No More Yellow Perils: Antiracism Teaching and Learning

Abstract

The ongoing news about anti-Asian hate crimes prompted us to address racism through art education. In this article, we exemplify a model of antiracism art education implemented through three workshops: (1) Imagining Asians, which adopts an anticolonial pedagogy to destabilize the colonial and racist gaze toward Asians; (2) Animating the Chinese Taotie, which applies critical multicultural art education approaches to contextualize Chinese Shang arts and culture (1600–1046 BCE) and issues of social inequalities; (3) Layering Identity, which follows the cultural competence standards to emphasize the complexity of identity work and raise awareness of diverse identity-based narratives and issues. After explaining the conceptual foundation for each workshop, we describe the individual workshop and showcase selected preservice art teachers’ artworks reflecting their informed and empowered interpretation of Asian artifacts and intersectional identity. We conclude that the participants gain enriched knowledge toward Asian and Asian American subjectivities and experience with antiracism art education.

Notes

1 The notion of a gender binary makes us wonder if we need to introduce gender identity or the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other sexual and gender minorities (LGBTQ+) issues from antiquities to contextualize the recent anti-LGBTQ + movement in the United States, exemplified by Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which may motivate learners to look critically at gender norms in society.