A young immigrant from India, upon receiving a job to work at a university in Cambridge, lives with a 103 year-old woman. A Korean-American spy is asked to infiltrate the campaign of a Korean-American politician, remorseful over the notion of tarnishing a “model minority.” A mixed-race Chinese-American family living in 1950s Ohio, confronts the aftermath of their youngest, Lydia Lee, drowning in a nearby lake. These stories and more come to life within the walls of Room 387, the home of Asian American Literature.
Asian American Literature, an honors-level English course available to both juniors and seniors, explores works by Asian-American authors that feature Asian American protagonists. Taught by English teacher Kevin Wang, the course was first introduced in 2023-24 after years of student and teacher advocacy.
The push for a new class began with a conversation. After Vi Lee’s ‘23 English teacher determined that their class would not read Celeste Ng’s “Everything I Never Told You,” despite its inclusion in the course syllabus, Lee, then a junior, approached Dean of Student Support Systems Brian Poon about the lack of Asian representation within the curriculum.
Poon suggested that Lee speak to that year’s Asian and Pacific American Club (APAC) co-presidents Yuki Hoshi ‘22 and Lily Lockwood ‘22. The three, along with other APAC members, developed a presentation conveying the importance of teaching Asian American history and requesting the inclusion of more books by AAPI authors in English curricula. The presentation included socioemotional data communicating Asian students’ feelings of isolation within classes and was delivered to teachers and administrators near the end of the 2021-22 school year.
Wang then met with history teacher Sydney Hou to discuss which books could be implemented into the existing English curriculum.
“It became clearer over time that there was enough support for a standalone course—and an affinity space that evolved into LEAP—and so I decided to pitch it to the English department, and it received enough support to run for the 23-24 school year,” Wang said.
The class itself functions like a straightforward English class, according to Wang, though with a greater emphasis on discussion and AAPI identity. It is this aspect of discussion that appeals to junior Lauren Fisch.
“It’s been so cool and eye-opening to hear different perspectives,” Fisch said. “We learn just as much from each other as from the stories we read.”
Among the works examined in Asian American Literature are “Everything I Never Told You,” Jhumpa Lahiri’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Interpreter of Maladies” and Lahiri’s second short story collection “Unaccustomed Earth,” which students most recently finished. For junior Shayna Blankschtein Chin, the class’ examination of AAPI authors and content is what resonates most deeply.
“I haven’t had much exposure to my culture, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to be around others with a similar background,” Blankschtein Chin said. “The books are a lot more interesting than [those] in my other classes, and since I can relate to them, it makes it even more special.”
Whereas some other high schools, such as Newton North, offer an English course centered around Asian American literature, most do not. According to senior Zyad Baliamoune, it is crucial that the class be offered at the high school, in which about 20 percent of the student body identifies as Asian.
“It’s so important to learn about cultures other than your own so that we gain perspective on what is going on around the world,” Baliamoune said. “In this class, we’re learning about so many cultures; it’s not just East Asia, but also Southeast Asia and South Asia, too.”
For Wang, the class’ importance rests in just how inaccessible it, or something similar, was when he was a student.
“When I was in high school and college, I didn’t read a single AAPI author. I didn’t actively seek it out, to be honest, but I also was never put in a position to ever consider that there were people like me—Asian-American—who wrote books that spoke to my experience directly,” Wang said. “In planning this course, I’ve read many, many books from those authors I’d missed growing up, and I felt, for the first time, that there was actually an active canon of work that could have helped me navigate my way through the world or, at the very least, made me feel seen.”
