- Jun 22
- 7 min read
Updated: Jun 24
As the United States prepares to celebrate 250 years of its history, the UCLA Asian American Studies Center has released Foundations and Futures, a groundbreaking, open-source multimedia textbook celebrating the contributions of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities to American history.
The Serica Initiative is honored that clips from our documentary series with the WNET Group, be/longing: Asian Americans Now, are included as part of this landmark text on AAPI history. See the videos from the episode "The Community Builders," profiling Hmong American community organizers, in the Foundations and Futures chapter on Hmong Americans!
Catalyzed by the spike in anti-Asian hate during the COVID-19 pandemic, Karen Umemoto, Chair of UCLA’s Asian American Studies Center, and Kelly Fong, a continuing lecturer in Asian American Studies at the university, saw that there still remained a critical need for a democratic understanding of AAPI histories and perspectives. They began envisioning a learning resource that would be the first of its kind: a free, comprehensive textbook of AAPI history with complementary lesson plans for educators and an ever-evolving digital accessibility toolset.
(L-R): Karen Umemoto, Kelly Fong
The team depended on grants to build the textbook chapter-by-chapter in the project’s fledgling days, until a $10 million dollar grant championed by the Asian American Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus allowed them to begin broader development of the textbook’s content.
With a writing team of 120 scholars from across the country, the Foundations and Futures team created 52 chapters about dozens of AAPI communities across the United States. Each chapter also includes a variety of multimedia content: images, videos, archival documents, interviews, and poems that are part of the 2500 primary sources included in the textbook.
However, Umemoto says, the project doesn’t end with the textbook’s publication.
“The word textbook doesn’t capture the vision of narrative change, of democracy making, of solidarity building, of civic engagement, of dreaming together a better future … of what we’re trying to do with this,”
Umemoto said, at the Foundations and Futures New York City launch.
Crucial to the development of Foundations and Futures’ innovative format and resources was the team’s extensive engagement with educators, students, and community organizations. Christian-Joseph Macahilig, who serves as Education Partnerships Manager at Foundations and Futures, led its Outreach and Teacher Training team as they refined the usability and experience of the textbook.
“What you see here is teacher and student feedback-driven work. We wanted to know what makes it work for them,” he said. Before its public release, the team had conducted beta testing of the textbook in 22 states with over 100 teachers and 5000 students from grades 7-12 and in higher education.
Many of the accessibility features in the digital toolset emerged from the team’s student and teacher focus groups.
“We … ask[ed] the simple question, how can we support students of all needs?”
The textbook features direct translation into 11 different languages, and an embedded glossary highlights key terms within each module with its definition and phonetic breakdown. An accessibility toolbar also provides modifiable options for font size, color overlay, and a “reading mask,” to aid in visual processing of the text.
These beta testers were part of the team’s larger efforts in community engagement, as they attended over 62 events in the past 3 years, hoping to spread the word about the textbook and forge partnerships with community organizations: teachers’ unions, nonprofit organizations, museums, professional development programs, creatives, and more. Among those community partners are the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA), the largest teachers unions in the United States; with their support, the Foundations and Futures team hopes to create a micro-credential certification on AAPI history, recognizing educators who develop their competency in AAPI studies.
Following the textbook’s public launch, the team will continue to develop teacher trainings across the country. In addition, they look to implement more digital features in the textbook’s interface in the future, such as note-taking and highlighting tools to support annotating abilities.
“We are constantly gathering feedback,” Macahilig said. “A lot of the work we’re doing moving forward still continues. The textbook is not done.”
AAPI History is a Shared History
Though the Foundations and Futures textbook has been in development for six years (and counting), the impetus for its creation is a story that starts much earlier.
Ethnic studies as an academic discipline, including Asian American studies, began emerging in the United States in the 1960s as a direct result of the Civil Rights Movement. Student unions formed the Third World Liberation Front, a multiracial coalition that called for recognition and teaching of the histories of African Americans, Asian Americans, Chicanos/Chicanas, and Native Americans. Those deeply shared histories continue to drive the scholarship of ethnic studies across the country.
“Our [UCLA] Asian American Studies Center is part of the [UCLA] Institute of American Cultures,” Umemoto said. “We are tied at the hip with the American Indian Studies Center, the Bunche Center for African American Studies, and the Chicano Studies Center.”
Umemoto recalled that she herself had the opportunity to take her first Asian American studies at the age of 18 at UCLA, an experience that eventually led to her career as a scholar activist and professor of Asian American Studies and Urban Planning.
In those 50 years since Asian American Studies first emerged as a scholarly field, the teaching of AAPI history has slowly expanded: as of 2026, 30 states have either statues or academic standards related to the teaching of AAPI history. However, Umemoto says, the needle still hasn’t really moved in terms of the general public’s understanding of AAPI histories and perspectives. Moreover, much of that history sits behind the paywalls of academic journals and university libraries, presenting accessibility challenges for educators, students, and any interested learners.
Thus, a core motivation for the creation of Foundations and Futures has been to democratize that knowledge, making AAPI history available and accessible for everyone. The textbook’s open access technology is supported on all devices with access to the internet. Educators can avail themselves of more than 250 free and ready-to-use lesson plans, developed by a team of more than 50 classroom educators and curriculum designers. Moving forward, the team also believes that the project presents endless opportunities in activations throughout the community, as AAPI history and culture continues to evolve.
AAPI History is Still Alive
Asian Americans continue to be the fastest-growing racial or ethnic groups in the United States, alongside a surge in influence of globalized Asian and Asian American popular culture. Many milestones of AAPI history have occurred only in the past few decades, and as more and more Americans encounter AAPI individuals and their culture, the history continues to evolve.
“The way that we look at history is that you don’t have to be a scholar to write history,” Umemoto said. “Some of the most powerful chapters are the ones that were not written by scholars.”
Only 44 years ago, amidst a backdrop of anti-Japanese sentiment and anti-Asian scapegoating, Chinese American Vincent Chin was killed by two white autoworkers after his bachelor party. The lenient sentences of the two white killers, free with probation and a $3,000 fine, led to an uproar in the Asian American community. The formation of American Citizens for Justice (ACJ), a pan-Asian, multiracial organization, led an advocacy effort that was a turning point for Asian American civil rights engagement and secured expanded legislation and protections against hate crimes. Helen Zia, a cofounder of ACF, authored the Foundations and Futures chapter on Vincent Chin, and her work as an activist continues to this day.
(L-R): Vincent Chin, Helen Zia
Other chapters also draw on contributions from the individuals and organizations that are featured: the chapter about Japanese American civil rights activist Yuri Kochiyama was written by her biographer Diane C. Fujino, and features media content from Kochiyama’s archives, donated by her family. The chapter about Patsy Mink, the first woman of color elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, and the first Asian American woman to serve in congress, was co-written by her biographer, Judy Wu, and her daughter, Gwendolyn Mink.
As our understanding of AAPI history continues to evolve, the team at Foundations and Futures believes that the project’s work is still not done.
“This is a culmination of over 50 years of Asian American studies … there are generations of scholars who made this possible,” Umemoto said.
“So it’s really up to all of us, collectively, to activate it.”
The team highlights its use in a myriad of education spaces: high schools, colleges, teacher training organizations, teachers’ unions. Umemoto hopes that students can understand that they are agents of change, and not just subjects of their history.
But they also hope that the content can inspire other work across the community: including youth summer leadership programs, staff development, museum education and events, alongside storytellers, creatives, and content creators.
What is the dream for the future of Foundations and Futures?
“Asian American history in every home,” Umemoto said. “Everyone has a sensitivity and sensibility about our history.” Umemoto points to the idea of deliberative democracy, that recognizing our differences can help create a more equitable and democratic society.
“There is no time more urgent than now for us to find a shared history,” Umemoto said.
“I believe that for Asian Americans, it’s not just about being included, but it’s about others understanding our history, so that they can develop that historical empathy … to build collectively a more democratic society.”
Learn more about this groundbreaking project, enrich your learning of AAPI history, and consider supporting Foundations and Future’s activation by visiting the website HERE! Congratulations to Karen Umemoto, Kelly Fong, Christian-Joseph Macahilig, and the incredible team behind this tremendous textbook!
