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Grounded in Asian critical race theory, this critical content analysis examines Asian American representation in 21 picturebooks published from 2007 to 2017.
ASIAN AMERICANS are nearly invisible in P-12 history curricula (An, 2016) and are underrepresented in children's literature (Cooperative Children's Book Center, n.d.). For teachers seeking to transform social studies through the inclusion of Asian American narratives, picturebooks offer opportunities to present Asian American narratives that are accessible to young learners (Rodríguez, 2017). Recent decades have witnessed a shift in multicultural children's literature, with more offerings of historical fiction and picturebooks about Asian Americans than ever before (Cooperative Children's Book Center, n.d.; Loh-Hagen, 2014). Social media movements like #WeNeedDiverseBooks push publishers to represent traditionally marginalized groups in both the content and production of children's literature.
However, as slurs, stereotypes, and assumptions have historically been a part of children's literature (Au, Brown, & Calderon, 2016; Mo & Shen, 2003), picturebooks may perpetuate dominant ideologies and, if read without critique, can serve as tools of oppression (Banfield, 1985). Unfortunately, widespread use of multicultural texts in P-12 classrooms continues to foster uncritical examinations through a "tourist-multiculturalism" approach (Derman-Sparks, 1993) and a focus on heroes, food, and festivals (Kohl, 1994; National Council for the Social Studies, 2017). Multicultural picturebooks that focus on a character's foreignness and difficulty assimilating to dominant American culture may also perpetuate stereotypes that position non-White groups as outsiders.
A limited number of studies have examined Asian American children's literature over the last half century. While the selection and availability of this literature has increased substantially in the last two decades, many of these texts continue to perpetuate stereotypes (Morgan, 2012), such as the overachieving model minority (Loh-Hagen, 2014) and notions of Asian Americans as exotic foreigners (Pang, Colvin, Tran, & Barba, 1992; Roy, 2008), while failing to reflect the extraordinary diversity of Asian America. Most Asian American children's literature focuses on Chinese and Japanese American experiences (Yi, 2014; Yokota, 2009), which exacerbates the conflation of East Asian Americans with Asian Americans. Bringing together the various critiques, as well as accounting for more recent publications, we conducted a critical content analysis of 21 Asian American picturebooks guided by this question: How are Asian Americans represented in popular children's literature published from 2007 to 2017?