How to use “Streams” to Discover Chinese American History if you Don’t Homeschool

How to use Streams if your child is already busy with public school 

How much Chinese American history, or even Asian American history, did you learn in school?  If you are like us, then not much.  Thankfully, a growing number of states have started requiring Asian American history be covered in K-12 public schools, including Illinois, New Jersey, and Florida.  This is a great first step, as including Asian American history is important for all kids.  As Juju Lien, the former executive director of the Asian American Institute in Chicago said, “Any contemporary history curriculum must reflect the fact that American is a multi-cultural country, so that American children of all ethnicities can trace their roots in American history.  This is critical in affirming childrens’ development of self-identity.”  But what if this Asian American history has not yet made it to your child’s public school?  Or maybe your child goes to a private school which is not bound by these laws?  Or maybe want them to get more Chinese American history than they are getting in school?  That is where Streams: Chinese American History for Kids comes in.  It is designed as a user-friendly, no prep guide to giving your kids the gift of knowing Chinese American history  - and even learning it yourself if you weren’t taught it in school.

You might be thinking, “We don’t really focus on history in our family, math and science seem more practical”.  We hear you.  We, Hsin-Fu and Essie, both have advanced degrees in science and that is what pays the bills around here.  But with the anti-Asian sentiment some have seen the past few years, we want our kids, and all kids, to know that Asian Americans are Americans.   Taking a few minutes here and there to ground them in that is well-worth the investment.  Just today, November 30, 2023, NPR reported a Pew Research Center survey that 78% of Asian Americans adults have been treated as a foreigner.  Normalizing Asians in American history helps to combat the “perpetual foreigner” stereotype and prevent misunderstandings of all Asians as foreigners or even immigrants.

Streams does include short biographies of Chinese Americans who were pioneers in science and technology, including the Chinese American who did the first airplane flight on the West Coast in 1909.  We want Chinese American kids to be proud of the heritage of Chinese in the US, and they can’t be proud of something they don’t know.  And if nothing else, many schools require kids to do a certain amount of reading each week, so a little of it might as well be about trailblazing Chinese Americans scientists, architects, chefs, and more.

But back to the point, how to work in something else when kids are so busy these days?  The last thing we want to do is put more of a burden on parents or kids.  So here are some suggestions of how to incorporate the important information in Streams into your lives.

Picture Books – these are the backbone of Streams.  They are short, visual, engaging and they will keep your and your children’s attention.  Each year you could read one for Chinese New Year and a couple during AAPI Heritage Month in May, and by the end of elementary school your kids would know more Chinese American history than most adults.

Chapter Book- There is only one, but it is a great one.  The author based it on his own family’s story of immigration through Angel Island, which is a very common story.  Most kids do summer reading, so one summer this could be one of the books. 

Poetry – Poetry teaches kids to think a different way, which helps them approach problems in science and math.  Reading two poems every April for National Poetry Month would give your kids great exposure to this often neglected genre, and we give you a short discussion guide to make them more understandable. 

Videos – This is the easy one.  Every kid nowadays watches videos.  If every road trip you had your kids watch 15 minutes of Chinese American history videos you would have them all done easily. 

Our point is you don’t have to follow Streams like it is a strict lesson plan and do it every day for 9 weeks. That structure if there if that works for you, but if it doesn’t, don’t sweat it.  Just use it to show the order to use the materials in and to see how they fit together.  The guide provides a context for the books, videos and poems so they will make sense in the larger story of American history. 

If your child is in a Chinese immersion or bilingual school Streams will reinforce that by giving them exposure to Chinese characters in another sphere of life.  This helps to create the "language ecosystem" kids need to learn another language. 

Finally, parents do not have to have any background in education to do this. If schooling at home during the pandemic was a nightmare, don’t worry, this is not that!  Parents don’t have to teach anything, just read the books together.   Some of the books the kids can surely read by themselves, but some of these books cover some hard topics such as discrimination and exclusion, and reading them with your kids allows you to discuss them and guide them through it. 

Another approach would be to buy a copy of Streams for your child’s teacher, or offer to read a picture book in class for AAPI Heritage Month in May.  Or to give the school library copies of the great “own voices” books.

Together we can give kids a more complete view of American history, which will help ground them in their place in this world and get them ready to launch into whatever they were made to do.