MAAEA

Hope you can join us! Please announce and invite your youth too. Saturday, July 24, 2010 3-5 pm Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center 38 Ash St , Boston, MA (off Oak St between Washington St & Harrison Ave) On December 3rd, 2009 two dozen Asian American youth were attacked by other students at South Philadelphia High School while school-personnel looked on. The Asian American students, supported by community members and others, have organized, marched, and met with an unresponsive school administration. A civil rights suit is being pursued. What happened? How did the students and community build an effective coalition? What is the legal case and situation? Did anti-immigrant sentiment play any role, and are Asian American students facing similar issues locally in Boston? What can we do? We hope to discuss these and other questions with principals in Philadelphia and local activists. Who: Helen Gym - Asian Americans United Cecilia Chen - Asian American Legal Defense and Educati...

Thanks to all who joined us at our last Bowling Social event on Friday, March 5 4:30-6:30 at Boston Bowl in Dorchester. Hope to see you all again soon!

It was a great social last night. Thanks to all you new folks for going out on a limb and joining us! There were almost 20 of us, including some babies and spouses. Lots of great Vietnamese food, networking, and getting to know each other. Thank ESPECIALLY to Professor E unsook Hyun at UMass Boston's Graduate College of Education for helping us find funding for the appetizers at the event!!! We GREATLY appreciate your help!!!! We have a good year up ahead. Work is continuing in subcommittees with social gatherings every 2-3 months. We're trying to keep our work afloat without the clear structure of a leadership body. We'd love for others to join us! The work areas: Asian American curriculum gathering-- hoping to develop a resource guide for educators to use in their classrooms ELL advocacy in Boston Public Schools-- we're part of a network of advocacy and educator groups trying to bring attention to the needs of ELLs in BPS. building MAAEA's infrastructure--...

Anh Hong 291 Adams Street Dorchester, MA FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3, 4-7pm 617-285-1489 Join us for an early happy hour at Anh Hong, a great Vietnamese restaurant in Dorchester. It's a chance to get together with Asian American educators in the greater Boston area! Light refreshments will be provided. Also, there's a great menu of Vietnamese food and alcoholic beverages. Bring a friend to introduce them to the MAAEA network! Hope to see you there!

It was a busy few days last week! In addition to the book reading by Kevin Kumashiro (see below), we participated in the Social Justice Fair organized by API Movement Boston . A few new folks stopped by our table-- hope they join us! Then the next day (Saturday, May 3), we had our monthly social gathering. There were a ton of delicious snacks, and we had some interesting discussions. We talked about the what it's like being Asian American educators in schools where most students are not Asian American. We talked about some issues particular to our own work settings and noted differences between pilot schools and regular district schools. Then Natalie Lau, one of our members, shared a slideshow of her recent educational trip to Bangladesh. One of the most valuable learnings was some tips for using PowerPoint. We hope to continue in this vein, having discussions and presentations from members for us all to be able to learn from each other. Our next meeting will be at Pam Chu...

Here's a link to a great article on some important work being done on Asian American students with special needs in schools. Spotlight on Lusa Lo, a MAAEA member and professor at the Graduate College of Education at UMass Boston! excerpts from "Asian Students Left behind on Special Education" By Tracy Jan Globe Staff / February 9, 2008 Asians make up 9 percent of students in Boston schools, but only 3 percent of those enrolled in special education, a disparity that has led to fears that many are not getting the help they need. On a recent night, after a dinner of eggrolls and noodles, a special-education professor from the University of Massachusetts at Boston lectured the parents in their native Cantonese on the importance of understanding their children's Individualized Education Plans. She passed out sample forms, translated into Chinese, along with a glossary of terms like autism, benchmarks, and accommodation. The hope is that these pa...

Thanks to those who came out to Kevin Kumashiro's book reading! It was an interesting presentation, especially with current issues such as presidential race, NCLB up for reauthorization, the economic downturn, etc. Support a fellow progressive educator by buying his book, The Seduction of Common Sense! Hope to see some folks at our next meeting, Saturday, May 3, 2008, from 5-7pm at Biba Fullon's place 345 Washington Street, Cambridge.