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Race, Books, and Education: Selective Erasure, Misinformation, and Reclaiming Our Stories
NAPABA’s Civil Rights Committee presents “Race, Books, and Education: Selective Erasure, Misinformation, and Reclaiming Our Stories,” a three-part webinar series. In Session 1, discussed the importance of teaching ethnic studies and elevating the stories of marginalized communities, including AANHPI history, and current policy efforts to teach this history. Session 2 will discuss book bans, and why their reach has gone as far as banning children’s books about Asian food. Session 3 will describe how professors are responding and adapting to the current attack on DEI and race on college campuses, its impact on the pipeline into academia, and what this means for the ability to teach Critical Race Theory or meaningfully discuss race in college and law school campuses going forward.
Session 2: The Effort to Erase AAPIs and DEI from Our Children’s Books
Bookshelves have become battlefields as state and local governments have banned books that reference race, ethnicity, or LGBTQ+ themes. Lullabies and lunchboxes, mooncakes and hijabs, Japanese internment and Chinese American history are now banned in many states. This session, the second in NAPABA’s “Race, Books, and Education” Series, will address book bans, their current status, the motivations behind them, the misinformation surrounding them, and the damage they cause. The bans profoundly affect our next generation and their parents. Panelists Randolph Fiedler (Moderator), Asian Bar Association of Nevada — Board Member & CLE Coordinator, Asian Bar Association of Nevada Lessa Kanani’opua Pelayo-Lozada, American Library Association — Lessa Kanani’opua Pelayo-Lozada is the Adult Services Assistant Manager at the Palos Verdes Library District in Southern California. She is also the current Executive Director of the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA), a past president of APALA (2016-2017), and President-Elect of the American Library Association (ALA). She will assume the presidency after the 2022 ALA Annual Conference.
Lessa began her career in libraries at the County of Los Angeles Public Library’s Lomita Library as a page and has worked for many Southern California libraries including Glendale Public Library and Rancho Cucamonga Public Library as a Children’s & General Librarian. One of her most rewarding professional experiences has been as a member of the Steering Committee for the 2018 Joint Conference of Librarians of Color and she credits the 2012 JCLC with influencing her career path and professional interests.
She holds an MLIS and Bachelors of Arts in Sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and an Associate of Arts in Philosophy from El Camino College in Torrance, California.
Richard Ting, ACLU of Pennsylvania — Richard T. Ting joined the ACLU of Pennsylvania as a staff attorney in 2021. Prior to that, he spent most of his career in private practice with a focus on intellectual property law. He left private practice in 2019 to pursue public interest civil rights work. He spent a year as a volunteer attorney for the ACLU of Pennsylvania, then was a staff attorney for Disability Rights Pennsylvania before returning to the ACLU of Pennsylvania in 2021. He also clerked for U.S. District Judge Cathy Bissoon of the Western District of Pennsylvania. Prior to joining as a staff attorney, Rich had long been an active volunteer for the ACLU of Pennsylvania, serving on the Greater Pittsburgh Chapter board, as cooperating counsel in student free speech cases, and on various volunteer committees. He earned his law degree from Harvard Law School, a master’s degree in toxicology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and an undergraduate degree in biochemistry from Brown University. Sumi Cho, African American Policy Forum — Sumi Cho came out of retirement to serve as the Director of Strategic Initiatives leading the #TruthBeTold campaign. Prior to joining AAPF, she taught Critical Race Theory and Race, Racism & U.S. Law for twenty-five years along with other traditional law classes at DePaul University College of Law in Chicago. In 2017, she was awarded the university’s highest excellence in teaching award. She was also the inaugural recipient of the Derrick A. Bell Distinguished Service Award from the Association of American Law Schools’ Minority Section.
She speaks nationally on issues of affirmative action, sexual harassment, intersectionality, multiracial politics and coalitions and critical theory. She holds a Ph.D.in Ethnic Studies as well as a J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. Professor Cho is cited extensively for her scholarship on critical race theory and intersectionality.
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