‘How I show up for Brown and Black students’: Asian American male mathematics teachers seeking solidarity

ABSTRACT

The ratio of Asian American teachers to Asian American students is the most disproportionate of all racial groups, where Asian American students are least likely to have an Asian American teacher. In addition, little research focuses on the experiences of Asian American teachers, particularly in connection with issues of racism. Using AsianCrit, internalized racism, and stereotype management, this study investigates how Asian American male mathematics teachers conceptualize their racial/ethnic and mathematics teacher identities given the prevalence of the Model Minority Myth. Using photovoice interviews, findings indicate that participants experienced internalized racism and engaged in stereotype management by distancing themselves from other Asian Americans, discussing their own difficulties in mathematics, and actively reaching out to form relationships with Black and Latinx students. We recommend supports for Asian American teachers and all teachers of color to build critical consciousness to reduce internalized racism and empower themselves and their students.

KEYWORDS:

• Mathematics education
• Asian American teachers
• photovoice
• internalized racism

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Melissa Adams Corral, Marla Goins, Rod Carey, and Ed Curammeng for their helpful feedback and comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. We use the term race to refer to socially constructed categories used to group individuals, typically based on physical characteristics (e.g. Asian American). We use the term ethnicity to refer to a group with shared cultural traits (e.g. Japanese American).

2. We use the term co-racial to describe other peoples positioned within the same racial group (e.g. Asian American) and coethnic to describe others positioned within the same ethnic group (e.g. Japanese American).

3. F.O.B. is used as an acronym for Fresh Off the Boat, typically used in a derogatory way by Asian Americans to distance themselves from those more recently arrived (Pyke and Dang 2003).

4. The term ‘rice rocket’ refers to a sports car that has been modified for both aesthetics and speed.

5. Thomas was trained in a pedagogical approach called Complex Instruction, a specific type of group work, where teachers use group roles for students to engage with group worthy multiple ability tasks (Cohen and Lotan 2014). Teachers assign competence to group members to address status issues to work toward equitable mathematics teaching, especially in a diverse and academically heterogeneous classroom (Boaler and Staples 2008).

6. As stated in the methods section all names are pseudonyms. ‘Jerome’ was chosen as a pseudonym to resemble his real name as best as possible.

7. EL stands for English Learner, but we use the term emergent multilingual or simply multilingual to refer to students who are learning English.

8. Freedom Writers is a 2007 movie about an eager white woman teacher, played by Hilary Swank, who ‘saves’ her Black and Latinx students in her English class. Other movies that perpetuate the ‘white savior’ are Dangerous Minds and Finding Forrester.

9. Dis/ability is used to disrupt the normalization of an individual’s “ability” or “disability” to perform tasks in culturally-defined ways (Annamma, Connor, and Ferri 2013).

10. Intersectionality considers various aspect of identity such as ethnic/racial identity, gender identity, dis/ability status, sexual orientation, linguistic backgrounds, etc.

11. We use nonqueer to make queer the normative.