Abstract
These quotations from students in my Asian American leadership course at City College of San Francisco (CCSF) reflect challenges, lessons learned, and possibilities imagined from a curriculum that honors the histories and leadership of Asian Americans. Asian American students rarely see themselves represented in their schools’ curriculum; and examples of Asian American leadership, past and present, are rarely a part of students’ educational experiences. This chapter examines the right to education for Asian American students and asserts that critical leadership development is a necessary component of a comprehensive human rights education.
In class, we were taught that leadership is everything we can practice in our daily life, but it is really hard to do so. As an Asian woman, I am so used to being invisible… Yet, I believe that as long as I am willing to practice more, I will internalize exercising leadership for the benefit of my communities. (City College of San Francisco—CCSF student)
[Asian Americans] always found ways to fight back. Even if it’s a little thing like if it was changing jobs or something big like going into the court system to fight back. You find out about all these leaders or past leaders in the community who found all of these ways to fight back. And I think it kinda does empower us to fight back. To find ways to help out our community since there are so many problems right now. (CCSF student)
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© 2015 Susan Roberta Katz and Andrea McEvoy Spero
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Canlas, M.A. (2015). Teaching and Learning Asian American Leadership: A Human Rights Framework. In: Katz, S.R., Spero, A.M. (eds) Bringing Human Rights Education to US Classrooms. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137471130_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137471130_11
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