He is a professor of education and Asian American studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Schools there have just begun to re-open, said Robert Teranishi. It is important to note that many Asian Americans live in and around large cities like Boston. 'These ethnic-defined support systems have been operating for more than a year already while parents are out working long hours,” Kiang said. He says that at-home learning is often a better choice for many Asian families who live in multi-generational households. Peter Kiang is director of Asian American Studies at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. That includes spoken words, social shunning, and physical attacks during the pandemic.Ĭoncerns about virus spread and rising racism are reasons for the in-person learning differences. A September report by Stop AAPI Hate found that about 25 percent of Asian American children said they had experienced discrimination.

“Why would we drop our guard now, with just a few weeks left?”Īnti-Asian behavior has affected many Asian American children. “We’ve taken so many precautions, she said. She is worried about exposing her household, including her aged parents and her two young children, to COVID-19. Horrigan said she has never really considered racism a threat to her family, even though the Asian-American population of the town has grown to 25 percent, and there are some racial problems in the community. In Quincy, a small town near Boston, Kim Horrigan said she and her husband have struggled with their decision to keep their 8-year-old son home this year. In comparison, they expect some 70 percent of white students to return.

Sacramento, Boston and Chicago public schools, for example, expect that about 33 percent of Asian American students will return to in-person classes this month. Those rates appear to be rising in some cities, but are still far lower than those of Black, Latino and white students. Kim Horrigan, left, sits with her son Conor Horrigan, as Conor does math homework at their home, in Quincy, Tuesday, April 13, 2021 More than half of white children that age are attending in person. Earlier this month, the federal government released a report that found just 15 percent of Asian American nine to ten-year-olds were attending classes in-person as of February. They made the decision after they saw a question filled with racist Chinese stereotypes on one of her tests.Īsian American students have the highest rates of at home learning more than a year after the coronavirus pandemic closed school buildings.

In the Dallas area, a Korean American family is keeping their middle school aged child in online classes for the rest of the year. Earlier, another student made a racist ' slanted-eyes' movement with his hands to one of the boys. Their concern is based on increasing anti-Asian behavior.Ī Chinese American mother in a town outside Boston is sending her sons to in-person classes this month. Asian American families are struggling with making a decision whether to send their children back into classrooms. Across the country, schools for children of all ages are reopening.

Quincy public schools reopening plan