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July 1, 2025
By Jeff Wilson–
Watching a PowerPoint, “Hidden Voices: Asian American and Pacific Islanders in the United States,” a new component in their Human Rights curriculum, fourth- and fifth-grade students in Irvington’s Main Street School were asked to study the vintage photograph titled “East and West Shaking Hands at Laying of Last Rail.” It depicted the 1869 completion of America’s Transcontinental Railroad. In it, a crowd of at least 50 men, railroad workers, posed around freshly-laid tracks bearing a train that thanks to their efforts, was now capable of crossing the entire country.
A caption above the picture reads, “Based on the photograph, who is getting credit or being celebrated for building the Transcontinental Railroad?” On close inspection, the portrait reveals that all the men were white. Not being credited or celebrated – or even photographed—were the hundreds of Chinese laborers whose participation in this enterprise was essential –and who were often relegated to the most treacherous terrain.
Their exclusion from this celebratory photo did not go unnoticed by Kwok “Corky” Lee, a 19th-century Chinese-American photographer (and Queens native) who answered with his own picture, displayed just below the first. It showed the same train surrounded by scores of Chinese laborers and their families. The picture is labeled “Corky Lee’s Act of Photographic Justice For Asian Americans.” The caption beneath asks, “How might this photograph make the people in it feel, or how might it impact them, and why?”
AAPI, as it is known, is the newest section in the New York State Department of Education’s Hidden Voices curriculum, which is itself part of the Culturally Responsive-Sustaining (CR-S) Education Framework. Initiated in 2022 for use in New York City, AAPI has since been co-opted by the Irvington, Tarrytown and Ardsley school districts as well, thanks to the advocacy of various Asian-American organizations, spearheaded by Westchester County District 12 Legislator David Imamura and his then-intern, Irvington High School Class of 2025 president Olivia Liu. (The team pressed school districts countywide to adopt the resources, but to date, only the three rivertowns districts are on board.) The purpose of AAPI is to accentuate the influence—and amplify the voices—of those who have been ignored by history. “I as an Asian-American growing up in Westchester, I never saw myself in our textbooks or in American history class at all,” said Imamura in an interview. “To know that we too are part of the American story does two things: it allows Asian-Americans to be seen and heard in American society and also normalizes Asian-Americans for everyone else.
Jessica Hunsberger, retiring chair of the social studies department in the Tarrytown school district, agrees that the initiative is long overdue—Asian–Americans need to be heard. “It’s about making sure that students are getting exposed to the largest variety of voices in history,” she stated. Hunsberger stressed that Tarrytown doesn’t simply deliver the state’s materials verbatim, but rather integrates them into the lessons they teach. For example, the building of the railroad already existed in Tarrytown’s curriculum, but “different voices and primary sources included in [the AAPI] materials were added in.”
Like most social studies and history instruction, AAPI places a strong emphasis on primary sources, eyewitness accounts. And it stresses more can-do than boo-hoo: lessons may identify persecution or victimization, but these are not ends in themselves but rather a means to highlight activists or advocates (terms that come up regularly) like 20th-century suffragette Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, who encouraged others to overcome their obstacles.
The curriculum is demanding; prompts constantly elicit student responses: “I see ___. I wonder ___. This makes me think ___” is a typical caption accompanying a visual. Or, How do [Corky Lee’s] photographs tell stories about rights, fairness or injustice?
According to Nancy Deakin, K-5 instructional literacy coach at the Main Street School, studying AAPI experiences gives students a perspective on issues like equality before the law. “They learn how Asians in history were treated and how they dealt with it,” she pointed out. Deakin went on to explain how the lessons had a dual objective in how they impacted the Asian children as opposed to the student body at large. “We want our students to identify with stories and/or learn from stories that are not their own,” she concluded.
Ardsley hasn’t yet integrated AAPI materials into its curriculum, but the high-school social studies department plans to implement them in its summer curriculum project, said Jennifer Bradshaw, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction. “We’ll be reviewing resources to integrate primary sources into our [11th and 12th grade] U.S. History classes,” she stated.
Olivia Liu (who’s bound for Tufts University in September) was the chief presenter at a ceremony for the 4th and 5th graders on June 4 (after the conclusion of their AAPI classes) entitled “Inclusivity and Leadership in Irvington High School.” Liu recalled that she held the younger children spellbound while imparting her own knowledge of Asian history which, she says, has begun to filter up to the high school. “Both grades have benefitted greatly with the addition of the AAPI curriculum,” Liu enthused.
“This was a giant step towards students gaining a more representative view or our incredible country’s past. And to Asian students, it opened the door and connected them to a history and identity that was unknown to them before,” she concluded.
Soon these appeals by Imamura and company will have some legal muscle behind them. New York State just passed a bill, awaiting the governor’s signature, that will require all school districts to fill out surveys describing how they teach Asian-American history in their curriculums. “The answer to that for almost all these school districts will be that they don’t incorporate Asian history into their curriculums,” declared Imamura. The AAPI advocates then plan to step up their letter-writing campaign, with the shadow of reduced state funding behind them—and the power of Corky Lee’s photographic images.
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