Experience and Inspiration from The Superintendent Incident at San Diego, California

On April 11, 2022, at a Diversity Equity Inclusion (DEI) training held at the San Dieguito Union High School District (SDUHSD), the district's Superintendent Cheryl James-Ward attributed Asian-American students’ outstanding performance in school to family wealth. " We have an influx of Asians from China, and the people who are able to make that journey are wealthy," she said. " You cannot come to America and buy a house for $2 million unless you have money." Ward added, "In my community, Carmel Valley… we had a large influx of Chinese families moving in, sight unseen, into our homes, into the community, and that requires money." Ward's comments attributed academic success to family wealth, specifically cited Chinese immigrants as an example, was extremely hurtful to countless hard-working students and their families (see the short video of Ward's original story https://youtu.be/1TZwtHyoiVE, or the full original video at 1:20:30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F35-yi9KkeU).

The superintendent's words labelled the Chinese Americans in the district as "rich". The implication is that Chinese American families who enter this school district are wealthy, and their children perform better in school due to their wealth; but the facts are, most Chinese American families in our school district immigrated to the United States, basically started from scratch, and most of them are dual-income families. Many parents have made personal sacrifices to buy house in this school district so that their children can receive a better education. The houses here are more expensive than other districts, the mortgages are higher, and the parents’ burdens are heavier. Children are also under more pressure to study. Many high school children do various extracurricular activities and schoolwork after school, and often study until late at night. Chinese culture puts high emphasis on education and parents believe that a good education is the best gift we can give our children. We are willing to devote all of our energy to the education of our children. Let me give two small examples: A parent said that if she had $100, she would spend $95 on her child's education. There is also a mother who works two full-time nurse jobs and works 80 hours a week for her children to give her children the opportunities for a good education. Her husband also has a full-time job and takes care of all the pick-up and drop-off and household chores. When I saw this esteemed nurse mother attend the school district meeting directly after work to make her speech, still in her scrubs, I was very moved. There are many hardworking working-class families like this in our school district.

The most racist aspect of the superintendent's comments, which has been deliberately ignored by many media outlets, is that Chinese immigrant families are outsiders and not part of the community.

Such malicious labels are very harmful to Chinese Americans in the US today.

1. This threatens our physical safety. Whether it's the beating of Chinese Americans in New York or robbery of a higher proportion of Chinese American in this community, it is all related to such false and malicious labels against Chinese Americans.

2. The has impacts on our daily lives. Chinese American being classified as wealthy and foreign intruders is equivalent to telling others that the Chinese Americans are an advantageous outsider.

Whether it is during their schooling or job search in the future, they may be suppressed and deprived of the opportunities to be treated equally. All people should be treated equally regardless of race or ethnicity.

Since April 11, the superintendent's remarks have been broadly shared across the US and even around the world, and parents in our school district have had to be pushed to the forefront. The superintendent had several opportunities to change course and minimize the impacts of the wrong and malicious labels for Chinese Americans, but she failed to do so. From 4/12-4/20, she made a total of three public statements about her misguided remarks.

At 6 PM on April 12th, the superintendent attended a zoom meeting with the Chinese American parents from the school district. She personally admitted to more than 60 parents that her remarks were wrong and promised to issue a public apology to rectify her mistake.

However, on April 13, the superintendent issued a so-called public apology letter for the first time, and the content was very different from what was promised at the zoom meeting the night before. Most of the letter is blamed the whistleblower for this incident, and at the same time apologized to those who have been hurt with no sincerity. From this roundabout face, I realized that she is a superb performer. Her zoom meeting is to cater to parents and gain their forgiveness, not to fix the mistake. After reading the letter, everyone was very dissatisfied, and the voices of opposition grew louder. Even other communities, such as the Jewish community, joined the chorus of objections to stand in solidarity with the Chinese Americans. The superintendent wrote a second letter of apology the next day. On the surface, the apology was beautifully worded, but genesis of the letter was a disgrace. When I subsequently learned that the letter of apology was written with objectives of of keeping her position as a superintendent, keep peace, and to hypocritically coax the Chinese Americans’ feelings so that they can “save face”, I felt deceived and extremely disappointed. The third informal apology was before the parents spoke at the school district meeting on April 20. Her apology was still insincere, shifting blame to others, and did not recognize her own mistakes nor take personal responsibility.

The truth is, the apology we needed is very simple, not for “face saving” or feelings of the Chinese Americans, but to minimize the social impact of the wrong label she put on us. She only needed to simply state the facts, facts that she herself admitted on the 4/12 zoom meeting and emphasized with her own children's example: "The more important reason for Chinese children's academic success is because of hard work, because they spend more time in their studying." That was all we wanted, fairness to our children's efforts, fairness to us parents’ sacrifice.

The most unacceptable and unforgivable action from James-Ward came after her being placed on paid administrative leave on April 20 by a 3:1 vote at the Board meeting. On April 25, she accepted several TV media interviews, where she publicly declared that “I kept going back over what I said, I could not find anything wrong with what I said.” How is a superintendent who does not take personal responsibility or accountability for her own words, who lacks in basic integrity, supposed to set an example for the children she is charged to educate? Not only that, she went so far as to attack people who opposed her for "public lynching" against her. Public lynching is a highly inflammatory and malicious accusation. She intentionally used these words to accuse those calling for her termination as racists against her. Allowing such a superintendent to stay in office will justify the malicious label she puts on the Chinese Americans. This is by no means what a person with standard moral values should tolerate. Furthermore, as the superintendent of a public school district, she blamed the students' D and F on the parents’ lack of wealth, rather than trying to find ways to help these students. It is the school’s problem, not the parents’ problem. The schools failed these students. It has nothing to do with whether the family is rich. This shows that she is irresponsible and incompetent. She couldn't serve in the school district as a lead educator. It was her dishonesty, incompetence, and failure to take personal accountability that forced us, the political novice parents, who had no knowledge of school district affairs, to unite and fight for the fair treatment for Chinese Americans. We know that we have no experience and that there are powerful interest groups behind our opponents. What we have is our moral values and determination. Regardless of the outcome, we cannot allow Chinese Americans to be scapegoated, suppressed, discriminated against. To fight for equality, we could not retreat without a good fight! We got ready for a long battle.

More than 200 Chinese Americans united spontaneously. Most of the parents are ordinary dual-income families. Under the heavy burden of busy work and daily family lives. Everyone aligns with one common goal: to rectify the name of the Chinese Americans and do not accept malicious labels!

From April 20 to June 26, everyone squeezed in time to speak at the district meetings. In just two months, more than 100 parents attended six school district meetings. During the meetings, many parents made 2-minute (time limit) public statements to the school board. They endured up to 8 hours of waiting time. There were also many executives from large companies who joined the meetings. Everyone carefully prepared speech drafts, practiced, and sat for hours for the opportunity to delivery their 2-minute speeches at the school district meetings. What impresses me was the participation of many young parents. Their children are still very young, the youngest is only one year old and has not even been weaned. The young mother would carry the baby to join a meet with the school board; on different occasions, waited for the baby to sleep and asked the father to adjust the meeting schedule so that he could watch the child while working from home to enable her to attend meetings. There were also fathers who took time off work to be the “principal of kindergarten”, watching children of several families so that the other parents can attend the meetings to speak. Many of us parents have engineer or science backgrounds. We not only had to overcome stage fright of public speaking, but also the difficulty of speaking in non-native English, and there were malicious ridicules for our accent or inaccurate use of words in the audience. We grew up together in the process of fighting for our rights. We often analyzed and shared speeches together, we shared ideas and templates for writing letters to school board members, and some people call the school board directly to meet offline. Everyone made protest posters, raised our posters together to protest, and encouraged and supported each other. There have been many sleepless nights in the past two months, and there were many times when I collapsed and even felt that I couldn’t hold on, but because of a group of likeminded comrades who worked together hand in hand, we finally ushered in the moment of success! At the SDUHSD special board meeting on the afternoon of Sunday, June 26, the school board unanimously decided 4-0 to terminate Cheryl James-Ward's position as superintendent, effective August 15. The unanimous vote shows that the two school board members who have been protecting the school supervisors were forced to make a choice to listen to public opinion.

This victory is a direct consequence of the persistence of hundreds of parents. We thought this battle would last until after the November election, but the result was an early victory. Little drops of water make a mighty ocean, unity is strength, a democratic society requires the participation of every voter. I am grateful to have this experience with so many fellow compatriots in a democratic society: you can make a difference!

Here's a testimonial from one of our parents after speaking at the first district meeting on 4/20: Democracy was in full swing in ancient Greece, but unfortunately people cannot live forever, so every generation must re-learn and practice again. One parent said that it was shocking to experience democracy in such a close and personal way.

In fact, many people who spoke at the podium were political novices, and it was their first time to make publicly statements. I remember some people were very funny, they directly declared that “I am an engineer, I am not good at public speaking, but I feel it was necessary to make this speech (I am compelled).”

Another parent said: I'm a political novice, I'm proud, ha-ha ​​- the voices of grassroots people are mostly simple, direct, but also the most authentic.

Not only the parents who spoke, but the parents who sent letters to the school district, those who met with the school board offline to exert pressure, who showed up to support, held posters, interviewed by the media, applauded and encouraged, and the community that always paid attention on WeChat. Everyone's contribution and voice were important. If everyone's goals are aligned and speak with the same message, our voices resonant, and together they become deafening, allowing our voices to be heard.

The American democratic system is not perfect, with various crises and scandals, but fortunately her core values ​​still work.

This incident has taught us about the behind-the-scenes political struggles of some school districts, all kinds of shady stories and gerrymandering, some people understandably feel disenfranchised by the “facades of “ism” propped up by special interests” politicking. There are also powerful special interest organizations behind the scenes that make it very difficult for grassroots groups to fight against.

Therefore, it is necessary to rely on the core values ​​of democracy and to use our democratic process to keep these excessively overwhelming forces for constant checks and balances.

In conclusion, my own sentiments are the same as everyone else's: changing the status quo requires each one of our contributions. We must do what we can in our own capacities. Personal participation is the most valuable experience. We should leverage this success to continue our participation in the political process.

FUN FACTs:

1. I made many friends from different ethnicities. I was very moved at the first school district meeting, where not only many Asian parents, but also many parents of different ethnicity came to support and cheer us on. I was impressed by a particular Caucasian dad who went and made a speech with his Chinese American wife. Their stories were very touching. I didn't know them at the time, so I called him our Chinese son-in-law. Of course, we got to know each other later and joked like that. There was also a white mother who printed at least two dozen protest posters, arrived at about the same time as me (1.5 hours earlier) and handed it for me to distribute to everyone. The mom also came to support us at school district meetings many times later and even brought us dozens of burgers during breaks. These burgers are also shared with our opponents, who were there to support ward. :-)

2. The Jewish organization in our district was the first to send letters to the school board to show solidarity with us. Their letter stated "We, the Jewish constituents of the SDUHSD, stand in complete solidarity with our fellow Asian American. This anti-Asian Bias, like any bias, is unacceptable. Discrimination against one of us, is discrimination against all of us." After we received the good news of Ward’s termination, a few of us re-read the letter, we were still very moved and inspired. We quickly wrote a thank you letter back to them and told them the latest progress.

3. We also experienced media-biased and non-factual reporting firsthand. For example, many media outlets only broadcast the sentence in Ward's speech that Chinese immigrants are rich, but deliberately ignore her most discriminatory sentence, describing the Chinese Americans as invaders "into our homeland, into our community". The purpose of such reporting of only partial facts was to give the audience the impression that we Chinese Americans were making a big fuss for very little reason. As another example, at the meeting of the school district, there were overwhelmingly voices calling for the superintendent to step down, but the media used pictures supporting the superintendent. They give the façade of "fair" media by inserting one or two irrelevant anti-school superintendent remarks. At the beginning, we were eager to speak to the media and actively cooperate with their interviews. After being burned a few times, we understood that they interviewed us just for the sake of "fairness" on the surface, but in reality, they either omitted key points from our interviews or took them out of context in the reporting. After that, we were less willing to waste time cooperating with most of the major media outlets.

Upcoming Election for Board of Trustees:

Our school district (Region 5) is about 30% Asian. The superintendent incident made us realize that we need to have school board representatives who share our values ​​to speak up for our children and act as a liaison between us parents and the school district, to return the focus on the quality of core education. Through our community's selection, we found an ideal candidate who is Vietnamese American of Chinese descent (Phan Anderson). Like us, she is an ordinary parent who is very focused on their children's education. She has no political background or purpose. She just hopes that the school district can get away from politics, focus on promoting quality education, fully explore the children's learning enthusiasm and various potentials, and she is willing to practice transparency, liaise with and advocate for parents and the school district with mutual respect. We thank her for bravely standing up to serve the community on all of our behaves, and we hope to gain the support of all parents who care about their children's education (http://phananderson.com/)!

Over the course of many exchanges with the school district's board of trustees for over two months, we learned that the school board of trustee is basically voluntary work, and it is not easy to do so much work with very little pay. However, they control the financial operation and teaching direction of the entire school district, and some school committees are tied to special interest groups which are intent to control the education funds of the school district. In the superintendent's case, some parents in the district were concerned that removing the superintendent would cost the district additional money. The truth is, this unfortunate event happens like a car accident, where losses are inevitable. If the losses are not stopped in time, the school district cannot function healthily. If you check the voting records and speeches of the school district's past meetings, it is not difficult to find that the two board members who were reluctant terminate the superintendent had a track record of unwillingness to spend district money on students. However, when it comes to issues aligned with special interests, they are willing to spend the district's money with extravagance. To give a small example, the parents of the 92130 school district have petitioned to build a swimming pool for many years, but the two trustees who protected the superintendent voted against the construction of the swimming pool many times. Who truly cares about the wellbeing of our children and the healthy growth of our children's mind and body, don’t listen to what they say, watch what they do! Follow the district money and their votes, you will know their hearts and goals.

Follow-up: Our Organization:

During the last several months of hard work, the idea of ​​creating a not-for-profit organization emerged, and last month we founded the Asian American Parent Alliance of San Diego (AAPASD). Through this organization, we hope that more parents can participate in community affairs, continue to actively participate in school district meetings, and pay attention to school district trends, including curriculum design, campus facilities, college applications, and more. At the same time, we will also actively endorse and participate in the selection of candidates for the school board of trustees who are aligned with our values and put the best interests of students as the primary goal. Each of us should use the votes in our hands to speak up for ourselves in every election ranging from local to county, state, and national races, to contribute to a more just, free, and equal social environment, and to become more responsible citizens as an ethnic group. We welcome more parents and friends to join us!