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Asian Americans And the Fight for Educational Rights (6 of 6)
Today, just when we are being told we have made it, our actual experience tells us that our educational rights are being stripped away. Xenophobic "English-only" laws threaten to wipe out bilingual education at a time when the majority of Asian students are recent immigrants. The unprecedented cuts in the proposed federal and state educational budgets are having a devastating impact on inner cities schools (resulting in teacher layoffs, firing of needed counselors, overcrowding, and an Asian dropout rate of 15-18%). Cuts in funding to community colleges, raising of college admissions standards at a time when public education is not able to keep pace, and racist quotas being set against admitting Asian American students to institutions of higher learning are beginning to close the doors of higher education to many Asian American students.
At the same time our vision of education goes further than fighting around these particular issues. Our vision of education is one which empowers our people and our communities. This includes control of community schools, sweeping curriculum changes to reflect our true history and to keep students in pace with modern technology, expansion of the definition of bilingual education to include the teaching of minority languages and cultures, an end to racist tracking and the addition of enrichment courses in music and the arts. In higher education, we need to fight for open enrollment, expansion of financial aid and other support programs for minority and working class students, ethnic studies as a graduation requirement for all students and an end to racist violence on campus.
The struggle for educational rights has always been tied to our future as Asian American peoples. We want an education which serves our communities, fosters confidence, awareness and pride in our children as well as gives them the skills to keep up with the complexities of today and enables them to contribute to building a better society.
Our children, as all children, have a right to learn and to recognize their full potential as human beings. Restrictions on our educational rights are only used to keep us down, limit our options, suppress our language and culture and ultimately, to keep us unequal. On the other hand, the education we want can empower us to fight for equality and a better future, not only for our children but for generations to come.
Wilma Chan is a contributing editor to East Wind and vice chairperson of the Chinese Progressive Association. She is also a parent representative to the Oakland Task Force Committee on Year-Round Schools.
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