We are so thankful to all who attended our 2024 Black-Asian American Solidarity Professional Development Hybrid Conference. We had 135 educators from 50 schools/districts and 10 universities attend in person and virtually. 280+ educators registered and have been given access to some of the recordings from the conference.
We’ve had the privilege to engage in meaningful conversations, exchange valuable insights about the solidarity between Black and Asian American communities. The discussions we’ve had, the knowledge shared, and the strategies proposed highlight one undeniable truth: solidarity is not only necessary but transformative.
At the Carl Fields Center, we explored strategies for fostering cross-racial solidarity by integrating Black and Asian American histories and literature into our teaching and developing curricula that reflect a pluralistic approach. We’ve also discussed how to create inclusive communities within our schools.
Meanwhile, in our virtual conference rooms, speakers delved into the more historical ties between Black and Asian solidarity, from the histories of African enslavement and Asian indenture during the U.S. Civil War, to Black and South Asian solidarity movements. They also offered pedagogical approaches for effectively teaching these topics.
We’ve learned that true solidarity goes beyond shared struggles; it is about mutual understanding, support, and advocacy. It also means confronting the challenges that come with fostering genuine solidarity. When we discuss Black and Asian American solidarity in the classroom, we must remember that the goal isn’t simply about fostering unity between two racial groups. Our identities and histories are far too rich and complex to be confined to the categories used by the census. Each of us carries stories that transcend those labels—stories shaped by migration, family traditions, struggles, and resilience. This work is about elevating the stories of all marginalized communities and inspiring our students to see the world through a lens free from racism, sexism, classism, and colonialism. Ultimately, we strive to see ourselves as part of one race—the human race—enriched by diverse cultures, histories, and traditions.
We commit to keeping these conversations alive and taking concrete steps toward building bridges between our communities. Solidarity is not a one-time event—it is ongoing, sustained, and rooted in trust and respect. Whether in the classroom, among colleagues, or in our broader communities, let’s continue to deepen our bonds and create a more inclusive society.
On behalf of the E Pluribus Unum Project, we want to extend our deepest thanks to all who contributed their voices, energy, and passion to this event. To the organizers, panelists, and attendees—thank you for making today’s conference a powerful reminder of what we can achieve together.
We would like to express our sincere gratitude to our generous sponsors for making this conference possible.
First, our thanks go to the Princeton Carl A. Fields Center for providing this beautiful space and lunch.
We also deeply appreciate the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) Consortium for providing the virtual space and for their generous donation of 150 diverse children’s books, to Teach Asian American Stories and AAPI NJ for donating NJ AAPI History maps to attendees and to the Paul Robeson House of Princeton who donated Eslanda books to our attendees.
We are deeply thankful to The Asian American Foundation at the University of Connecticut Regional Hub (TAAF) (U Conn AAASI) and Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC) who fund our work.
Thank you, and let’s stay connected, stay committed, and continue this critical work.
Here is the program of our 2024 Conference
Keynote Address – Dr. Beth Lew-Williams of Princeton University
Keynote Address – Dr. Rosetta Treece of Hopewell Valley Regional School District
There are multiple options for “make-and-take” small group sessions for teachers and curriculum supervisors on Black history, AAPI history and Cross Cultural Solidarity.
Teaching Asian America in Elementary Classrooms
Drs. Sohyun An and Noreen Naseem Rodríguez will provide an overview of their recently published book, highlighting ways that educators in elementary classrooms and beyond can include Asian American experiences and histories in the curriculum and across disciplines.
Seabrook Farms with Professor Andy Urban of Rutgers University
By the end of World War Two, Seabrook Farms was one of the largest packers and processors of canned, dehydrated, and frozen vegetables in the world. During periods of peak production, the company employed nearly 7,000 laborers in its fields, plants, offices, and trucking fleets, in positions that ranged from seasonal harvesting and assembly line work to year-round plant and storage maintenance.
During the first two years of the war, Seabrook Farms recruited thousands of Black migrant farmworkers from the U.S. South. In 1942, many of these workers were housed in a newly built Farm Security Administration (FSA) camp at Big Oak, on Seabrook property, that offered federal programs and benefits such as education, healthcare, and job placement assistance for laborers and their families. The progressive vision for the FSA camp at Big Oak, however, was short lived. By 1943, Black American workers were being displaced from the camp so that Jamaican guestworkers, guaranteed spots by the federal government, could move in. Black American workers were forced into private camps consisting of shacks and barracks that lacked indoor plumbing, electricity, heating, sanitary waste disposal, and other basic amenities. In 1944, Seabrook Farms began recruiting incarcerated Japanese Americans from concentration camps in the West and Arkansas under the War Relocation Authority’s “resettlement” program, with 1,700 workers and their families living and working at the company by the end of 1945. Amidst this resettlement, one hundred newly built federal public housing family units, with kitchens, indoor bathrooms, and three bedrooms, which had been promised to Black American workers, were reassigned to Japanese Americans instead.
As Professor Urban will explore in this workshop, drawing on research from his book-in-progress, the Seabrook Educational and Cultural Center has begun the process of recognizing this complicated and difficult history and has taken steps to ensure that Black workers’ history with the company is told. This workshop group will also address how Seabrook Farms can be understood as a site where tensions between Black Americans and Asian Americans existed alongside acts and expressions of solidarity.
How to foster difficult conversations in the classroom
Hopewell Valley Regional School District Superintendent Dr. Rosetta Treece will lead a small group session on “How to foster difficult conversations in the classroom.”
Building Bridges: Fostering Multiracial Solidarity in K-12 Education with Tamar LaSure-Owens
An engaging and interactive virtual workshop designed for K-12 educators focused on fostering multiracial solidarity in schools. In this 60-minute session, participants will delve into the concept of multiracial solidarity, exploring its historical roots and contemporary relevance. Through a blend of presentations, polls, quizzes, and small group discussions, educators will gain practical strategies to promote unity and support among different racial groups within their classrooms and schools.
AAPI Curriculum Resources: Toward a Pluralistic Approach to Teaching and Learning
Sima Kumar is a New Jersey educator, mother, a board member of The E Pluribus Unum Project (TEPUP), who testified at the Assembly and Senate Education Committee meeting in support of the Asian American and Pacific Islander curriculum.Governor Murphy signed the bill into law on January 18, 2022. Kumar will lead a professional development seminar that highlights the resources for integrating AAPI content while including lesson ideas on using historical thinking through an interdisciplinary lens.
Building Continental Bridges: Black & Asian American Solidarity with Gabriel Tanglao of NEA and Sundjata Sekou
The “Building Continental Bridges” workshop is intended to foster solidarity, show connections, collaborations, and showcase how white supremacy has pitted Black and Asian communities against each other. This session will focus on specific examples of Black and Filipinx solidarity from the past, present, and future. Additional resources available here.
The Life and Legacy of Paul Robeson
Denyse Leslie and Dr. Joy Barnes-Johnson of the Paul Robeson House of Princeton will lead small group sessions to develop interdisciplinary lessons about the life and legacy of Paul Robeson and Eslanda Robeson.
Focus on the W: The Colored Cosmopolitanism of Eslanda Robeson & Black-Asian Solidarity
This session will discuss the life of Eslanda Robeson. As an anthropologist, author and creative, her life can be contextualized by her travels and the friendships she forged around the globe. Participants will leave the session with a clear perspective on the ties that bind our 20th century past of solidarity to our present need for unity.
Black and South Asian American Solidarity
Samip Mallick will present about historical solidarities between South Asians and Black Americans in the fight for racial justice and share South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)’s resources.
When Newark had a Chinatown
A vibrant Chinese community existed in Newark between the 1870s and 1940s. But when Yoland Skeete-Laessig, herself an immigrant of Chinese descent, wanted to learn about its history she could find almost no information other than old news stories focusing on crime, gambling and other negative topics.Determined to recover this forgotten history, she began a multi-year project by getting to know the few remaining Chinese residents and seeking out former residents and their descendants. She spent hours tracking down archival documents and even organizing archeological work that included excavations in her own back yard. Gradually Skeete-Laessig was able to bring back to life the fascinating and deeply moving stories of a community that thrived through hard work, strong community organizations, and mutual support in the face of discriminatory laws. Her research was shaped into a book, When Newark Had a Chinatown: My Personal Journey, that traces the community from its roots in China and shows how the Chinese affected and were affected by events and trends in American history. Above all it gives voice to many remarkable individuals who shaped Newark’s Chinatown.
How to psychologically ground oneself for teaching emotionally charged material
Trauma psychologist and racial justice advocate Dr. Nathalie Edmond will lead a small group session on racial identity, marginalized identities, and how to psychologically ground oneself for teaching emotionally charged material.
Teaching how Picture Books are Created (including but not limited to Multiculturalism)
Ying-Hwa Hu and Cornelius Van Wright will present how they create children’s books that respectfully reflects different cultures within the U.S. and abroad, in current as well as historical context. Along the way they will also share their creative process in the making of picture books from idea, manuscripts, editing, final text, thumbnails, sketches, finished illustrations to final wrapup. The workshop will open for Q&A in the last 5-10 minutes.
The Intertwined Histories of African enslavement and Asian indenture as part of US Civil War Lessons with Dr. Jason Oliver Chang
Teaching Black x APIDA Solidarity in History Classrooms
Join The Asian American Education Project for a live, virtual workshop that will demonstrate how to integrate examples of Black and APIDA solidarity in history classrooms. Educators will also examine the impact of the Black-led Civil Rights movement on Asian American resistance efforts. Participants will learn various teaching strategies and gain access to lesson plans that address how Black and Asian American communities supported each other in the fight against exclusion.
Dr. Sohyun An is a Professor of Social Studies Education at Kennesaw State University. Her research and teaching center on curriculum, pedagogy, and movement of K-12 Asian American studies and social studies education. Her recent works include Teaching Asian America in Elementary Classroom co-written with Drs. Noreen Naseem Rodríguez and Esther June Kim; “Our folks Were Badass!” Learning and Dreaming in Basement (Rethinking Schools, 2023); Who’s Behind the Camera? Anticolonial Visualization of “Westward Expansion” (Social Studies and the Young Learner, 2024); Re/presentation of Asian Americans in 50 states US history standards (The Social Studies, 2022). As a co-founder of Asian American Voices for Education, she works alongside Asian American youth, educators, and community organizers to advance Asian American studies and ethnic studies in Georgia’s K-12 schools. Before becoming a teacher educator and researcher, Sohyun was a middle and high school teacher in South Korea.
Dr. Joy Barnes-Johnson addresses science teacher preparation, policy, curriculum design, adult/community growth and equity in her work and research. She has taught in China, Jamaica, and throughout the United States. She enjoys working as a dissertation coach and volunteer with various education outreach programs including The CHOOSE project, the Lost Souls public memorial project, the Trenton Branch of the NAACP (ACTSO), and The Paul Robeson House of Princeton where she is program committee chair. She is currently writing a book framing the role of Black educators and their allies working to pass on a heritage of joy. Archival research and contemporary storytelling will be woven together with the rationality of African proverbs in celebration of the leadership of teachers. Her favorite things to do in her spare time include reading, frolicking with family, and imagining new ways to see chemistry in everyday life.
Dr. Jason Oliver Chang is the Director of the Asian/Asian American Studies Institute in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences of University of Connecticut. He holds a joint appointment in the Department of History and is a Core Faculty member of the Asian and Asian American Studies Institute, as well as Faculty Affiliate of El Instituto: Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies and American Studies. After finishing his PhD from the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California at Berkeley in 2010, Jason Oliver Chang lectured in Asian American and Latin American history at the University of Texas at Austin. He also holds a Masters of Public Policy and Administration from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Combining Asian American Studies and Latin American Studies, Dr. Chang has worked with colleagues in these related fields to push for a hemispheric conception of Asian America that attends to both the transnational features of Asian diasporas in the Americas and the importance of local, regional, and national frames of analysis. His first book, Chino: Anti-Chinese Racism in Mexico, 1880-1940 has just been published by University of Illinois Press, 2017. This work analyzes the regional histories of Chinese migration and integration in Mexican society to show how the racial image of the Chinese shifted over the course of the 1910 revolution and subsequent reconstruction. The shifts in this racial form demonstrate how Mexican anti-Chinese politics, or antichinismo, influenced the formation of mestizo national identity; the exercise of sovereign authority by the postrevolutionary state; and the cultural politics of how Indians became racialized subject/citizens of the Mexican state.
Dr. Chang’s second project expands his interests in hemispheric Asian American history in several ways, with a short-term research agenda that focuses on Asian participation in Pacific and Caribbean seafaring culture. Drawing from business and government records he has begun work on a manuscript entitled Deep Waters: The Maritime World of Greater Asian America, envisioned as a multi-ethnic survey of Asian and Pacific Islander participation in the economy, culture, and labor of the trans-Pacific passage, linking Asia and the Americas. He is particularly interested in the historical development of oceanic occupations for Asian and Pacific Islanders as an abject source of maritime labor tracing its origins in the sixteenth-century Spanish galleon trade, to the British commercial fleets, then to the U.S. Navy and merchant mariners. The long-term research agenda attends to an environmental history of the Pacific, and particularly in the ways that the pelagic environment of the ocean acted as an agent of history in successive imperial regimes, Pacific fishery politics and ocean voyages. His aim is to build an understanding of the particular architecture features of maritime life as an environmentally structured socially signified multi-ethnic/multi-racial contact zone. To this end he traces the influence of the Pacific through the dynamics of its currents and the technological evolution of oceanic domination from the seafaring occupational forces to gunboats to aerial bombing. And, he examines the Pacific Trash Vortex as a material archive of trans-Pacific histories of toxicity, exploitation, dispossession, and imperialism.
Professor Chang teaches courses that bring together the fields of Area Studies, with emphasis on the Pacific and western hemisphere, and Comparative Ethnic Studies that stresses the dependent and contingent nature of race and its intersection with class, gender, and sexuality. His classes address topics such as global capitalism, transnationalism, diaspora, identity and community formation, indigeneity, inter-racial contact zones, governmentality, and the environment, as well as, the legal, cultural, and political economic foundations of colonialism, imperialism, and nationalism in the Americas.
Nathalie Edmond, PsyD, RYT-500 is a licensed clinical psychologist, experienced yoga teacher, JEDI practitioner, owner of a group practice and former behavioral health administrator. She worked at the counseling center at Princeton University and has recently become the director of counseling at Villanova University. She teaches graduate classes on multiculturalism and feminism. She takes a trauma informed and integrated perspective to her consultations and trainings blending mindfulness, didactic, multimedia clips and conversation. Her general approach to trainings related to diversity, equity, inclusion and justice is grounded in the idea that we have to build comfort within ourselves as racial beings to be able to talk with others about being racial beings or make meaningful changes in our communities. That would translate to recognizing our positionality in relationship to privilege and power along many different identities from a place of compassion and accountability.
Sima Kumar is a New Jersey educator, mother, a board member of The E Pluribus Unum Project (TEPUP), who testified at the Assembly and Senate Education Committee meeting in support of the Asian American and Pacific Islander curriculum. Governor Murphy signed the bill into law on January 18, 2022. She published an article in NJEA Review called “Asian American in America’s Literary Heritage,” which explored the origins of the invisibility of Asian and Asian American literature and history in the K-12 curricula. In the article, she provided a pedagogical approach for creating more inclusive curricula to meet the needs of the increasingly multiracial and multiethnic demography of students in today’s classrooms. She heads the professional development branch of The E Pluribus Unum Project (TEPUP), a nonprofit organization that serves as a hub to connect and mobilize communities across New Jersey for the purpose of transforming education to reflect our pluralistic society. Sima moderated an interdisciplinary exploration of Asian American and Pacific Islander experiences in the United States with poet Alison Roh Park and documentary filmmaker Angel Velasco Shaw, a collaborative event with Princeton Public Library. She was a guest speaker at the Center for Future Educators program at TCNJ. She received a BA from Smith College and an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is currently pursuing an Ed.D. at Rutgers University.
Dr. Patrick Lamy is the Executive Director of the Amistad Commission. Dr. Lamy grew up in Fordham, Bronx, New York, and has resided in Essex County, NJ since 1981. Dr. Lamy received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology from Caldwell College followed by a Master of Arts in Education and Human Services from Montclair State University and a Doctorate in Higher Education Administration from Seton Hall University.
Over the past nineteen years at Bloomfield College, Dr. Lamy has held the following positions: Resident Director, Residence Life Coordinator, EOF Counselor/Tutorial Program Coordinator, Director of Residence Life, Assistant Dean, Associate Dean, Affirmative Action/Equal Employment Officer and most recently, Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students. What Dr. Lamy enjoys most about his employment at the College are his interactions with students, and the opportunities to collaborate with all sectors of the College Community to provide Bloomfield College students with an enriching and challenging educational experience.
Dr. Lamy is very active in the broader Essex County Community where he serves as a mentor to several young men and women in high school and college. He is a recognized member of Who’s Who Among American Colleges and Universities Professionals; American College Personnel Association; American Counseling Association; and the Association for the Study of Higher Education. He is a member of the Editorial Board for the Leadership Exchange Journal from the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators; the previous member of several conference planning committees for the American Association of Colleges and Universities and the New Jersey Association for Affirmative Action in Higher Education.
Tamar LaSure-Owens is an exemplary educator and an ardent advocate for arts education, renowned for her unwavering commitment to fostering inclusive, equitable, and accessible arts programs. As a Design Team Ambassador for the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), she plays a pivotal role in shaping educational policies and initiatives that benefit students across New Jersey.
Tamar holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Criminal Justice with a minor in African American Studies from Stockton University and a Master of Science in General Administration from Central Michigan University. Her academic background laid a strong foundation for her career in education and advocacy, allowing her to blend administrative acumen with a profound understanding of cultural and social issues. She is also a proud member of the National Sorority of Phi Delta Kappa Incorporated, Delta Lambda Chapter, which underscores her commitment to professional excellence and community service.
In 2015, Tamar’s extraordinary contributions to arts education were recognized when she received the prestigious New Jersey Governor’s Award for Arts Advocacy. Her dedication to the Pleasantville School District and its community, coupled with her remarkable talent and excellence, earned her this esteemed accolade. Her advocacy efforts were further highlighted at the Arts Ed Summit in both 2015 and 2017, where she championed the cause of sequential and equitable arts programs for all New Jersey students.
Tamar’s passion for arts education extends beyond advocacy; she is also an active participant in various educational initiatives. In 2016, with the support of Cynthia Domino and Jessyca LaSure, she implemented the Leeds Avenue School Ballet program, which ran successfully for four years. Additionally, Tamar has co-hosted the Red Carpet of the Visual and Performing Arts Governor’s Awards in Trenton, New Jersey, both in person in 2022 and virtually in 2021.
Her dedication to inclusive education is further exemplified by her involvement with the AMHOTINO curriculum initiatives, which bring the histories and contributions of diverse communities, including Native American, Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI), Holocaust, Latino, Hispanic, and African American artists, into elementary classrooms. This curriculum has earned wide recognition, leading to commendations and certificates for seventy-eight Leeds
Avenue School staff members from Senator Chris Brown and the Atlantic County Board of Commissioners in 2019.
Tamar’s leadership and impact have been widely recognized. In 2018, she was nominated for the National Life Group “Life Changer of the Year” award, and in 2020, she was named Leeds Avenue School’s “Teacher of the Year.” Her innovative AMHOTINO Curriculum initiatives earned her the NJEA’s first Urban Education Award in 2022, along with an honorary resolution from the Atlantic County Board of Commissioners. That same year, she received the 2022 NAACP Political Action Award, further highlighting her dedication to social justice and community empowerment.
Beyond her educational endeavors, Tamar serves on numerous committees and organizations, including NJEA Patriots Alliance, NJEA Members of Color (MOC), NJEA Field Immersive Curriculum Committee, NJEA Instruction Committee, NJEA Representative Assembly Delegate, NJEA R.E.A.L. Team 6 (Racial Equality, Racial Affirmation, and Racial Literacy), Cygnus Creative Arts Board of Directors, Atlantic County Collaborative for Educational Equity (AC Ed Equity) Board member, NJ Heart Board member, Atlantic County Council Education Association (ACCEA) Instruction Committee Chair, and the Hispanic Association of Atlantic County (HAAC). She is also the First Vice-President of the Mainland/Pleasantville NAACP.
Tamar’s dedication to her community is mirrored in her military service. A veteran of the New Jersey Army National Guard, she received two Army Commendation Medals and two Army Achievement Medals for her exemplary leadership and service. Her military background has inspired students and staff alike to honor and celebrate veterans on significant occasions such as Veteran’s Day, Memorial Day, and Armed Forces Day.
Tamar LaSure-Owens’ journey is a testament to her inspirational leadership, unwavering commitment to education, and passionate advocacy for the arts. Her efforts continue to inspire and motivate students, educators, and communities, creating a lasting impact on the educational landscape of New Jersey.
Denyse Leslie Denyse began her career in general management consulting at Towers Perrin, focusing on strategic planning with publishing and education clients. She kicked the tires and recommended changes that left clients well-positioned for growth. She’s led internal consulting efforts at a Fortune 10 bank and Educational Testing Service, where she successfully developed the strategy that resulted in ETS’s profitable return to K12 testing. Denyse has also served as DiversityInc’s Senior Vice President, Consulting and helped clients implement metrics-based strategies that achieved diversity gains.
Denyse has pursued opportunities to get important stories told. She serves as Board Vice President and Managing Director of the Paul Robeson House of Princeton. This non-profit is renovating the birthplace of Paul Robeson, located at 110 Witherspoon Street, and developing educational programs worthy of Robeson’s legacy of activism and social justice. Making Robeson a Household Name is the mantra. She also serves on the Board of CASA of Burlington and Mercer County, which advocates for the safety and education of children in foster care.
Denyse facilitates the Black Voices Book Group, now resident and partnered with the Princeton Public Library. She enjoys the opportunity to monthly read, discuss, and engage with great books that narrate the history and culture, and hopes and aspirations of African Americans and the Diaspora.
Denyse grew up in Brooklyn, NY. She is a member of the charter class of Yale University’s School of Organization and Management, where she graduated with an MBA. Denyse graduated from Middlebury College cum laude with Highest Honors for thesis work. She has a son, Christopher Jonathan Leslie, and a granddaughter, Auriana Michelle Leslie. Her 96-year-old mother, Melanie Evelyn, a retired NYC Public Schools K-2 educator, lives nearby in Bucks County, PA.
Beth Lew-Williams is Professor of History and Director of the Program in Asian American Studies at Princeton University. She is a historian of race and migration in the United States, specializing in Asian American history. Her book, The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018), won the Ray Allen Billington Prize and the Ellis W. Halley Prize from the Organization of American Historians. With support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, her next book project, John Doe Chinaman, will consider the policing of Chinese migrants in the American West.
Elisha Li is a 2nd generation Korean-American educator and parent. After growing up in the Philadelphia area, she taught in elementary schools for 14 years in New York City public and private schools. She has mentored new teachers, led her grade team to incorporate Asian-American perspectives in their curriculum, and presented at the NAIS Diversity Conference. She holds a B.A. in Education and Psychology from Swarthmore College and a M.A. as Literacy Specialist from Teachers College, Columbia University.
Christian-Joseph Macahilig is a New York City-based educator and an Outreach Coordinator with the UCLA Asian American Studies Center. He is a former middle school Social Studies teacher who also worked with Filipino-American nonprofit organizations. Christian recognized that AAPI voices lacked representation in curriculum and other classroom materials, which ultimately motivated him to reform curriculum by advocating for AAPI and Ethnic Studies as required learning and ensuring that AAPI narratives and cultures are taught with fidelity.
Samip Mallick is the co-founder and executive director of SAADA, which he has guided from its inception in 2008 to its place today as a national leader in community-based storytelling. Mallick’s background includes degrees in computer science and library and information sciences and work related to international migration and South Asia for the Social Science Research Council and University of Chicago. Mallick currently serves on the Library of Congress Connecting Communities Digital Initiative advisory board. He also previously served as an archival consultant for the Ford Foundation’s Reclaiming the Border Narrative initiative and on the Pennsylvania Governor’s Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs.
Dr. Noreen Naseem Rodríguez is an assistant professor of elementary education and educational justice in the College of Education and core faculty in the Asian Pacific American Studies program at Michigan State University. Her award-winning research engages critical race frameworks to explore the pedagogical practices of teachers of color and the teaching of “difficult histories” through children’s literature and primary sources, and has been supported by the Spencer Foundation. She has authored over 40 scholarly and practitioner articles and book chapters and is co-author of Social Studies for a Better World: An Anti-Oppressive Approach for Elementary Educators (Norton, 2021) with Katy Swalwell and Teaching Asian America in Elementary Classrooms”(Routledge, 2023) with Sohyun An and Esther Kim. Before becoming a teacher educator, she was a bilingual elementary teacher in Austin, Texas for nine years.
Sundjata (Sund-Jata) Sekou (Say-Coo) is a third grade Black male educator at Mount Vernon Avenue Elementary School in Irvington, New Jersey. He wants you to know that he loves his students, the urban community where he teaches, the struggles, triumphs, the parents, the “ups and downs.” He also loves the students who are born in this country, the immigrants, the Haitian Creole speakers, the Spanish speakers, Jamaican Patwa speakers, Asian and Pacific Islanders, students with IEPs, students who are very difficult in his classroom, and anyone else that he missed. The reason he loves them is because “they are him and he is them.”
Yoland Skeete-Laessig is a Newark, NJ based artist of Caribbean descent. She is co-founder of the Sumei Multidisciplinary Arts Center in Newark, one of Newark’s leading artist run alternative spaces which she ran from 1993 to 2015. Under her leadership the organization received awards and recognition from New York Foundation For The Arts and New Jersey State Council on the Arts as well as the City Of Newark, for outstanding cultural contributions and arts programming.
Ms. Skeete-Laessig immigrated to the US as a child, attended the School Of Visual Arts for undergraduate studies in film, video and photography, continued and completed her graduate studies at Tufts University/MIT Graduate program in Anthropological Filmmaking under Jean Rouche, and received an MFA at Hunter College. She is certified in the business of Arts Administration from Seton Hall University and has been adjunct professor at Rockland Community College, Raritan Valley Community College, New Jersey City University and Rutgers University, Newark until 2009.
Ms. Skeete-Laessig has been a documentarian, and artist for as long as she can remember. Although making her living in photography and film, her personal work is a ritual of how life is experienced utilizing any and every medium to accomplish her goals. Ms. Skeete has exhibited her video and photography and multimedia installations in galleries and museums in the US and abroad including the Museum of Modern Art, the Queens Museum of Art, the Newark Museum, Museum of Contemporary Arts and Crafts in New York City, Biblioteque Nacional de Paris and The Musee D’Art Moderne De La Ville De Paris, Husby Konsthalle, Stockholm, Sweden, and Estesio Gallery, Beddingstrande, Sweden.
Ms. Skeete-Laessig’s photographs and video work are in the print collection of the Museum of Modern Art, African American Museum of Life and Culture, Dallas, Texas, Carolyn Alexander of Alexander Bonin Gallery in Chelsea, and American Express Corporation. She has been a recipient of the Glide Memorial Grant, The Graff Travel Grant, The New Jersey Council on the Humanities Grant and the Melon Grant distributed through New Jersey Performing Arts Center’s Humanities program. She has been an Artist in Residence at Art In General, The Arts Council of the Essex Area, and has received educational grants and awards for her work with youth and media. She continues to exhibit her work locally, nationally and internationally. In 2012 she participated in the exhibition “A BILHA PROJECTO DE ARTE. CELEBRA O DIA DE PORTUGAL DE CAMÕES E DAS COMUNIDADES PORTUGUESAS NEWARK” which toured the US and is permanently housed in the Bilha Museum in Portugal.
Also an author, in 2016 Ms. Skeete-Laessig’s “When Newark Had a Chinatown: My Personal Journey” was published. The book is a product of the artist’s own research into a time when the city of Newark, NJ had a thriving Chinese community.
Gabriel A. Tanglao has been an educator at heart, activist in spirit, and organizer in practice. Having experienced life as a Filipino-American in the modern diaspora, Gabriel consciously represents his pre-colonial Kapampangan roots. Honoring his family and ancestors, Gabriel has served public educators across New Jersey building a movement for justice-centered unions and liberatory education. Gabriel will begin his new role serving over two million educator-unionists across the country with the NEA Center for Racial and Social Justice.
Dr. Rosetta Treece has been an educator for 20 years. During her time in public school education, she has served as a high school English Teacher, Vice Principal, Principal, and Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction. Dr. Treece is the Superintendent of Schools for Hopewell Valley Regional School District. Dr. Treece graduated Magna Cum Laude from the College of New Jersey earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Secondary Education. She holds a master’s degree in Educational Administration and earned her Doctorate Degree in Educational Leadership from Rowan University. Her doctoral thesis was on how to promote emotional intelligence in adolescents. Dr. Treece is an Advanced Nurtured Heart Trainer and a Peer Leader. She is an Attitudes in Reverse (A.I.R.) therapy dog handler and a mental health champion. She is committed to preparing teachers, support staff, and school leaders to create learning environments that are culturally responsive and that cultivate resiliency in young adults.
Andy Urban is an Associate Professor of American Studies and History at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. His research, scholarship, teaching, and public humanities work focus on labor, migration, and public memory. Andy’s first book, Brokering Servitude: Migration and the Politics of Domestic Labor during the Long Nineteenth Century (NYU Press, 2018), examines how federal immigration policies, commercial agents, and employers shaped labor markets for domestic service in the nineteenth and early-twentieth century United States. Andy’s current book project, Processing History: Labor, Capitalism, and Memory at Seabrook Farms (forthcoming, 2026), explores the history of Seabrook Farms, an agribusiness in southern New Jersey that recruited and employed incarcerated Japanese Americans, guestworkers from the British West Indies, migrant farmworkers from the US South, European Displaced Persons, and stateless Japanese Peruvians during the 1940s and 1950s. Since 2021, Andy has directed the New Brunswick / North Brunswick High Schools Public Memory Project, a collaboration between community stakeholders, scholars, students, and artists, focused on the creation of public programming, art, and dialogue exploring histories of school integration and segregation. This project coincides with the fiftieth anniversary of the withdrawal of approximately 700 white students from New Brunswick High School in 1974, and their matriculation at the newly finished, nearly all-white high school in North Brunswick. In June 2024, Urban was awarded a three-year Mellon Foundation Monuments Project grant, in support of the New Jersey Im/migrant Laborers’ Monument Project, which will develop monument installations exploring immigrants and migrants’ contributions to the state as laborers. Developed by artists working in close partnership with community stakeholders over multiple stages, monument installations will explore what it has meant to migrate and work, while also offering a model for how monumental expressions can actively and democratically involve the public in constructing new and more inclusive commemorative landscapes.
Cornelius Van Wright and Ying-Hwa Hu are a New York City-based husband and wife illustration team that has been working in children’s literature for over three decades. Their early works include Jingle Dancer (Cynthia Leitish Smith), Sam And The Lucky Money (Karen Chinn), and Zora Hurston And The Chinaberry Tree (William Miller), which was a Reading Rainbow selection. In recent years they have successfully launched their solo writer-illustrator journeys while still frequently collaborating on projects.
Since 2010, Cornelius has been one of the lead instructors at Fred Dolan Art Academy, a non-profit visual arts program focused on training and supporting aspiring young creatives in the Bronx community. Ying-Hwa joined the faculty in 2017 to help support their students–most of which are first-generation college attendees–get accepted into major art colleges across the United States. Their students have graduated from Rhode Island School of Design, School of Visual Art, Parsons School of Design, Fashion Institute of Technology just to name a few.
Their awards and recognitions include Original Art Show at the Society of Illustrators, Bologna Art Exhibit, Best Books of the Year from New York Public Library, Chicago Public Library, Bank Street College of Education and many others. Their work has been praised by reviewers from publications such as Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, and The Horn Book.
They are represented by Gallt & Zacker Literary Agency.
Ying-Hwa’s website: www.yinghwahu.com
Cornelius’s website: www.corneliusvanwright.com