One Long Beach Unified School District administrator is trying to bring more exposure and positivity to her community as part of nationwide celebrations for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, even as the coronavirus pandemic has forced education out of the classroom and onto the internet.
Rogers Middle School assistant principal My Ngoc Nguyen said she saw a need when she sat in on a presentation by LBUSD superintendent Chris Steinhauser a few years ago.
“We were talking about diversity in administration and he said that there were eleven Asian and Pacific Islander administrators in the school district,” said Nguyen. “One of them was me, one of them was my brother, and I could literally count the others on my hands.”
Since then, Nguyen has done what she can to encourage recent LBUSD and college grads from her community to consider careers in education. She’s also launched Long Beach API, a website and social media channels, as a way for Long Beach to celebrate its Asian and Pacific Islander teachers, administrators and students.
More than 10% of the district’s 70,000 students self-identify as Asian or Pacific Islander. Within that 10%, there’s a wealth of unique experiences and backgrounds that Nguyen wants to highlight.
“I think sometimes in our city or our country we talk about marginalized communities and we’re talking primarily about African-American and Latinx communities,” said Nguyen. “In Long Beach, you see this full diversity with other groups as well—there’s a diversity of API here and I want to celebrate that.”
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Nguyen’s parents came to Long Beach in 1975 as Vietnamese refugees following the fall of Saigon. She and her eight siblings all went through the LBUSD, and she’s joined in the district’s administrative ranks by her brother, Tuan Nguyen, who is an assistant principal at Nelson Academy.
Nguyen pointed to the city’s large Cambodian population, as well as pockets of Filipino and Polynesian students as examples of the different kinds of Asian and Pacific Islander experience in the city. So far, Long Beach API has posted videos introducing some of the Asian and Pacific Islander teachers and administrators in the district. There’s a daily schedule for the rest of May with other professional development opportunities and fun events like a Zoom comedy show.
Nguyen hopes the videos and online content can help deepen connections between employees, but said she’s more focused on trying to be visible to the Asian and Pacific Islander students in the school district at a time of fear and uncertainty.
“The Anti-Defamation League has said that anti-API hate crimes are on the rise as COVID-19 spreads, and I’m in fear of what our students are experiencing at this moment when they’re away from school or on social media, and they can’t talk to people in person that they trust,” she said. “We’re hoping that with the video and the celebration of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month it just shows them that it’s okay to celebrate your culture.”
Pacific Islanders also have been disproportionally hit by the disease, accounting for 4% of Long Beach’s hospitalizations for the coronavirus even though they only make up 1% of the city’s total population.
Nguyen said she’s also hoping that more students will eventually follow her into education in their hometown.
“I really focus on the kids,” she said. “When I was in school, I didn’t have many API educators. To see someone that looks like you, you start to think about that idea of a job or career. If you don’t see someone in front of you then it’s harder to imagine that.”
Follow Long Beach API on Twitter by clicking here.