By Vy Nguyen
From 2021 to present, a series of bills regarding ethnic studies in K-12 schools has culminated in a groundbreaking model curriculum developed for Southeast Asian studies. Under the statewide Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC), the Orange County Department of Education (OCDE) is leading the formation of the Southeast Asian curriculum, which is set to be completed by September 2025.
Approximately 800,000 Asian Americans make up the populations of Orange County, making the county home to the third largest Asian American community in the U.S. Nationally, Asian Americans make up over 20 million of the population, equating to 7% of Americans.
Within the population of Asian Americans in the county lies the largest hub of Vietnamese Americans compared to the rest of the nation, with nearly half a million Vietnamese Americans. Tracing its roots back to the 1970s, after the fall of Saigon during the Vietnam War, Vietnamese refugees first came to California and settled in Westminster.
Renowned modern-day as “Little Saigon,” Vietnamese refugees livened up the streets with small businesses as a means to support themselves. Expanding to nearby cities of Garden Grove, Santa Ana, Fountain Valley and Huntington Beach, the next generation of Vietnamese Americans have a rare, yet limited, glimpse into Vietnam pre-1975 within Orange County.
Despite the rich culture Orange County houses, Southeast Asian reach is one of the lowest in the state, as local and state politicians have shown minimal outreaches to Southeast Asians. Data often blends Southeast Asians with other AAPI groups, though huge disparities exist between other Asian groups and Southeast Asians. Called data disaggregation, this impacts Southeast Asians’ ability to voice their concerns in relation to their needs, as well as an impaired sense of political consciousness as its own community and entity.
In an initiative to address such issues, Sen. Janet Nguyen introduced a bill that created a model curricula of core Southeast Asian historical events, including Vietnamese-American refugeeism, Cambodian genocide and Hmong culture. Introduced in 2018, the bill, titled SB 895, was passed later that year.
SB 895 came after two years when then-governor Jerry Brown approved the ESMC, which brought a standardized curriculum of ethnic studies five years after its approval in 2016.
Following Nguyen’s bill, California approved AB 101, the first mandate in the U.S. for all high schoolers to take an ethnic studies course for graduation, and AB 167, which allocated $1.2 million in funding for the development of Southeast Asian and Native American curricula.
Such political initiatives have paved the path for the model curriculum of Southeast Asian studies. The curriculum comes at an opportune time, as California now sees the next generation of American-born immigrant children growing into adulthood, though some may lack cultural knowledge passed down from their parents or may feel disconnected from their heritage.
Currently, the OCDE is collaborating with partner organizations to form processes and training to formulate a prime curriculum.
The foundational ideas for the model curriculum currently includes a series of lesson plans, planning resources, teaching strategies, professional development activities for instructors and primary source documents. A key component of the OCDE’s process is engagement sessions with external organizations and activist groups, which seek Asian American input for their desired curriculum.
Listed on OCDE’s website are multiple forms that allow AAPI visitors to voice their ideas for their curriculum. Formatted as Google Forms for the model curricula for Vietnamese refugee experiences, Cambodian genocide and Hmong cultural studies, the forms ask participants to share topics and pieces of literature that should be included in the model curriculum. The engagement form also allows participants to share organizations and activists with useful resources or contributions that OCDE could potentially include in the project.
OCDE’s emphasis on engagement sessions and focus groups are key to the process of how all curriculums are finalized for a diverse group of students. As state projects trickle down to counties and individual districts, districts have flexibility to mold and implement adaptations to best fit their needs, given that they follow state standards.
Especially crucial is the formation of focus groups, which helps interpret state curriculum standards in the context of local communities and adapt it best to the student populations.
“From a district perspective, it’s important that you get a lot of voices involved when developing a curriculum,” Jonathan Hurst, assistant principal of curriculum and instruction, said, “It’s the responsibility of the districts to bring that group of people together and then facilitate those discussions. [And then] start to disaggregate what those standards look like…decide what those standards are really saying and how those can best serve the population that they serve in their campus. ”
When implemented, the curriculum for ethnic studies could either be incorporated into existing classes, or exists as an individual class.
For Huntington Beach Union High School District, it is blazing a trail as it has already developed its own committee centered around ethnic studies.
“I’m super proud of our district because we are a little bit ahead of the curve in that. We’ve already had a committee that has started to meet…to develop what [the ethnic studies] curriculum could look like,” Hurst said. “It’s just really conversations geared around how we can develop that curriculum to best serve the communities at each school site and what those populations look like…Next year will be the first year that they really start making some headway.”
At Fountain Valley High School (FVHS), celebrations of students’ heritage have already begun to integrate into school culture. This year, FVHS held its first ever campus-wide Lunar New Year, and traditional dresses were seen all throughout campus. With over 50% of FVHS’ student body being Asian American, input from Barons could prove invaluable to the formation of a curriculum, that of which represents students’ own heritage.
“I don’t really know much about my heritage at all, except a little bit about some traditions, like the Lunar New Year,” Brandon Doan, sophomore and Vietnamese American born in the US, said. [I’d want to know] more traditions of [ancient] Vietnamese people, like what they used to wear, what they used to like, and what their language used to be.”
Reggie Dao, a sophomore student born in Vietnam, said, “[For] the lesson plans, I would like to see more on the culture of everyday Vietnamese people, since it’s different than people in America. Like the history between Vietnam and other countries [and the origins] of the food and everyday customs.”
Though Southeast Asian roots are vibrant within California and Orange County, the development of its curriculum is relatively new. Therefore, student input and feedback from Southeast Asian Americans all over the state is arguably the keystone of a well-rounded Southeast Asian education.
As is the goal of focus groups and outreaches to Asian Americans, California’s new Southeast Asian education will hopefully be a narrative developed by the people, for the people.
