In the early days of the pandemic, Virginia Nguyen (B.A. political science and sociology ’01; M.A.T. ’03) and Stacy Yung (B.A. social sciences ’07; M.A.T. ’09) were teaching through more than screen fatigue and Zoom malfunctions. Their middle school and high school students in Irvine were trying to make sense of a world in turmoil. The violence that preceded the Black Lives Matter movement, the rise in anti-Asian hate, and a constant stream of public grief began filtering into classroom discussions, even when they weren’t part of the lesson plan.
“Our classrooms became places where the outside world kept making its way in,” Nguyen says. “And our students kept sharing how painful it was to navigate during these times.”
For both teachers, the question became not how to shield students from that pain, but how to help them make sense of it.
“What do we do when our students feel helpless?” Nguyen asks. “We turn to history. We turn to stories of how hardship has been overcome, and how we can be resilient together. That’s the story of ethnic studies.”
At its core, ethnic studies is an academic approach that centers the histories, experiences, and contributions of marginalized communities, particularly Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and Asian American peoples, with the goal of fostering critical thinking, civic engagement, and deeper cultural understanding.
That work takes a new shape this fall with the publication of the High School Ethnic Studies Resource Book, a multi-author collection of community-based models for teaching ethnic studies in schools which will officially be released at a public event on Saturday, November 8, from 12–2 p.m. at
@theuntoldstorybookstore_cafe . The release comes at a pivotal moment; it follows the passage of Assembly Bill 101, which makes ethnic studies a graduation requirement for California high school students beginning with the class of 2029–30. Nguyen and Yung contributed chapters rooted in their ongoing work as co-founders of Educate to Empower, a nonprofit that trains teachers to approach education through a justice-centered, community-responsive lens.
More at our link in bio.
