Southeast Asian American Action and Visibility in Education (SAVE) Project

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Purpose

Brown v. Board of Education (1954) is an important milestone in the struggle to make education more equitable for Americans of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. However, because of the nature of Brown, and the historical foundations of segregation in our country, public attention is most often focused on desegregation between African Americans and white Americans. Although the last few decades have seen the scope of this research expand to include Latino and, to a lesser extent, Asian American students, it has not yet incorporated the importance of ethnic diversity present within both the Latino and Asian American populations. This project represents an important step toward this goal by broadening the view of policymakers, educators, community leaders, and others, to examine and publicize the issue of educational desegregation and, ultimately, educational achievement as it relates to an often overlooked and increasingly marginalized population, Southeast Asian Americans.

Asian American students are seen by many to be “model minorities” with high levels of both academic and educational success when compared to other people of color. However, this perception misses the diverse nature and experiences of Asian American students. In many regions Asian American students are simultaneously the most integrated and segregated minority groups in America, with a wide range of educational achievement and employment outcomes. However, because of poor disaggregation of data by Asian ethnicity, the educational challenges faced by many in the Southeast Asian community have been hidden and largely ignored by the majority of researchers and policymakers, even as children of Southeast Asian descent are having a much larger impact on many locations around the United States. Good research and clear data are necessary if we are to understand and address the educational challenges and barriers that face Southeast Asian communities -- data and research that are currently not readily available.

SEARAC works with partners in academia and the advocacy community to produce original publications that inform policy debates about Southeast Asian Americans. SAVE is one such project, focused on education in the communities, which is supported by the State Farm® Insurance Companies.