I grew up in the San Gabriel Valley near Los Angeles, known to be one of the largest Asian American communities in the United States. After I graduated during the pandemic, I decided to leave to help elevate voices in places where we are less prominent, thinking that my own community was well supported. I turned out to be wrong.

In June 2021, a white man attacked an Asian American woman in Culver City, shouting racial slurs before physically assaulting her. In March 2021, a Diamond Bar man disrupted a “Stop Asian Hate” rally by driving through demonstrators, yelling racial epithets and threatening violence. Even in areas with large Asian American populations like Southern California, hate incidents surged dramatically during the pandemic. Other locations across the US did not fare any better, as COVID-era hate against AAPI people still reigns prominent today.

With these hate incidents fresh in my brain, I found myself drawn to Dr. Knox’s presentation on the politicization of book bannings. She introduces a concept known as “difficult knowledge”, or topics that many adults find difficult to address in both their own lives and to children. I can somewhat understand the desire to protect children from aspects of our history that may seem too complicated or uncomfortable. However, the surge in AAPI hate during COVID represents exactly this kind of difficult knowledge– the uncomfortable truth of ongoing racism in America. To address a threat, it is absolutely essential that we are aware and are able to name it. The desire for safety within literature is incompatible with the far more pressing desire for safety within the reality of our own lived communities.

Dr. Knox’s other take on how censorship attempts to “deny children both agency and the vocabulary to describe their own bodies and lives” resonates deeply with me on the language component. While English is my first and only language, I was learning it the same time my parents were and did not develop the reading comprehension and communication skills until later in life. As I grew older, I often served as a plain language interpreter for my parents, particularly for issues surrounding the 2020 Presidential Election. Especially given the increasingly precarious state of information literacy in the past decade and my own communication barriers as a first-generation American, I still do not feel confident in serving the role as their advocate. The gaps in literacy within my family make me concerned of the vulnerability of other members of the community.

Distinct from government-perpetuated censorship, this can be seen as a form of institutional censorship where the available information is simply not accessible for those with poor or nonexistent English literacy. Many library materials about racism, hate crimes, and self-advocacy remain completely inaccessible to non-English speakers or readers. When discussing challenges around book bannings, we rarely address how even available material remain inaccessible to significant portions of the population. Why this is important is emphasized by this paper by Lantz and Wenger, which found that Asian Americans are among the least studied minority group in criminal literature and are often grouped into an “other race” category. The potential causes ranges from language barriers that inhibit reporting to the police, or culture barriers like the “model minority” myth.

For those unaware, the “model minority” phenomenon is the perceived success of some (but not all) Asian Americans, which can often diminish issues of systemic discrimination. According to this Pew Research study, less than half (44 percent) of Asian adult participants reported that they are aware of the term. Among this group, 4 out of 10 believe that this connotation is not negative. The sentiment is that being perceived as successful can only be seen as a positive trait, however, this ignores the vast majority of marginalized Asian who do not have high-paying, and successful careers. The underreporting of crimes involving Asian Americans mentioned above is one egregious result of the model minority belief, as victims may feel pressure to maintain this ‘successful’ image or fear that their experiences won’t be taken seriously by authorities.

This has the additional and unintended effect of misleading voters and policymakers to overlook problems affecting Asian Americans. Among other Biden-era executive orders, Trump rescinded Executive Order 14031, undermining efforts to address the historical neglect of Asian Americans in policy decisions. The rescinding of this order is not just a political maneuver– it is an act that intentionally hinders literacy and access to essential resources for a community that is already marginalized. It attempts to undo the progress toward recognizing our diverse and complex experiences, who are often seen through a monolithic lens due to the model minority myth, further perpetuating the marginalization of their voices.

I know with certainty that unbanning material is far from the only solution to solving systemic racism. However, we owe it to the next generation of children to at least give them the variety of perspectives and stories that will serve in their own self-advocacy and advocacy for their peers. In other words: libraries and schools bear a responsibility to ensure that underrepresented voices remain accessible, not just for Asian Americans to see themselves represented, but for all students to develop the capacity to understand and empathize across different experiences.