Am I American enough? A critical narrative exploration of Second-Generation Asian American teachers’ identity and belonging

Abstract

The United States is in the midst of the largest migration since the turn of the nineteenth century, forever changing the demographics of the nation. This paper is concerned with the implications of this ongoing transformation for schools and the lives of teachers and students who labor and learn within them. In attending to this concern, this paper focuses on Asian Americans, a population that significantly contributes to this demographic shift and who have historically faced legal and formalized exclusion, compounding their relationship to the social imaginary of America. This contestation is even more pronounced for Second-Generation Asian Americans, whose belonging is additionally complicated by their status as American-born. This critical narrative inquiry presents stories of two Second-Generation Asian American elementary school teachers and shares the fraught negotiations of identity and culture that these teachers experience as they mobilize their identity in service of their students.