Tony Delarosa is the Author of Teaching the Invisible Race: Embodying a Pro-Asian American Lens in Schools. He is a Filipino American anti-bias and anti-racist educator who studies ethnic policies and practices and fights to instill a pro-Asian lens in the education sector. With his work featured on many prestigious platforms, Tony continues to pursue his passion for Asian American activism and fighting for a more expansive racial equity narrative.
Racial equity in America is an endless uphill battle, but with each step forward, we must continue to broaden the goal to include more racial minorities. The civil infrastructure that exists to support racial communities today can pave the way for Asian Americans and other racial communities to move forward in the same positive direction.
The first step is to form policy and advocacy for these forgotten ethnicities and expand their presence in the education system as teachers and as part of the curriculum. From systems to policies to program development, we must all work together to fight for racial equity in America!
✨ The journey from the military base in CA to rural Lebanon, OH: writing and speaking poetry, Asian American studies, Teach for America, and Asian American organizing.
03:12🎤 How Def Poetry Jam and Saul Williams influenced him: Tony’s first open mic.
07:44💣 Tony reads his poem “I am Filipino”.
10:55🤯 Ron's experiences with Def Poetry Jam in NY.
13:32🗝️ The whole history of the Philippines has been “colonial football” between China, Japan, Spain, and the USA: reclaiming their ancestral belonging and name.
16:06👀 Colonial projects - internalized colonial oppression: supporting whiteness and colorism, supporting the military-industrial complex, and pushing Asian Americans into engineering roles.
19:58🛑 Ethnic studies, Asian American activism, literacy and collectivism: influence of women, queer and trans people - Stop Asian hate movement!
24:33⚡ Asian American Policy and Education: a different history should be taught in all K-12 schools.
27:09📙 Tony is co-writing a book: Teaching the Invisible Race.
28:51🤩 Pro-Asian-Americanness is tied to pro-Blackness: you can't ignore that history - we are bound together.
31:09👨🏽 Fatherhood transforms you every day and gives you a clear view of values: “My legacy is my son.”
35:59🌸 Understanding the legacy and foundation of females and queer trans leaders in communities: you can't take that leadership out of DEI and racial literacy.
39:49👨🏽🏫 How do we get more male educators of color into K12 education: expose men to opportunities and build the leadership pipelines.
44:18🌱 Planting a seed to grow Asian American Coalitions for education: we need to expand racial movements to other groups as well.
48:45⚠️ Disrupting stereotypes about Asian Americans: we have tensions about multiracial coalitions - don’t stay divided and conquered!
52:50💎 Tony’s RONdering: We all fall, we all rise together - cross-ethnic-racial coalition building, as a core value, as a way of being.
56:30👏🏽 Tony is one of nine nominees for The Asian American Unsung Hero Community Trailblazer Award at TAAF.
57:27Links:
Episode 8
