Asian Americans are the fastest-growing ethnic group in the United States. As a community, we come from countless countries, have a diversity of immigration stories, some recent and some dating back hundreds of years, and now have many different versions of an American life. So where does one begin in telling the story of Asians in America?

For educator Vivian Wu Wong, the answer is clear: Asian American history is American history. Wu Wong is a designer of “Beyond Gold Mountain: Asian American History for Eastern U.S. Classrooms,” an eight-hour Primary Source course launching on March 12 that explores Asian American history in Eastern U.S. communities through 1940.

While many tellings of Asian American history focus on California, Asian immigrants and communities have long been an integral part of communities throughout the Eastern U.S. One of the earliest Asian settlements in the country was not in California, but was actually in St. Malo in Louisiana, where a community of Filipinos formed after resisting their Spanish galleon masters. Stories like these not only challenge the perception that Asian American history begins with Chinese immigrants in California, but expand our collective understanding of American history as a whole by revealing how Asian American history is a history of resistance, often intertwined with the struggles of Black and other communities of color.

What is lost in reductive understandings of Asian Americans as a “model minority” is not only a truthful accounting of our history, but also the historical foundations for continued solidarity with Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities in ongoing fights for racial justice. How the past is transmitted to future generations shapes people’s understanding of themselves. Especially for Asian American students, seeing themselves in American history can be empowering, as well as help combat harmful stereotypes.
Some states, however, have recently banned teachers from talking about critical race theory, and blocked discussing privilege and oppression in classrooms. Yet, alongside these restrictions that target Black and Brown histories, there has also been growing momentum to require the teaching of Asian American history in schools, with 11 states having passed legislation requiring public schools teach about Asian American history. We spoke with Wu Wong about her career as an Asian American educator, and more broadly, about why reshaping student’s understandings of Asian American history is so important today:

Sampan: You’ve had a prolific career as an educator. Could you share a little more about your journey into the world of teaching?
Vivian Wu Wong: I grew up in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, in the seventies, when there were very few Asian Americans in the area. My parents immigrated from Taiwan before the big wave after 1965, and because of the Cold War, there wasn’t much discussion about China. As a result, I grew up without a strong sense of what it meant to be Chinese American.
That changed when I got to Stanford, where I met other Asian Americans and felt an immediate sense of belonging. It felt like I had been missing a piece of myself that I didn’t even know I was missing until I got to college. I threw myself into learning everything I could about Asian American history, literature, and activism. Stanford didn’t have an Asian American Studies program at the time, so I took every related class I could find and attended events across the Bay Area.
I tell my students I basically majored in activism. I got a degree in American Studies because it was the closest thing to Asian American Studies. Now, fortunately, there is an actual Asian American studies program. But back then, I had to carve out my own education.

Sampan: How have you seen American history education, especially around the Asian American experience, change over the years, from your time at Stanford up through today?
Vivian Wu Wong: Asian Americans are just more visible now than they were before.
I feel lucky to have been in the Bay Area in the mid-eighties because there was so much energy behind Asian American classes starting up at colleges. Berkeley had an Asian American Studies program led by Ron Takaki. Both he and Gary Okihiro, who ran the program at Cornell, Columbia, and later Yale, got their PhDs in African American Studies because there were no Asian American studies programs. They learned how to be historians through those programs and then created programs themselves.
When I arrived in the Bay Area, those classes had been running for a little while, and student activism was peaking. It took another generation of scholars who are teaching now to create more classes in colleges across the country.

As an example, Stanford didn’t have a program, but UCLA and Berkeley did. Back in the eighties, there was a huge push from Asian American students on college campuses to get more Asian American history classes. That’s what I ended up doing with some of my friends at Stanford—we pushed for the first Asian American history class, and the professor, Gordon Chang, is still there today. So, there’s been a lot of progress and movement, largely due to student activism.

Sampan: You have taught at UMass Boston, and spent decades working as an educator at Milton Academy. Could you share a little about some of the initiatives you have led, and the courses you taught to encourage greater understanding of Asian American history?
Vivian Wu Wong: I was leading workshops on Chinese American history, Boston’s Chinatown history, anti-Asian violence, and stereotypes for independent and public school teachers when the Diversity Director at Milton Academy attended one of them. She came up to me afterward and said she enjoyed it, learned a lot, and asked if I’d be interested in teaching at Milton.
I had no idea where Milton was! I had never been to an independent school—I went through public schools my whole life. But she convinced me to visit.
They hired me not just to teach history, but also to build up the Asian Society, create student support services, and develop curriculum. I taught ancient civilizations, U.S. history, and, eventually, Asian American history.

Sampan: Beyond Gold Mountain, the upcoming Primary Source course, is designed to address the underrepresentation of Asian American history, specifically in East Coast curriculums. I’m curious if you could share a little about what inspired the creation of this course and what you see as its goals.
Vivian Wu Wong: Primary Source is a teacher organization that I have worked with for 30 years. Almost 20 years ago, I designed and co-led a summer institute for teachers—a whole week of programming on Asian American Studies. That was a lot of fun.
When I planned to retire a few years ago, I didn’t want to just give up on the Asian American Studies material that I had developed and taught over the years. So, I approached Primary Source and asked if they wanted help developing more materials on Asian American history.

Right now, states are starting to pass legislation requiring Asian American Studies. There are now, I think, seven states that have passed legislation. Illinois was the first state to require Asian American history in K-12 curriculums. Then, New Jersey passed a law, and New York, too.
I started to worry—now that states are requiring this, who is going to teach it? Teachers might not be familiar with the material. Every time I’ve given a talk on Asian American history to teachers, it’s always new to them. They tell me, Oh, I learned so much! And I’m just giving them a little bit.
So, I got worried that if teachers have to start teaching this, but they only know the model minority myth, then that’s what they’ll default to.
That’s why I went to Primary Source and asked if they wanted to collaborate on a course for teachers—one that moves away from the model minority narrative. They were on board, so they paired me with a colleague in the Bay Area, and we spent the summer and fall designing the course. It’s set to run in March.

Sampan: Why do you think it’s so important to have a regionally focused course highlighting Asian American history from the East Coast?
Vivian Wu Wong: A lot of Asian American history texts—like Ron Takaki’s books or Erika Lee’s—are very West Coast-focused. That’s how I learned Asian American history—through stories from Hawaii and California, which makes sense because that’s where a lot of Asian American history happened.
At the same time, there are so many stories from the East Coast that I think East Coast students could connect with.
When I teach Asian American history in New England, I see that students sometimes feel disconnected because most of the content is focused on California. I think if we can highlight more stories from Boston, New York, Philly, or Jackson, Mississippi, we can help students engage more with the material.

Sampan: Can you share more about your process of developing the course. Where did you start?
Vivian Wu Wong: I started with material from a summer institute I co-designed 20 years ago, but I quickly realized it was heavily West Coast-focused.
My co-designer and I met weekly on Zoom, beginning with the question: What do teachers already know about Asian American history? We agreed that most East Coast students only learn about three topics—Chinese railroad workers, the Chinese Exclusion Act, and Japanese internment. That’s it. So, we knew whatever we designed would significantly expand their understanding.
One major decision was whether to structure the course chronologically or thematically. A chronological approach would have kept us in the California narrative for too long, so we opted for themes. The first part of the course focuses on early immigration, exclusion, resistance, and community development—highlighting moments of activism and resilience. This allowed us to integrate more East Coast history, like the historic Filipino community in Louisiana and Boston’s Chinatown.
Another challenge was ensuring the course wasn’t just about Chinese American history. Much of the existing scholarship is centered on Chinese Americans, but we wanted a broader, more inclusive narrative. It’s difficult to incorporate all these different voices and perspectives, but it’s necessary.

Sampan: How does the theme of coalition building between Asian American communities and other communities of color come up in your course?
Vivian Wu Wong: We made a conscious effort to push back against the model minority myth—the idea that Asian Americans “overcome” racism through hard work, which is both false and harmful. This narrative has historically been weaponized to pit Asian Americans against Black and Brown communities.
My research on Chinese Americans in Mississippi highlights this dynamic. Before the 1950s, Chinese and Black communities coexisted, with Chinese-owned grocery stores serving Black customers. But as desegregation unfolded, some Chinese families distanced themselves to gain access to white schools, illustrating how white supremacy forced communities of color into competition rather than solidarity.
The second half of our course will focus on these racial dynamics, especially post-1940s, highlighting moments of cross-racial solidarity—like Black congresspeople advocating against Japanese internment and alliances during the Civil Rights Movement.

Sampan: Talking about the importance of solidarity, have you seen DEI crackdowns impact some of the efforts you previously mentioned to expand Asian American history education?
Vivian Wu Wong: Not yet, but I’m concerned. The model minority myth frames Asian Americans as the “good” minorities—quiet, hardworking, and non-confrontational—which isn’t true but is widely believed.
In Florida, right after restricting AP African American History, they mandated Asian American history in schools. It felt like a deliberate attempt to pit the two against each other. I haven’t researched the decision, but I suspect it’s because Asian Americans are perceived as less “threatening” to the status quo—which is a troubling dynamic.
That’s why I keep bringing up history. Asian Americans, for example, owe so much to the Black student movements of the 1960s and ’70s. At Stanford, after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, the Black Student Union took over a meeting and presented ten demands to the administration. One of those demands was the admission of more students of color—including Asian Americans.
That’s why I was able to attend Stanford. Asian Americans didn’t get there through some meritocratic system. Black student activists fought for our inclusion. And yet, so many people don’t know that history.

Sampan: What advice would you give to educators today who are committed to teaching inclusive, reflective histories despite political and institutional barriers?
Vivian Wu Wong: The biggest challenge for teachers is time—there’s so much to cover, and adding more material can feel overwhelming. But it’s important that educators have access to these resources and recognize that Asian American history is American history, just as African American and Indigenous histories are.
Right now, these histories are still treated as add-ons rather than integral to the national story. At Milton Academy, instead of trying to fit in diverse histories, we designed a sophomore course where they were central from the start.
One influential resource was A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn, which moves beyond the traditional “Founding Fathers” lens to center everyday people. That’s the shift I hope to see more educators make—to move beyond tacking on diversity, to actually reshape how we tell the story of America.