Kristina Wong, Theodore Chao, Jenessa Joffe, and Anna Michelle Wang are co-authors of Auntie Kristina’s Guide to Asian American Activism (Beaming Books), a new nonfiction book for young readers featuring illustrations by Shehzil Malik. Wong is the first Asian American woman to be named a Pulitzer Prize finalist in Drama, and the writer and performer behind solo plays like Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord, and the currently touring Kristina Wong, #FoodBankInfluencer. Chao is a professor of elementary and bilingual education at California State University, Fullerton and a father. Joffe is a writer, director, producer, and mother. Wang is a puppeteer, songwriter, and mother. Here, the co-authors reflect on the necessity of showcasing activism to young people, as a tool to help them process racism and build community.
“Hey Kristina, Liberty [my daughter] has been asking about what it means to be an Asian American woman, and if it gets better as an adult. She’s mentioned a few times how she sometimes wishes she ‘fit in’ with the other kids. And she said: ‘Sometimes I wish I wasn’t Chinese.’ Can we do a q&a townhall session, maybe with Liberty and other Asian American girls, talking about what it means to be an Asian American woman in the age of Trump?”
When Theodore sent me this message in 2017, asking me to basically talk out years of racial self-loathing from his eight-year-old daughter, I had so many reactions. I said the exact same thing about not wanting to be Chinese when I was Liberty’s age. I remember hating my name, Kristina Wong. And I grew up in San Francisco surrounded by Chinese Americans, unlike the Ohio suburbs where Liberty lived. Growing up, everyone (even Chinese American people) referred to white people as “Americans,” subconsciously positioning white people as Americans, and us as not real Americans. While I loved Theodore’s faith in my abilities to pep-talk kids, getting kids to love their Chinese-ness in a one-hour town hall sounded kind of boring.
We needed to make something fun. So based on my own love of performance and activism, I responded with, “Let’s shoot a web series!” And we did. With Jenessa and Anna Michelle, we created Radical Cram School, a web series featuring Asian American kids, including Liberty, who learn about the rich history of Asian American activism. In the series, I play “Auntie Kristina,” that adult friend who guides you through difficult issues in the world you don’t want to talk to your parents about. Auntie Kristina taught these kids how they too can learn Asian American history, fight for social justice, and be powerful and proud in their own bodies.
It was a hit! We ended up making some really fun videos for kids and their adults to learn about Asian American activism through puppets, sing-a-longs, and sketches.
We also got pushback, though. Critics told us that kids were too young to learn about racism. Right wing websites called us racists for telling Asian American children that racism exists. If kids are young enough to experience racism, why not show them the tools to process it? We know that ignoring racism doesn’t make it go away; it just enables racism.
We’re so happy that the AANHPI children’s book market has exploded in the past few years, with so many books featuring Asian American stories. We love reading these stories. But we know that kids want more than just seeing themselves. They want to know how to make a difference, how to fight for justice, and how to build thriving communities. We love the recent picture books that feature Asian American activist movements, such as Marie Chan’s Mamie Takes a Stand, Joanna Ho’s We Who Produce Pearls, and Kelly Yang’s Yes We Will. And books like Christina Soontornvat and Erika Lee’s Made in Asian America can help kids see their own power.
But we’ve had trouble finding other Asian American activism books for older children. My life would have been so different if, as a middle schooler, I had not just learned about badass women like Yuri Kochiyama and Grace Lee Boggs, but also learned how they organized and fought for their communities. I would have found much more power in my young identity.
After two seasons (and some awards), we turned our series into a book so we could reach the little Kristinas and little Libertys out there. We needed a deeper space to help middle grade kids unpack these ideas. Writing a book allowed us to go deeper into Asian American history, lay out more activist exercises, and focus on often ignored aspects of activism that we learned the hard way: the power of community, allyship, and self-care. Plus, we loved that young activists, graduating from picture and chapter books, could learn more about the histories and tactics of activists like Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, Mia Yamamoto, and Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga.
Children’s literature doesn’t just need more representation. Yes, our stories matter. But kids also grow powerful when they see how their stories are part of a larger struggle to make the world just a little bit more fair. We’re sorry we never had that Town Hall meeting. But we think we did something a lot better.
（By PWxyz, LLC.)