THREAD: My 9yo nephew is learning abt segregation & civil rights movement during #BlackHistoryMonth lessons & asked me what happened to Indian ppl & Asian Americans during that time. This is the same question I had throughout my childhood when I felt invisible bc of my identity.

Race issues are usually explained to kids in binary terms - as Black and white - with no attention given to South Asian, Asian, Latinx, or indigenous identities.

I took the opportunity to explain to my nephew several of the SCOTUS cases featuring Asian Americans, incl Ozawa, Thind, Lum, Korematsu, etc. and how white supremacy has seeped into every institution (in terms a 9yo can understand).

I explained how if his grandfather came to the US just 25 years before he did, he would have been ineligible for naturalized citizenship bc it was reserved for “free white persons.” And kids like him in the Jim Crow south weren’t allowed in white schools.

I hope he eventually realizes that POC histories in the US are more intertwined than traditionally taught in schools. Black progress helped Asian American progress, & vice versa.

But the common theme is that institutions (incl our courts, legislatures, educational systems, etc) weren’t designed for us - they were designed to protect and preserve whiteness.

And it’s our job to disrupt it. And it’s my generation’s job to make sure he feels less invisible than I was made to feel. END.