My outreach organization ISAASE (here’s a post about what we do) just put out a simple, one-sheet document that contains “fast facts” on South Asian American students. This South Asian students fact sheet provides a simple overview of (the diverse) South Asian American student backgrounds, the key issues related to South Asian American students’ experiences and selected data points, and a simple call-to-action to become more culturally competent. 

When preparing this South Asian students fact sheet, a concern was that having a document like this would lead people to read it, and then decide they were experts on South Asian American kids, and/or that their cultural proficiency journey – at least related to these kids – was somehow complete. Obviously, we know that’s now how cultural proficiency works. There’s never going to be this perfect resource that would enable all educators to achieve perfect cultural competence (since that’s now how that works). But in the meantime, this is a tool that can help improve cultural literacy and competence. So it’s a step, I hope, in the right direction. (The phrase that comes to mind is: Let’s not let the perfect be the enemy of the good).

You can click here to download a PDF of the document, or click here to see all the resources for teachers that are available from the ISAASE website. And if you are a teacher, please consider sharing this with other educators you know.

P.S. – If you’re interested in getting involved with the work of ISAASE, you can contact me directly, or contact ISAASE (here’s the ISAASE contact link). (Same thing for if you know someone else who might be interested in getting involved with ISAASE.) Also, here’s a link to a post about the ISAASE “Name Pronunciation Guide,” and here’s one about our “Be Inspired” project.