all female Chinese immigrants as prostitutes. What this moment reveals to me, once again, is that our past impacts our present, AND that the decisions and choices we make today as individuals and as a nation have lasting effects on the future! I want to share some information and resources first published by Michele Kim in Yes! magazine on February 12, 2021 (Links to an external site.):
In recent weeks, there have been over 20 attacks on Asian businesses and people, mostly elders, with little to no coverage from the mainstream news outlets. Videos documenting such attacks have been circulating, mostly through individual social media accounts of Asian activists, celebrities, and journalists (thank you Amanda Nguyen, Dion Lim, Dr. Kiona, Daniel Dae Kim, Benny Luo, Lisa Ling, and Daniel Wu for being among the first public figures to use your platform to mobilize others). They show a 91-year-old Chinese man being shoved to the ground (Links to an external site.) in Chinatown in Oakland, California, on Jan. 31, just two days before an 84-year-old Thai man, Vicha Ratanapakdee, was pushed and killed (Links to an external site.) in San Francisco, and multiple accounts of robberies targeting Asian-owned businesses in Chinatowns (Links to an external site.). In New York, a 61-year-old Filipino man was slashed across the face from ear to ear (Links to an external site.) on Feb 3, and on the same day, a 70-year-old Asian woman was assaulted (Links to an external site.) and robbed in Oakland.
Between March and August of 2020, Stop AAPI Hate received more than 2,583 reports of anti-Asian hate crimes (Links to an external site.) nationwide, and these incidents go grossly underreported. The alarming jobless rate of Asian Americans (Links to an external site.) and the high COVID-19 mortality rate among Pacific Islanders, which is double that of White and other Asian people (Links to an external site.), continue to be left out of mainstream narratives when discussing the disproportionate economic and health impacts of the pandemic on people of color.
White supremacy wants us to remember the unhealed wounds we [communities of color] inflicted on each other, historical and ongoing anti-Blackness in the Asian community and anti-Asian incidents perpetrated by Black individuals, but not the stories of solidarity that have existed in equal measure, and are somehow left out of our history books and media coverage. In the aftermath of the LA uprising, volunteers from all racial groups showed up to rebuild Koreatown: “One by one,” said Lee, “neighbors came out to help. They were Black, Korean, and Latino. 30 people. They gave me hope. They are my community. And it’s time again to stay bound together these next four years.” Despite our “mutual ignorance,” as activist Helen Zia once described, we have been showing up for each other. And I’m not talking about the performative gestures of posting black squares and BLM hashtags; I’m talking about the work (Links to an external site.) of our ancestors like Yuri Kochiyama, Grace Lee Boggs, and Larry Itliong, who worked alongside the Black Panthers in the ’60s, to the Third Liberation Front, a coalition of Black, Latinx, and Asian student organizations that sustained one of the longest student strikes in the U.S. that resulted in the creation of Ethnic Studies, to the present-day coalitionary organizing to mobilize voters in Georgia, push for prison reform and abolishment, and defund and demilitarize the police. … The work has been ongoing, with or without the mainstream consciousness or participation, and it is our duty to remember and uplift these stories to seed healing and change.
Between March and August of 2020, Stop AAPI Hate received more than 2,583 reports of anti-Asian hate crimes (Links to an external site.) nationwide, and these incidents go grossly underreported. The alarming jobless rate of Asian Americans (Links to an external site.) and the high COVID-19 mortality rate among Pacific Islanders, which is double that of White and other Asian people (Links to an external site.), continue to be left out of mainstream narratives when discussing the disproportionate economic and health impacts of the pandemic on people of color.
White supremacy wants us to remember the unhealed wounds we [communities of color] inflicted on each other, historical and ongoing anti-Blackness in the Asian community and anti-Asian incidents perpetrated by Black individuals, but not the stories of solidarity that have existed in equal measure, and are somehow left out of our history books and media coverage. In the aftermath of the LA uprising, volunteers from all racial groups showed up to rebuild Koreatown: “One by one,” said Lee, “neighbors came out to help. They were Black, Korean, and Latino. 30 people. They gave me hope. They are my community. And it’s time again to stay bound together these next four years.” Despite our “mutual ignorance,” as activist Helen Zia once described, we have been showing up for each other. And I’m not talking about the performative gestures of posting black squares and BLM hashtags; I’m talking about the work (Links to an external site.) of our ancestors like Yuri Kochiyama, Grace Lee Boggs, and Larry Itliong, who worked alongside the Black Panthers in the ’60s, to the Third Liberation Front, a coalition of Black, Latinx, and Asian student organizations that sustained one of the longest student strikes in the U.S. that resulted in the creation of Ethnic Studies, to the present-day coalitionary organizing to mobilize voters in Georgia, push for prison reform and abolishment, and defund and demilitarize the police. … The work has been ongoing, with or without the mainstream consciousness or participation, and it is our duty to remember and uplift these stories to seed healing and change.
While we may not get an opportunity to formally discuss what happened on Tuesday together, I would encourage you to learn more about the people and organizations Kim references in her article, as they were formative and transformative figures who we can learn from to help us in our present moment. I stand with Kim and all others in denouncing anti-Asian rhetoric and violence, and in support of tolerance, understanding, anti-racist and anti-sexist ideologies and change, in support of AAPI students, and in support of one another. For more resources from Santa Ana College in particular you can visit the Santa Ana College AAPI Solidarity Pledge (Links to an external site.). In addition, the Critical Filipina/x/o Studies Collective has issued a strong statement condemning Anti-Asian hate and white supremacy which I support and encourage you to read.
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Alpha Gamma Sigma Honor SocietyDo you have a GPA of 3.0 or higher? Consider joining Alpha Gamma Sigma at either Santa Ana College or Los Angeles Harbor College. I encourage all of my students to join this or any other club through their campus. Get involved!
Are you paying out-of-state tuition fees?You may qualify for in-state tuition under CA law, AB540. For more information visit: http://ab540.com/What_Is_AB540_.html
SAC students can also find more information here. California State University has an excellent list of additional resources for AB540 or DACA students throughout CA, Los Angeles and Orange Counties included. 
Learning Resources
Here is a compilation of useful web pages, books, study tips and more that I have used in the Learning Resource Center at LAHC and Tutoring Center at Ventura College.
Chicano Park, San Diego, CA
CoursesUse this page to find your class: get more information, download syllabi, access materials and weblinks.
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Resources for Students during the COVID-19 pandemicAmanda Gorman, Youth Poet Laureate recites "The Hill We Climb"When day comes, we ask ourselves where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry, a sea we must wade. We’ve braved the belly of the beast. We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, and the norms and notions of what “just” is isn’t always justice. And yet, the dawn is ours before we knew it. Somehow we do it. Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished. We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one. And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect. We are striving to forge our union with purpose. To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man. And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us, but what stands before us. We close the divide because we know, to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside. We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another. We seek harm to none and harmony for all. Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true: That even as we grieved, we grew. That even as we hurt, we hoped. That even as we tired, we tried. That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious. Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division. Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one shall make them afraid. If we’re to live up to our own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made. That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb, if only we dare. It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit. It’s the past we step into and how we repair it. We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it. Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy. And this effort very nearly succeeded. But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated. In this truth, in this faith, we trust, for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us. This is the era of just redemption. We feared it at its inception. We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour, but within it, we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves. So while once we asked, ‘How could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?’ now we assert, ‘How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?’ We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be: A country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free. We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation. Our blunders become their burdens. But one thing is certain: If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change, our children’s birthright. So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left. With every breath from my bronze-pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one. We will rise from the golden hills of the West. We will rise from the wind-swept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution. We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the Midwestern states. We will rise from the sun-baked South. We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover. In every known nook of our nation, in every corner called our country, our people, diverse and beautiful, will emerge, battered and beautiful. When day comes, we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid. The new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it. AMANDA GORMAN is the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history, as well as an award-winning writer and cum laude graduate of Harvard University, where she studied sociology. She has written for the New York Times and has three books forthcoming with Penguin Random House.
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Photo used under Creative Commons from sachac
