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In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (APAHM), I teamed up with Jen from @thedimpledteacher for a photo challenge to highlight API teacher experiences! For this third week of May, we are sharing our FAVORITES! Favorite anything! On Instagram, I shared my favorite family tradition: Mochitsuki, the act of pounding steamed rice to make mochi (a type of sweet and sticky rice cake). You can check out my post here.
To go hand in hand with my favorite family traditions, I thought I would share one of my newest favorite books, Jasmine Toguchi: Mochi Queen by Debbi Michiko Florence. The story is very reminiscent of my own childhood, as I think back on Mochitsuki. The women would prepare things in the kitchen while the men would prepare the equipment for physical labor. The women would roll the hot mochi with an, sweet red bean, while the men would pound the steamed rice into the actual mochi. I always saw this gender dynamic and was curious as a kid. My mom always told me the men did it because it was hard work and required a lot of muscles. Usually it was just the older generation of men that did it, but ten years ago, a bunch of us younger girls and boys (now in our twenties) wanted the experience! I was afraid to try, but wanted to see what it was like. To show I was ready for the challenge, I put the paddle high in the air. I slammed the wooden paddle down and hard as I could and I heard it go splat in the hot and sticky rice! Then the wooden paddle just stuck in there! I couldn’t lift it back out because it was so sticky…I needed help! In the end, it didn’t matter to me that I couldn’t pull the paddle back out, but it mattered to me that I had the chance to try something new, something that was a part of my family and culture for generations.
In Jasmine Toguchi: Mochi Queen, Jasmine experiences something similar. The desire to try something that “she wasn’t old enough to do.” She convinces her dad to give her a shot and once you read the book, you’ll see why I had such a deep connection to Jasmine.
The Jasmine Toguchi series just came out over the last couple of years. I had no idea I had a “void to fill,” in regards to seeing and relating to a contemporary Japanese American female protagonist until I read this book and that void was filled.
Here are some of my other favorites that I am familiar with and would highly suggest if you’re wanting to bring the Japanese/Japanese American experience to life in your classroom. To me, it is not only important for me to share my own story with my students, but to share this time in history with my students so that we can make sure nothing like it ever happens again. In my opinion, the following pieces of text are most suitable for grades 4-8. Picture books are great for anyone!
Here are some other great books that I am either less familiar with or with some of the picture books, feel that they’ve had more exposure already. For those that I feel less familiar with, it is either because I haven’t read them in a long time or they’ve been on my shelf for longer than I’d like to admit, only half read. They are all linked.
These might be great to provide adults with context or to use selected chunks of texts for grades 6-12. Click each book title/author to check it out.
Though I would love to share diverse books that encompass more of the Asian Pacific Islander experiences, I am specifically sharing Japanese American books and authors for no other reason than because these books have helped me be more curious about my own culture and family history or they have helped me when I was curious about learning more. Please check out these other amazing educators that are working to show kids and adults that #RepresentationMatters, especially the API identity, through their books, actions, words, and presence.
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