Earlier this month, the “My Story, Our Future” exhibit opened at the Greenwich Historical Society. The exhibit, which will run from February 3rd to March 2nd, was a joint effort on the part of the Greenwich Historical Society, the India Cultural Centers, and the UConn Asian and Asian American Studies Institute. This is the program’s third year running, and was created “in alignment with Connecticut’s mandated K-12 Asian American/Pacific Islander (AAPI) curriculum”. The goal of this initiative is to bring focus onto the voices of South Asian American youth in Connecticut through the collection of their stories, and explore the history of the South Asian American community in Connecticut. For this years exhibit, local students interviewed their family members about their experiences immigrating to North America from South Asia, and then learned how to create their own display of curated objects to help tell that history.

Dr. Jason Oliver Chang, who was a main proponent of the creation of the initiative and of the inclusion of AAPI curriculum in schools, spoke at the opening of the exhibit. Professor Chang “shared his experiences as faculty mentor and guide and spoke of the challenges and opportunities of introducing the AAPI curriculum to the state’s 170 school districts and to the teachers who have not previously studied it“.

The exhibit will be open to the public until March 2nd at the Greenwich Historical Society. To listen to the oral histories, you can visit the historical society’s website, where there is a link to their Spotify.

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